16 January 2011

Poker Tournament Tips: Check the coin flips

Regardless of the general structure of a blind tournament and your personal style, you will sooner or later fall into coin flips, if you want to win the tournament. 


As the blinds increase and the number of chips is not infinite, it is virtually impossible that you can work through a poker tournament without ever have to flip a coin venture.
How can you make the most of it?

As well, you have to flip the coin venture ...even though you do not
Just so we do not get me wrong here: It is not about to really throw a coin (although viiele poker player just so that large sums of money lost and won).
In poker is meant by a coin flip a situation in which two players are all in and have roughly equal chances of winning the pot.
AK vs. JJ vs. AT KQ: Typical examples of this are.
In such a situation, you risking your tournament (or at least a significant portion of your stack) at a 50% chance of winning.

If you are not familiar with good odds and probabilities that are not good odds. With such odds in real life you would advise against any investment adviser. He would say, you better wait for a better opportunity to be in the better your chances.
That's good advice, and just as you should act (usually) in Hold'em.
Unfortunately, it is in a tournament so that the growing pressure from the blinds, other factors into play. These factors force you to the coin flip to stay in a tournament. Regardless of the cards you just have to react to the situation.
So you want to avoid coin flips, but at some point this is no longer possible because the coin flip is your best chance to remain in the tournament or on one of the top places.

Make the opponent before the election
You can avoid coin flips is not, but you can specify when.
A coin flip situation usually arises when a player goes all-in and calling another player.
(Note:. Sometimes both players have a pocket pair, or one of the players a hand that is clearly better than his opponent, since these situations are not typical coin flips, we have not included here has.)
The player who elects to call, to ensure that the 50% chance at the pot, but the chance of the player who goes all-in is actually larger.
One can not exactly express this advantage in numbers, but the underlying principle is called fold equity.
If you are the player who goes all-in, there is always the chance that your opponent fold. In this case, you have a chance of winning by 100% to the pot. If an opponent calls, you have the 50%.
The caller then has no fold equity, the All-in player, but always.
So you should always be the aggressor, the player who pushes. If you apply this play before, it is incredibly difficult to force the opponent to errors.
Bring your opponent to distinguish, between a fold and a coin flip. If you often find themselves in a position to meet even this decision, you reduce your edge and can only hope to get lucky.

30% is not 50%
If you enter a tournament to the point where your dependent remaining in a tournament by a coin flip, keep this phrase in mind: 30% is not 50%.
You mean, you be careful not to pay all-in with hands that can be easily dominated.

Many players pay an all-in with hands such as A s 2 s Because they know they are so against K h Q h and any other hand are without As the front (except Pocket pairs).
Unfortunately, this hand against every better As only a 30% chance of winning. You must therefore first of the 50% chance to save before you get the chance to win a won coin flip.
The same is true for a hand such as 3 h 3 d . In itself this is not a bad hand, it is after all, against any hand that has a pocket pair in front.
If another player but also has a pair, probably higher. So you need to know the range of your opponent before you decide whether you with such cards can go all-in.
A pair of threes can indeed be a potential candidate for a coin flip in a tournament.
If your opponent but a big stack and he usually increases only with really good hands, put your tournament life at risk in the hope that he A h K h or does something similar.
To be a successful tournament player, you must first ensure that your coin flips are actually coin flips. Go with a dominated hand all-in, you give away money.
Conclusion: In tournaments, you must accept coin flips, but it's up to you to choose the right time for it.