I am playing in a big Poker Tournament today. The $10K AUD prize pot is certainly sweet but the expected field of maybe 130 players is going to be the largest I’ve faced to date. Qualification for this tournament is not a basic buy in, or even via won tickets, but by regular participation in the local poker league. What this means is that there is likely to be a lot of Loose Play and a fair number of Maniac Players at the tables...and on top of that the starting stacks are going to be relatively short.
So I’ve been putting some thought this morning into how I am going to approach this field. The last time I played I was totally destroyed by this type of opposition and I made numerous mistakes getting sucked into big pots where I wasn't in great shape. This time I’m better prepared and the main adjustment I am going to focus on is Pot Control.
In a nutshell I am going to play a much Tighter Range of hands and will Avoid Raising when I am in pots against these Loose and/or Aggressive players. This way I can stretch my smaller starting stack a bit further and shouldn’t have too much trouble getting my bets called when I do end up with a super strong hand. In many cases I might just be able to let my opposition do the raising for me.
Later in the tournament (if I get that far) I might be able to resume a more regular strategy once the Looser players get themselves eliminated. Stacks are going to be short all day though so I’m expecting that Push / Fold is likely to dominate play by the time we get to that stage. Anything can happen in Poker, but at least by making this post I’ve committed myself to a strategy so hopefully I will now stick to it and make it work!
