Nowadays, tournaments offered by the WPT, EPT or APT have very slow, deep structures that allow you to play some poker and wait for your cards. Patience is a very important factor because you know you are going to run a poker marathon, thus you have to be ready, psychologically and physically.
When you first sit at the table, keep in mind that you’ll be playing with the same players for most of the day and your image will be built in the first two hours of the tournament. I think it’s useless to be aggressive straight away because your moves will have less impact with time. Soon, players will not give you credit. I like giving the image of a tight player at the start of the tournament, and when the blinds go up I use that image to make interesting moves. As the hours go by and you manage to build your stack with your tight player image, you’ll be respected when you three-bet preflop or check-raise with absolutely nothing – respect you wouldn’t have received had you been aggressive from the outset. In the APT Macau event, I managed to double my stack in the early stages by winning a lot of pots that very rarely went to showdown.
Tilting an aggressive opponent
I am sure all of you have been in the situation where, online or live, a new player is brought to the table and he is on your left. Worse still, he tries to get control of the table immediately. The game has just become harder. Your aggressive style will face action and you have to adapt. In Macau, I reraised preflop twice and he called twice. The first time I used a double-barrel with air, because I thought he was weak. So I showed him my bluff once he folded.
A couple of minutes later, I reraised again, and following a check on the flop, an overbet on the turn and an all-in on the river, he folded. Again I decided to show him my Nine-high bluff. A lot of players may think I shouldn’t have showed him my cards there. But at this moment, I knew I could tilt him. So I decided to show and it worked. Bluff an aggressive player twice, show him your cards twice and it will usually tilt him.
Indeed, he may play differently in the next few hands – meaning badly! He will want to win back his lost chips quickly, and he will take some risks for that, playing with marginal (or worse) cards. And that’s where you have to play poker.
A few rounds later I hit trip Tens. He played the hand like a proper calling station, with three insta-calls, on the flop, the turn and the river with an average hand. This is just an example of how showing your cards and your bluffs can allow you to win some extra chips. I am not sure if I would have got those chips if I hadn’t shown him my cards. Just bear in mind, however, that this is an example with an aggressive player, and it certainly does not work on all kinds of players.
What does an insta-call mean?
If a player insta-calls, it is usually an indication that he will not fold his hand easily. But it also means he doesn’t have a monster. So we also get information on our next bets on the turn and river. When someone insta-calls and you have a hand, don’t be afraid to overbet, because this can be seen as a bluff and very often you’ll get paid. However, I wouldn’t advise you to bluff a player who insta-calls you on the flop and on the turn. It will be very difficult to take the pot with a river bet, so perhaps a check on the river is better in these cases.
Bubble time
You have an average stack, it’s bubble time and almost all players are playing tighter and tighter. That’s exactly the point at which you have to make some moves. Blinds and antes are bigger and you are getting the odds to steal chips. It’s time to three-bet and steal in position, because as soon as everyone is in the money, it will be more and more difficult to make moves.
Of course you have to avoid being all-in, so you have to play ‘small ball’. Raises between 2,300 and 2,500 on 500/1,000 blinds are usually more than enough to take the pot.
In my next piece I'm going to give you some tips for post-bubble play, including the all-important final table.
Adrien 'zlatan35' Allain is a member of Team PKR Pro. To find out more about him and to read more articles written by Adrien, please click here