Secret to Winning Casino Tournaments is Mastering Live Play

Succeeding in poker tournaments requires a different approach than just excelling at cash games. With rising blind structures, you can’t just sit back and wait for premium holdings. You have to play aggressive, put your opponents to tough decisions and accumulate chips if you hope to outlast the field.

Master these essential strategies to develop your live poker tournament skills:

Carefully Construct Your Pre-Flop Ranges

Unlike cash games at Boo Casino online, you can’t just fold your way to the final table in a tournament. With blinds steadily increasing, you need to actively build your stack. But that doesn’t mean playing any two cards. You still need to follow fundamental poker theory based on your position and the preceding action.

Here are some guidelines for constructing pre-flop ranges based on tournament stage:

As you can see, hand criteria loosens up as the tournament progresses to account for rising blinds and shorter stacks.

Excel at Bet Sizing and Stack Leverage

Bet sizing is vital in tournaments where most stacks are shallow (20-40 big blinds). You need to size your continuation bets and value bets to get maximum folds and calls. Generally, 2/3 pot-sized bets work best against medium stacks, while overbets and shoves play better against short stacks.

Likewise, having a deeper stack than most players provides leverage. You can apply more pressure with larger bets and avoid tough decisions facing all-in raises. Use your big stack to bully opponents by isolating them and forcing them to fold or commit their chips in unfavorable situations.

Craft and Balance Your Table Image

Unlike cash games where you play anonymously, tournaments have the same players competing at your table for hours. So your opponents quickly clue into your playing style.

If you only play premium hands, opponents will notice and start attacking your blinds and putting you to difficult decisions with light 3-bets and float bets post-flop. But if you play too many junk hands, you become easy to outplay after the flop.

You need to balance your play by mixing in some light opens and suited connectors to go along with those premium hands in your range. Keep opponents guessing so they can never pin down your exact hand strength.

Stay Emotionally Detached and Avoid Tilt

With large field sizes, even the best tournament players go on cold runs and suffer bad beats. The mental stress only intensifies as the field and pay jumps narrow.

But letting losses or suckouts affect your mindset and decision-making leads to disastrous tilt sessions. You end up spewing chips playing any two cards or blindly chasing draws, hemorrhaging your stack.

Stay focused on making +EV plays, not trying to immediately recover chips. If you feel yourself tilting, get up and walk away to clear your head before returning. Your skill and composure will overcome temporary bad luck swings.

Mastering these core live poker strategies takes practice, study and experience. But those who refine their technical play while controlling their emotions will rise above the field more often to cash and final table tournaments.