Oh The Blinds They Are ‘a’ Changing

Stephen Mc Lean, 23/09/06 | Print this article

A good poker player is not necessarily a good tournament poker player. There are a couple of key differences between the disciplines of cash game play and championship tournaments. It is no surprise to me that very good cash players seldom do well in big tournaments, and vice versa. This is because circumstances change in tournaments, and so must your strategy.

In a cash game every €1 chip you win or lose in every pot is worth exactly €1 at any given point in time. But in a tournament your chips are not worth their exact cash equivalent. Once that first hand is dealt they start to change value. The more chips you have the less they are worth and the less chips you have the more they are worth.

For example;
If you treble up in the first hand of a tournament, say from 2,000 to 6,000 chips, then every one of your chips has lost some of their equivalent cash game value. 
The vast majority of tournaments pay less than half of the prize pool to the winner. Because of this, your treble up in the tournament is only worth about half of what it would be worth to you in a cash game.

Similarily, if you were to simply not lose any chips and progress all the way to second place in the tournament your 2,000 chip starting stack would have a very high value because you would be cashing in for a lot more than your origianl buy-in.

In a cash game the blinds never increase. You can often choose to play far less hands than you might have to in a tournament. But having said that, you can also lose every single chip in front of you and simply reach into your pocket to buy some more. Your chips are a commodity in a cash game but in a tournament it isn’t that simple.

Because the blinds are incremental and because you’re finished when you lose your chips your strategy has to change at different times in tournaments. A lot of players don’t realise that in the middle to late stages of a tournament most of their opponents are extremely wary of getting knocked out. Even though they might be under pressure from the blinds!

Circumstances change in a tournament and to be able to change with them requires a humble mind. As a kendo grand master once said to me, “A humble mind is a flexible mind”, and a flexible mind can deal with any problems it may encounter. Knowing when you can take advantage of your opponent’s tight play by raising more often and knowing when you will have to avoid close encounters is the secret to tournament success. And although it is still important to mix up your game you should rarely slow play and give free cards. Especially if it means a possible end to your tournament life.

Stephen Mc Lean,

Stephen Mc Lean can be contacted at stephen@pokerireland.ie

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