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POKER TOURNAMENT - EARLY POT
Pot control during the early stage of a poker tournament is another vital skill to master. Early in a tournament you have to try to create pots the size you want them to be. And you want to control the pot so that it stays small early in a tournament, even with Ace-King when you connect for top pair on the flop.
Of course it`s time to bet now, but do not make pot sized bets or any other forms over betting the pot yet, do your standard half size to three quarters of the pot bets, but especially if you are getting called down and bad cards appear like cards making flushes or forming straights, or say you have Pocket Tens on a flop of 7-6-2 and then the King appears on the turn, do not feel obliged to fire again and drive or bluff people out. And if there is an obvious flush on the board and your bets are getting raised just back off.
So whenever big bets or raises are thrown at you tend to give up the hand unless you hold a very strong hand. You value bet your good hands and try to have them paid off, but without pot-committing yourself and without battling through heavy resistance.
There is also a big difference whether you play in a regular freezeout tournament or a tournament with re-buys and an add on.
Rebuy tournaments are a whole different animal. During the rebuy period, which usually last for one hour or until the first tournament break, you are not playing the real tournament.
The real tournament actually starts once the rebuy period ends. Unless your bankroll is really sufficient and allows it rather stay away from them, because most of the times low stake rebuy tournaments are more like bingo than poker, because the game is extremely loose and aggressive as long as people can make a rebuy if they busted out early.
If you want to compete, you can choose to join the horde of the reckless maniacs or play solid and tight poker. Both ways are fine.
The maniac way to play a rebuy tournament means that you will gamble a lot, meaning you are going to be pushing hands like Ace-Jack or pocket deuces, more often than not even hands like Jack-Ten suited. By this you are trying to create a very big stack by the end of the rebuy tournament, but this will usually cost you an extra 3 to 4 times the original buyin.
The tight and solid way means that your chances to win such a tournament go down, because everybody is having more chips during the rebuy frenzy, but if a few good things do happen you are going to safely double up and sail into the money, which will be significantly higher because of all the added extra cash from the rebuys.
Both strategies are both fine, it simply depends on what you want to achieve. To reach the final table in a rebuy tournament usually requires you to gamble, re-buying, taking the add-on so that you have a huge stack you can swing around like a club once the elimination phase starts.
If you play rock solid poker you will have your good hands paid off for sure and doubling up with your premium hands should work out to perfection due to the loose wild action around.
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