PokerGTA

Take a Chip Count in Tournaments

You should constantly keep track of everyone’s chip count in the tournament. It’s easier to do in online poker sites than in land-based poker rooms because the exact amount of chips everybody has is on display right in front of them. In a traditional poker rooms, you have to size up the stacks of your opponents. You are allowed to ask your opponent how many chips he has, and he must tell you, but you usually just estimate his stack size visually. Land based poker rooms require you to place all your big-denomination chips in front of your lower-denomination chips because your opponents have the right to know how many chips you have at all times. In online poker tournaments, the graphics are right there on the screen so that you can easily see how many chips the other players have.

Tables are constantly breaking down so that you’re frequently moving to a new table in multi-table tournament play. As soon as you get to a new table, look around to see who is the chip leader at the table and which players have more chips than you do. Recognize which players can break you and those who cannot. Automatically program this concept into your mind when you play a tournament, whether online or in a regular poker room. This is Tournament 101 basic strategy. Make assessing your opponent’s chip stacks something that you automatically do—it is vital to your success.