NL tournament Strategy from 1995 vs. 2006

To recap strategy from a DECADE ago:

Rule 1: Play only very good starting hands. (group 1 from EP, group 1-2 from other positions)

Rule 2: If you are the first one in, enter with a raise. (in early levels, raise preflop 5%-10% instead of 3xBB and post-flop make the raise % of stack instead of % of pot)

Rule 3: If there are other callers in before you, raise if you have a large pocket pair, otherwise call. (and by large pocket pair, the rules was QQ or better. Or if you’re TJ, KK or better. You did not CALL and all-in pre-flop with JJ).

Rule 4: Use caution in responding to a raise.

Rule 5: When you hit a flop you like, bet big and raise big. (you need to accumulate chips and because you are playing fewer hands, you need the hands you play to pay off)

Rule 6: When you hit a good draw, bluff if the conditions are right. Call only if the one-card draw odds are correct. (i.e. semi-bluff on the FLOP not the turn and give it up if the turn is a blank and the new odds are against you.)

Rule 7: Late in the tournament, fight for the blinds with big cards.

Rule 8: Treat your last few chips as though they were precious, because they are. (Note that using the modern day comparison, we are talking an M<2 or a Q of .1)

What is different a decade later?

Rule 1: Playing tight is a great way to go, but the fields are SO large now that waiting for group 1 hands creates a “slippery slope of Q”. Meaning that you win just enough hands to “chase average”. If your Q is always below 1, its going to be harder to get to the money in a large field of over 500. Something unheard of in 1995.

Adjustment: Play speculative hands from LP in the hopes of hitting a big hand or a big draw. You will need to push marginal advantages if you wish to accumulate chips against 1000+ players. You also need to get away from these hands quickly when you are up against tight players.

Rule 2: Players today are less likely to play for a big raise pre-flop in level 1 to win 3xBB chips. If the starting stack is 1500 and the blinds are 10/20 and you make it 75-150 to go, you may get no action at a tight table. (Interesting point though is that you would quickly find out just who is loose and who is tight.) If you flop MP or better, you are now going to follow up with not 200 (2/3 pot sized bet if you have 1 caller), but more like 400 (which is 30% of the remaining stack size). That is big pressure to try to apply at level 1. Many times this works out of the gate and you can get some chips. And many other times VERY LOOSE players call you and draw on you.

Adjustment: You must mentally tag which players will lay down hands and which will NOT and play your hand accordingly. Of course, if you correctly tag a loose player and flop TP and he calls you down while making 2 pair on the turn, you are going broke, but so be it.

Rule 3: Not much change here. Don’t play baby pairs up front, call from late.

Adjustment: I think we add suited connectors in late position, especially if they contain a 9 or a Ten.

Rule 4: This is still true in 1-2 or 2-5 NLHE live cash games in Vegas.

Adjustment: Not everyone is a fish. Despite the LOADS of bad play out there, I think you need to respect this rule. What was one of Steve Dannenmann’s rules? “It is only a small mistake to fold to a raise”.

Rule 5: The classic tight aggressive. Play few hands and when you hit make others calls as a dog. Too bad too many players are now “loose pre-flop, tight post flop”. This means that it’s less common to isolate to one opponent pre-flop.

Adjustment: Playing the speculative hands from late position adjusts for some of this in terms of expected EV, but you also must be able to figure out if you are behind vs. someone who just “feels” pot committed. Pros do this very well. You must do it well too.

Rule 6: As the tournament progresses, this gets more and more applicable. But I rarely bluff at all in the first half of a tournament. If it’s a 180, I wait until 90 or so are gone. At that point, the remaining players feel vested in the tournament and stop throwing chips around like water.

Rule 7: Late in the tournament, fight for the blinds with big cards. As good today as it was then. BUT, in today’s large fields, there are always loose players who accumulate large chips stacks by playing lots of hands and getting luckier than the other loose players playing lots of hands. When you run into that stack in the late stage, you need to up your base steal hand requirements from any 2 to something viable. That way, when he makes a big re-reaise with broadway, you can crush him.

Rule 8: I think the modern day equivalent of this is to understand your M and Q in relation to the field size. If your Q<.5 (even doubling up wont get you to average), you need to think about pushing very marginal edges. You can’t fold your way to the money in these large fields, nor can you double up just to live for another hour. That hour still won’t get you to the Promised Land.