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No Limit Hold'em Poker Tournament Strategy

3/28/2022
No Limit Hold'em Poker Tournament Strategy Rating: 4,8/5 3238 votes

Rules of the Game

No Limit Hold’em (NLHE) is described as the Cadillac of Poker and it is indeed the most popular game in the world by a large amount and nothing will probably ever change that.

Game playing, Game theory, Poker, Tournament 1. INTRODUCTION In this paper, we describe the computation of a near-optimal (in a rigorous sense) strategy for a heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em poker tournament with a fixed small blind of SB=300 chips, a fixed big blind of BB=600 chips and a total. No Limit Hold’em Rules and Basic Strategy Rules of the Game No Limit Hold’em (NLHE) is described as the Cadillac of Poker and it is indeed the most popular game in the world by a large amount and nothing will probably ever change that. Tournament strategy deep-stacked strategy multi-table tournaments no-limit hold’em starting hand selection pocket pairs suited connectors drawing hands In this Series 1 10 Multi-Table Tournament.

Poker: Texas Hold'em (No Limit)- Tips and Tricks. One strategy could be to bet 3/4ths of the pot in order to put other players in a tough position. This strategy works best in a 1 v. Top 10 No Limit Holdem Tips. In the last 10 years No Limit Hold’em has become the most popular game played in the world. Thanks in part to “TV Poker” and the massive Multi-Table Tournament prize pools. No Limit Cash Games and tournaments are now a permanent fixture in land based casinos as well, and it’s really not a big surprise.

Even if mixed games are your passion and specialty, this game cannot be ignored for a variety of reasons. It is included in the Eight Game Mix which is a very popular mix in both tournaments and cash games. And big field NLHE often a part of major tournament series a low buy in and a high guarantee offer tremendous value even if it is not your specialty.

Basic Strategy

This site will not try and offer advice on how to beat $25/$50 six handed cash games or attempt to prepare you for High Roller events; that is out of our scope. But we will try and offer a few tips on how to navigate the NLHE round when included in mixed games.

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The most important piece of advice is to be completely honest in regards to your relative NLHE skill level amongst the other players particularly in mixed game tournaments. If your NLHE game is weaker relative to the other games it would be a big mistake to play large pots against more skilled players when your edge in the other games is great.

If you ascertain you are at a disadvantage it is fine to adhere to a small ball strategy and also defend your big blind less even in when a defense is considered standard. It would also be acceptable to put in larger bets or raises to end a hand sooner rather than later. This last piece of advice is often frowned upon because it more or less ends the hand and often allows your opponent to only continue when you are beat. However, you can also play your big hands in a similar fashion and the odds are typically with you that they do not have you beat. Of course if your opponents are folding a lot this means you can also find bluffs, preferably with a blocker.

For example, suppose it is the NLHE round in a WSOP $1500 Eight Game tournament. You have AQ off suit in the small blind and are facing an open-raise from the button. An advanced NLHE player if they chose to re-raise would probably size it as such to get value by keeping dominated hands such as KQ, QJ, and lesser hands in their opponent’s range. However, if NLHE is not your game and you do not want to play a lot of big pots out-of-position you can either choose to just flat call or make a larger raise that will simply end the pot the vast majority of the time when stacks are not that deep. Note that you could also make this raise with AA or even as a bluff if stack sizes dictate that your opponent is not really in a position to just call your raise. It would not be completely wasting the value of AQ because it is conceivable you will get called by dominated hands anyway and your hand helps block AA, AK, AQ, and QQ.

Making larger than standard re-raises pre-flop will often get your opponent to fold and when he does you more than pay for the round of blinds and antes and move onto the next game. But also allows your opponent to make a big mistake by folding the best hand or getting it all in against one of your premium holdings.

Further Learning


No Limit Hold’em for Advanced Players by Matt Janda, (Rating 10/10) – This book is an outstanding resource on the game of NLHE and the principles covered will also make you a better player in any big bet variant.
No Limit Hold’em Theory and Practice by David Sklansky and Ed Miller, (Rating 10/10) – Another great book that can help you in any big bet game and it also provides some great insight on how to handle some NLHE tournament specific situations such as a calling range versus a short stack or with what hands you need to push when you hold a short stack.

If I were teaching a new player to play no-limit hold’em, and my goal were to get this player up to a professional level of play, how would I do it? What would my lessons look like?

Let’s say I had only three months to do it. With most people, I will admit, it would be a tall order. The learning curve is steep these days, and I don’t think everyone could make it from zero to pro in that short a time.

I’d have to make compromises. I couldn’t try to cover every possible situation. I’d have to find the important bits and skip the rest.

I’d also have to tailor the lessons a bit to a specific type of game. The most important skills in some game types are not as important in others. With this in mind, here are what I think my top five lessons would be for a new player trying to beat the $2-$5 no-limit hold’em games in Las Vegas.

Lesson No. 1. Don’t limp into pots ever. And don’t call preflop three-bets unless you are trapping with an ultra-premium hand.

Limping into pots, calling the preflop raise, and then check/folding the flop when you miss is an enormous leak. It’s also one that nearly every player who hasn’t been specifically coached out of it exhibits.

No limit hold

In my opinion, most players would see an immediate improvement in their winrates if they simply refused to limp in with any hand, especially if they chose to instead fold most of these hands.

For most players, refusing ever to limp means playing much tighter, particularly from out of position. Until you’re already an established pro player, tighter is better.

Lesson No. 2. Don’t pay off big turn and river bets.

This lesson might be different in some types of games, but in the Las Vegas $2-$5 games, it’s easily a candidate for the single most important piece of advice. Do not pay anyone off. When someone makes a big turn or river bet or raise, your one pair hand (or whatever other hand you’re thinking about calling with) is a bluff-catcher. That means, in the great majority of cases, your opponent won’t be trying to make a value bet with a worse hand. Either you’re beat or your opponent is bluffing. And players in these $2-$5 games do not bluff often enough to make calling worthwhile.

So you don’t pay off. I know it can be frustrating to feel like you’re getting muscled out of a huge pot, but the fact is, most players in these games do very little muscling. They try to make hands, and then they bet the hands they make. A big bet usually means a big hand. You don’t need to call to find out for certain.

Lesson No. 3. Your opponents will limp into pots, call raises, and check/fold flops. Take advantage of this weakness by raising lots of hands with position, betting the flop, and often also betting the turn.

It’s a simple play, but it’s one that generates a very consistent profit in these games. Players play too loosely preflop, are too willing to call preflop raises after limping in, and are too willing to check/fold the flop or turn if they miss. With many players, you can ignore your cards and raise the limps, bet nearly all flops, and bet most turn cards as well.

Say two typical players limp in a $2-$5 game. You raise to $25 on the button. Both limpers call.

The flop comes 10 8 2. They check, and you bet $50. One player calls.

Poker

The turn is the 5. Your opponent checks, you bet $120, and he folds.

In this scenario, and in many like it, it doesn’t matter what you have. Your opponents are beating themselves by playing call/call/fold so often. All you have to do is put the bets out there and let your opponents run repeatedly into the brick wall.

Yes, there is some nuance to this, and some boards are better bets than others. But against many opponents at the $2-$5 level, most flops, turns, and even rivers are good bets. Keep betting until your opponents prove to you that they won’t beat themselves by folding too much.

Lesson No. 4. With value hands, don’t try to blow opponents out of pots. Instead, play most value hands with the goal of keeping a player in through the river.

No Limit Hold'em Poker Tournament Strategyy

Value hands — hands like top pair, two pair, or any other hand you think is a favorite to be best — lose their value when all your opponents fold. If you win without a showdown, you might as well have been holding 7-2. (See Lesson No. 3.) With your value hands, you generally want opponents to get to the river.

Most players like to see showdowns if they feel like they can see them without losing too much money. No one likes to fold and think, “What if I was good?” If your opponents get to the river, often it’s an easy sell to get them to call a final value bet (as long as you don’t make it too big).

Calling these value bets is one of the biggest mistakes that $2-$5 players make. (See Lesson No. 2.) Allow your opponents to make this mistake.

Most players try to end hands early when they feel like they have the best hand. “Don’t want to get drawn out on,” they think. But this is backward thinking. End hands early with strong bets when you have nothing but a weak draw. Allow hands to reach showdown when you actually have something to show down! (Makes sense when I put it that way, doesn’t it?)

If I have top pair, I’d much rather get called for $30, $50, and $80 on flop, turn, and river than get called for $30 and then blow my opponent out of the hand with a $100 bet on the turn. The chance to win $160 with the hand instead of $30 outweighs the risk that I’ll get outdrawn.

Lesson No. 5. Think every hand about what strategies your opponents are using and how they’re thinking, and (almost) ignore the two cards in your hand.

I’ll put it bluntly. Most $2-$5 players beat themselves. They tend to play strategies that are extremely transparent, overly simplistic, and inflexible. You can beat some of these players simply by betting every time it’s your action (See Lesson No. 3.) You can beat other of these players simply by waiting for hands that beat top pair/no kicker and then making value bets. (See Lesson No. 4.)

No Limit Hold'em Poker Tournament Strategytrategy

Your job as a poker player is to identify the strategy each opponent is using and deploy a counter strategy. In many cases, the two cards in your hand become irrelevant. My experience is that the players that are always thinking about their hands never figure it out. It’s the players who are thinking on the next level that do. ♠

Ed’s newest book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.

No Limit Hold'em Poker Tournament Strategy Ideas

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