It is good to distinguish between two very different forms of Texas Hold’em: tournaments and cash games. The poker strategies are not all identical, in fact it can happen that you are facing a multi-table tournament, which can last days and that can lead us to face many different types of opponents, or a cash game table whose duration is usually much lower and in which more or less the players remain the same throughout the game.
The strategy in Texas Hold’em poker tournaments
A multi-table tournament differs from cash games also and above all because the blinds increase over time. This means that the relationship between the stack and the big blind is not only determined by the number of coins in your possession, but also by the scanning of the increase in levels.
In general, assuming you participate in a classic bandar poker online tournament, in the initial stages the best poker strategies are those that avoid all kinds of risks: the blinds are still very low compared to the amount of the initial chips. Winning a pot moves little, while losing chips has a higher value than in the more advanced stages of the game.
- The argument is different if you face a turbo tournament, with blind levels increasing every few minutes: clearly the best strategy in poker is to take risks immediately, otherwise you will soon find yourself with a stack so small compared to the size of the blinds to make it insignificant and perhaps without even playing more than two or three hands.
- In the intermediate phase of a multi-table tournament it is possible to widen its range, that is the range of starting hands to play, to take advantage of the opportunities that come to present themselves, represented mostly by those players who have acted badly in the initial stages and who now they have smaller stacks.
Attacking them means forcing them to make decisions that could potentially exclude them from the tournament: more often than not, with a simple bet you can take the pot home without too many risks.
The Final Phase
In the final phase of a poker tournament the ideal is to arrive with a stack so big that you can scare those who do not expect anything other than someone to be eliminated to make some money. Especially in the fateful bubble zone, pushing is more than ever indicated because the adversaries will be afraid of being eliminated a few steps from the prize area.
Poker strategies in cash games
The situation is different when it comes to cash games. Here the poker strategies you use have to adapt more to the opponent, to how he plays, to his characteristics. In multi-table tournaments you often don’t have time to understand the tactics of others that the table itself is closed, or maybe you are moved to another table. In cash games, however, conditions often remain unchanged for a long time.
Moreover, it should be pointed out, in multi-table tournaments the chips are nothing more than tools to reach an end, that is the prize zone, and do not have an absolute value because the money spent is defined by the buy-in, that is, from the entry cost of the tournament itself.