Recently I wrote a response to a friend of mine on here who was asking me on some general advice on how to deal with tournaments that have REALLY big fields. Like around 900 entrants, or even thousands of entrants.

Personally I have had the second most successful career of anyone on full tilt poker at their 900 entrant play money tourney, with 7 final tables, and 24 in-the-money finishes out of just 51 entered. 3 of the final table finishes were in the top 2. After doing that during the summer, I started playing low buyin big field tourneys. I did like 15 middle field (350ish entrant) 5 dollar tourneys on ftp under the name sitandgo123 with pretty crappy results, although in 3 of them I busted out on a bad beat which would have put me in tournament chip leader position in the second half of the tourney, (all three times, I recorded the numbers when they happened) so from a theoretical standpoint I was nowhere near “giving up on ’em” Instead I dropped 50 bucks down on poker stars. I lost my first 2 tourneys cleanly on there where I had some strong hand, and they just had a VERY strong hand (like my nut flush to their full house) so I lost, but no bad beat type bust out or anything. Then the third tourney I did there I took a real bad beat, winding up all in preflop with kings to queen jack, and losing the two pair. Due to the fact that around 1,500 people entered that tourney, I wouldn’t have become chip leader if I had won that hand, but I would have been near it, like top 5. This motivated me to enter the next tourney after that, which had 2060 entrants. I won that tournament.

So far that has obviously been my best result outta the 19 low stakes big field tourneys I’ve done, but personally I think I’ll have pretty solid numbers in the long run, given the pretty small sample field I have as of right now, and the fact that in 1/5th of the tourneys I entered I had a good chance of becoming chip leader. (I had NEVER NOT final tabled in the play money tournaments after having become chip leader at ANY point in the tournament, and in the real money ones, the only time I became chip leader, I won, so its not too unreasonable to assume I would have had at least SOME strong success if I had won any of those 4 all ins where I would have been chip leader had I not been sucked out on)

Did I say all that to boast? Not really, maybe a little, but since it is dealing with play money tournaments, and small stakes tourneys I do not expect to gain much respect off that record, the real reason I wrote all that was to show that although I’m not a great “poker” player per se, since I mainly play low stakes, so I’m not that great at outmaneuvering solid opponents post flop in say some 100/200 dollar cash game, the thing I am very good at, and have had a lot of success at is consistently maneuvering through a VERY LARGE VERY UNSKILLED field of players in a tournaments. This is why I think the copy/paste of the email response I wrote to my friend a few minutes ago will make for a good minefield-type tournament strategy guide post. Here goes. Make sure you actually READ it. If you find it too long and would prefer to just skim it, that is fine, but it might be better not to post a response if u only skim, because your question might be answered in some part that u skimmed over. K well here it is, it’s broken into three real big paragraphs, the first is on how to play in the early stage, the second is middle stage, and the third is end stage:

Well it’s pretty much like this. Near the beginning, when the blinds to average stack size ratio is very very small, what you’ll want to do is see flops for as cheap as you can, which at this point in the tournament will be VERY cheap, and then risk very litter chips, if any, or just fold usually if u don’t hit a great hand, and if u do, then get all the chips u can out of it. You’d be surprised, in 10 and 20 dollar tourneys, this isn’t that hard. There are a lotta loose post flop players at these buyins. What I have noticed is that although they are pretty tight preflop, and will back down from a big raise preflop, unless they have something good, they will still play pretty aggressively postflop. So basically since u can’t make much money from them preflop early in the tournament since 1: the blinds are so small that if u raise and they fold you’ll win nothing, and 2: they will play kinda tight preflop in the 20 dollar tourneys near the beginning (USUALLY) so there’s a pretty high chance of this happening. So what you DONT really want to do is raise it big preflop with ace king and stuff like that, hoping to win it preflop, and then when u eventual get called, try to muscle them out with garbage post flop. That is actually a really BAD strategy. What I would instead suggest is this. Look at two things every time u get your cards. 1: Your position. 2: Your cards. Here’s why. When you are in say, the dealer position, and everyone folds up to you, and u look down at 4 7 offsuit, you are currently looking at a better money making opportunity than when u are in early-middle position and it is standard-raised with 2 callers up to you and you have ace queen offsuit. Here’s why. The ace queen offsuit is the kind of hand you’ll want to see a lot of much LATER on in the tourney in this kina situation. Ill get into the details in a bit. Essentially it’s like this. For the ace queen offsuit, you already know you’ll have at least 3 opponents, since u saw them all enter the pot before it got to u, BUT u still have more than half the table to act after u, so u don’t know whether it’ll just be you 4, or the whole table. Also since it was raised, it actually could get really ugly if u call, and then like 2 more people call, and then someone goes all in. Now u HAVE to fold, but since it got raised when u called earlier, u lose a decent amount of chips. Plus if u don’t have to fold, because nobody reraises, u actually have a really CRAPPY hand to play against a large number of opponents. This is because its offsuit, and bad at making straights. It is the opposite of a suited connector. Essentially even top pair might not be enough, since you’ll have so many opponents, so really all you’re doing with the hand, is calling a raise, knowing u will either have to fold it later on preflop, or fold it on the flop, and that almost never will u get to win with it post flop. That’s really bad. Lets look at the 4 7 offsuit. It’s folded up to u. Ur the dealer. Only two people are after u. The chances of it getting raised after u enter is tiny. Limp in and 90something% of the time you’ll see the flop for 30 chips. Now say u don’t hit two pair or better, which is what’ll usually happen. All u have to do is watch what happens. You’re the dealer. If it goes check check to u, check. Then on the next card, if it goes check check again, bet like 60 chips (again this is a very small loss if someone fights back) and you’ll probably just win it right there. If they fight back, then fold. So just by doing this, you’ll usually come pretty close to breaking even, even when u MISS the flop. Now on the other hand, every now and then u WILL hit two pair or better on the flop with your 4 7 offsuit. Now when they fight back against u, you’ll make a boatload of money. In the long run, if u play it right post flop (be happy to muck your hand REAL easily when u don’t hit two pair or better, and just as happy to rape your opponent for every cent when u do) you’ll make a TON of money on this hand. Notice how BAD the hand was: 4 7 offsuit, yet how good it was due to the position u were in, while on the other hand the ace queen offsuit was AWFUL due to it poor position and the circumstances of the play up to you. See you have to look at BOTH the cards AND the position&circumstances surrounding your hand. Anyway so quick summary for early tournament strategy: Try to see a LOT of flops when u are pretty SURE u can see the flop for cheap, and with the RIGHT amount of people in the hand with u (like 6 7 suited is great if you’ll have 7 opponents, but ace queen offsuit sucks bad in that case) Then fold usually on the flop, except when a great bluffing opportunity arises where u feel u can make a VERY small sized bluff and STILL have a great chance of your bluff working, or when u hit a monster on the flop, in which case you’ll want to do the opposite or scaring everyone off, and instead use your judgment to best take as much money off them as possible. Now for middle tournament strategy.

In the middle of the tournament, it gets real tricky. The beginning was simple. Don’t fight your wars preflop…. to do that you’d have to risk WAY too many chips in order to WIN wayyyyy too LITTLE chips. Instead you’d want to risk a very small number of chips preflop for a good chance at winning a LOTTTTT of chips post flop. HOWEVER, in the middle of the tournament, u can’t do this anymore. Why? The blinds get too large. It is no longer cheap to see a flop, even when it isn’t raised, and by now it usually WILL be raised too preflop. So now you might think, okay well now I should just try to win the pot preflop, since the blinds are bigger now, so now it’s pretty decent to pick up the blinds and limps preflop as the entireity of the pot. Well, not quite. Yes, the blinds are getting larger, but you’d still like to win a little more than just that, they aren’t HUGE yet. Here what I suggest is to play very TEXTBOOK, unlike the type of play I suggested for early-tournament strategy (which you may have noticed was NOT exactly textbook strategy.. you’ll have to trust me on that one) What I do in the middle of the tourney is throw in good sized raises preflop with bulldozer type hands like ace queen, and queen queen, and king jack, and stuff like that, when I am pretty sure I can use my raise to limit it to just one opponent, and then FOLD just about everything else. U really want to play hands that have a GOOD chance of hitting top pair or better on the flop. You want to shy away from hands like 6 7 suited during the middle of a tourney. These hands are very unlikely to flop a top pair. Yes they are more likely to give u a good draw on the flop, but this is NOT what u want in the middle stage of a tourney. Instead what u want is the type of hand that has the best kind of chance of hitting top pair with high or top kicker, after throwing in a large raise preflop, and then when it hits post flop, toss down a huge bet, and take the now sizeable pot here (since he called your preflop raise). This is also where it is crucial to be careful about not bluffing much when u miss. Now that it is the middle stage, u can’t really afford to try bluffing off a huge bet on the flop, and having it get called off when he hits middle pair. Trust me, if u just fold when u miss, and don’t fold when u don’t miss, you’ll make a LOT of profit off just doing this. If u instead try to bluff when u miss, you’ll LOSE a lot of money by doing that. Don’t bluff during the middle stage. It’s too pricey.. Just play solid hands, and when u hit top pair with them (and u very often will) just bulldoze your opponent; u will almost always have the best hand with top pair and good kicker here, since its just ONE opponent. K so that’s the middle stage: Summary: Build the pot preflop with a standard raise, and then if and only if u hit the flop, bulldoze him with a power bet, and take it down there, or maybe get called, who cares, you’ll pretty surely have the best hand, and just win even more. Key point raise preflop, bet big post flop, or if u miss fold postflop. K now for the ending of the tourney.

In the end of the tournament, the blinds will be huge… HUGE. In the beginning the blinds were so small, we basically wanted to just see the flop nearly for free, and then make all our chips by raping someone post flop when we caught a great hand on the flop, and they got too confident with top pair top kicker and lost all in to you post flop. Then in the middle we wanted to raise it standard with real real strong power type hands, so that way when we hit the flop against our SINGLE opponent (and make sure its not more than one opponent if u can) take the now very sizeable pot with the top pair. But now it’s different from both of those stages of the tourney. Now the blinds are absolutely HUGE in comparison to ALL our chipstacks. So now the blinds are sooooo soo big, that just trying to win the blinds should be the main goal… and it is. IN the end of the tourney, you’ll want to win pots preflop. That is where you’ll be making your chips now. Keep in mind, this will be pretty much impossible to do if u are shortstacked at this point. Here’s why: FOLD EQUITY. They key to the end stage of a tournament is fold equity. Most of the profit u get is off the fact that you’ll raise with hands that are statistically favored to be the best hand preflop, and so if u do get called, u probably have an edge by having the best hand, but more likely they’ll just fold, in which case you’ll get a boatload of chips still anyway, since the BLINDS are so damned big. So the mixture of those two things adds up to a LOT of chips. If your shortstacked, u don’t look scary enough. Hell u might not even have enough chips to raise to 3 and a half times the big blind. The idea is u want to not just raise with the best hand, but u want to have enough chips to SCARE them into folding a lot. The blinds are so big now that its BETTER if they fold their blinds to u 9 times outta ten when u raise preflop (note that I DIDNT say u should raise the pot 9 times in 10, I said that u want them to be folding like 9 times in 10 WHEN u raise.. big big difference, you’ll not be raising nearly that often, maybe 1 time in 8 or something) you’ll make way more money off those folds than if they called your ace queen offsuit 9 times in 10 times u raised. Why? Because Ace queen offsuit is only like a 60% to 40% favorite over something like king jack, when your opponent calls u, so u actually would prefer for him to fold his hand than to call. He cant call because he doesn’t know if he’s dominated or not, but if he somehow DID know, and he was the big blind he would be CORRECT to call your raise… see how u want him being your opponent to do the mathematically inferior play and fold (although he doesn’t know that its the wrong play of course) So yea. U MUST have a middle or large sized stack at the end of the tourney, and u should then try to win pots preflop by RAISING preflop, ONLY with really good hands. This will keep u from looking suspicious, by raising too often, since u wont get great hands very often, so they usually will fold to u when u raise, which is a good thing now, and when they don’t, you’ll have them beat, since u have a great hand, which is again a good thing. Now u might be thinking to yourself, well hey what if I don’t have a big stack at the end of the tourney, I saw u mentioned I needed one. Well if u don’t, then unless u immediately TURN it into a big stack, u are quite simply, screwed. This is why it is ESSENTIAL that u focus on building chips in the early and middle stages of the tourney, and never just playing real conservative in “survival mode” near the money or anything like that. If u want to have any chance of going anywhere at the end of a real big field tourney, you’ll NEED to have built a substantial stack throughout the WHOLE tournament, and NOT just try to stick it out and play real quietly, while never quite losing, but never really having a stack. However, this doesn’t mean if u got unlucky and managed to never build up a good sized stack throughout the tourney, and are now shortstacked at the end of the tourney to just give up. Instead what u should do is just figure out how big the blinds are compared to your stack, and then based on that, figure out how soon u need to double up in order to have NOT lost more chips waiting for the hand to double up on than the amount of chips you’ll win when u double up. (Don’t go from 5k in chips to 1k in chips waiting for aces and then double up to 2k when u finally get them) Once u figure out how many hands u have before u MUST go all in (this will be determined in terms of “laps”) figure out how many hands u will get between now and then, and then divide 169 by that number of hands. If u think u can go for 10 more hands before u MUST wind up all in, that means u should go all in if u get a top 16.9 (top 17) hand on this hand, and then if u don’t get it, just fold, and go now divide 169 by 9, which is around a top 20 hand, and if u don’t get the hand on that next hand divide 169 by 8, which is a little worse than a top 20 hand requirement to go all in, and so on till u get a hand that meets your all in requirement, and then DO IT. Go all in and either lose or double up. Keep doing this till u either lose or are no longer shortstacked in the tourney. Then start playing the way I told u to as far as playing a nice sized stack near the end of a tourney.

Anyway so yea… Key points of tourney strategy:

1. BUILD chips early on by beating people when you OUTFLOP them

2. BUILD chips in the middle of the tourney by playing real standard-solid poker, by raising preflop with good hands if and only if u know u can narrow it down to u and like 1 other player, (maybe 2 players, but if its 2, u must realize you’ll need that much better of a flop to be sure of winning it postflop, so better to just have 1 opponent) and then huge-betting the flop when u hit it (and when u hit it U WILL have top pair with a solid kicker, or an overpair, if u only played good hands like I said) and generally folding when u miss.

3. NEVER sissy-out and just try to hang in there and last it out. This sounds like a good strategy since we all know that tournaments only pay those who LAST long enough to get paid, but it’s actually WRONG. The problem is that although its not too tough to make the money by using a “hang-in-there” strategy, making the money generally just earns u around 1.5 the buyin to the event back, so like if its a 10 dollar tourney maybe 5 bucks back in profit if that. HOWEVER the first place prize usually ranges from around 80 to 120 times the buyin of the event in profit, and the top 3 or 4 places also pay out HUGE in profit in comparison to the buyin of the event and in comparison to the miniscule profit you’ll make by just consistently making the money just barely and then fizzling. You’d rather Make the final table 1 time in ten tourneys, and lose early the rest of the time, than just barely make the money every single time and then lose immediately afterwards. THIS is why it is so essential to focus on building a good chipstack during the tourney, even if it means NOT playing a real cautious “hang-in-there” strategy.

4. Using the previous advice, when u DO make it to the end of the tourney, u almost always WILL have a large chip stack, BECAUSE u followed the advice I just mentioned in keypoint #3. Use this big stack the way I said to. An alternative to doing what I said to do with your big chip stack in my post is to instead of try to CONTINUE to build chips even at the end of the tourney, just chill. Usually this isn’t a great idea, but the most important thing ISNT to continue to build chips at the end of the tourney, it’s to HAVE a lot of chips at the end of the tourney. What I mean is, if the blinds are big enough to turn your big stack at the end of the tourney into a little stack pretty quickly if u don’t play the blinds stealing game, well then u MUST play the game, and maintain that big stack, HOWEVER if for some reason your stack is just real big, or the blinds are just OBVIOUSLY not going to eat your stack up as fast as it appears people are LOSING near the very end of the tourney, a better strategy may be to “chill” and just sit down on your massive stack as it dwindles steadily away, but it doesn’t dwindle away fast enough to keep u from finishing at the top end of the final table. Just be smart about this. The goal is to finish at the top half of the final table if u can. If u think u have a much higher chance of doing this by attempting to maintain your stack, rather than getting it blinded, because either the blinds are REALLY eating your stack away fast, OR people are REALLY just plain NOT losing fast enough, u gotta maintain it, if they are losing real fast, or u have HUGE stack and the blinds cant damage u very quickly, then maybe its best to FINALLY play it like a “sissy” which may actually be the better strategic play.