MEET THE WEAPONS: ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
The first step to victory on no-limit hold’em tournaments is knowing the three distinct weapons you will have at your disposal. Many of your opponents in fast tournaments will know nothing about these weapons or how to use them at anything but a novice level. If you follow my step-by-step instructions, this chapter will raise your consciousness above that of your opponents.
The three weapons in no-limit hold’em tournaments are cards, chips, and position. Cards and chips are self-explanatory; position is simply where you are sitting in relation to the dealer button. Early position means that you are in one of the seats that must play your hand before most of the other players at the table. Late position means that you will play your hand after most of your opponents.
The easiest way to understand the power relationship between these three weapons is by looking at a simpler game that has very similar power relationships. Essentially, a no-limit held’em tournament is an elaborate version of the game Rochambeau, or rock-paper-scissors.
Most of us played rock-paper-scissors as kids, but if you didn’t it’s essentially a game of fixed power relationships, where two opponents each simultaneously display a hand symbol for one of the three weapons, and the more powerful of the two weapons wins. In rock-paper-scissors, rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock.
In no limit hold’em tournaments, the three weapons of cards, chips and position have this same kind of fixed power relationship.
Specifically:
Cards beat Chips
Chips beat Position
Position beat Cards
I can already hear objections being raised, Obviously, position isn’t going to beat a royal flesh. Nothing is, which leads most players to believe that cards beat everything, when the fact is that your cards are the least important of your there weapons. Players hold the nuts – the best possible hand given the cards on board – so seldom that such hands play only a small part in tournaments success.
I owe the initial inspiration for this tournament strategy to Davis Sklansky’s Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. This is not to say that Sklansky suggests a strategy anything like that which O proved in this book, or that he would endorse my strategy. But he presented an idea that I has not seen in any other book on tournament strategy, and his idea my starting point.
In his book, Sklansky provides an optimal no-limit hold’em tournament strategy for beginners. Unfortunately, Sklansky’s all-in strategy doesn’t work very well in fast multi-table tournaments. That’s because he devised his strategy specifically for a non-poker player who was entering the main event for the WSOP – a long, slow tournament where players waiting for premium hands could actually expect ti catch one here and there in the hours while the blind costs are inconsequential. In fast tournaments, by contrast, toy will rarely see one of these all-in opportunities based on a premium starting hand, and by the time toy must make a move with a lesser hand, other desperate players will be forced to call you.
There are some difference between fast no limit hold’em tournaments and rock-paper-scissors. In no-limit hold’em tournaments, for example, you do not get a decide when you will get strong cards. Suddenly, they appear – or, more often, they do not. You also do not get to choose your position. The weak and strong position rotate. As for chips, everybody starts out with the same strength, but the relative strength of that weapon for each player changes as the tournament progresses.
