Poker News

Most of the time I put my poker tip of the week at the bottom of the column. So today, all of this column will be my poker tip of the week, as I try to tell the folks how you win poker tournaments.

I have played in hundreds of poker tournaments-and, yes, I have won poker tournaments. The winning of a poker tournament is not an exact science. But over the years of playing I have created about sixty rules for winning. I will just tell you that all of those rules are good ones and that they all have played an important part for me in the winning of tournaments over the years. Now here are the top three:

Rule #1-You must have enough money to get into the tournament.

a) save the money up for your buy-in into the poker tournament

b) take partners. If, for example, it is a $1,500 event, get yourself two partners and each of you put up $500.

c) play satellites, where you put up, say $200, and try to win all of the chips, and when you win the satellite, you get an entry into the big tournament.

Rule # 2-The second requirement is that you must have enough courage to go broke on every hand that you play. I have never seen anyone win a tournament backing up-you must move your chips forward and risk going broke on each and every hand!

Rule # 3-You must have enough luck so that when you start with the best hand, that it will stand up and you will win the pot, or you must have enough luck so that when you start with the inferior hand, you will outdraw your opponent.

Now, that is just the start of the sixty odd rules. But these are the three most important rules-get past those three-and you can win! After that come the next 57 rules.

Is skill important to winning? Of course it is! But what is skill? Now the Bear had skill-The coach of the Alabama football team could take his’n and beat your’n-or he could take yours and beat his. But the best team does not always win in football and the most skillful poker players does not always win poker tournaments. But I like to bet that way!

Now here is what I think skill is: #1, knowledge of all of the rules of the game; #2, being focused to win and #3, knowing when to fold them and knowing when to hold them

How do you know when to fold or hold them? Well, that and knowing when to bet, call, or raise-is something like knowing where & when to put your line in the fishing hole-some people can fish-and catch fish, and some people can fish and not get a bite. Or when you can steal a kiss or when you will get a slap in the face.

But if you are going fishing, you must get ready to catch a fish. So, too, you must get ready to win a poker tournament. Just as if you are going to take a girl out on a date and you expect to get a good night kiss, you must get ready, shower, shave and shine your shoes-in other words, be ready to be kissed. How do you get ready to win a poker tournament?

1. Prepare like an athlete

2. Develop the Can-Do Attitude

3. Don’t follow a set pattern

4. Always think ahead

5. Evaluate your opponents

6. Use the carrot and the stick

7. Get a feel for the pace of things

8. Rely on know-how and experience

9. Enjoy the ride

Now I am writing a new book-”78 ways to improve your life and the living of it and poker and the playing of it”-I cannot in his column give you a lesson that has taken me seventy years to develop -but I will just give you one more little bit of advice. That advice is about # 9 above-Enjoy the game-That’s the bottom line. We should only be doing the things in our lives that we like doing. If we enjoy the poker game, we will win more frequently, but if it gets boring, we should be going to the movies instead.

Desire, the want-to attitude, is the secret to success inpoker and in most of all the things we will ever do in our lives. Until next time, remember to STAY LUCKY!!!

Filed under: Poker News