Going to War: A Guide to NL Hold'em Tournaments

By Joshua Sasse

This book will help you dominate the NL Hold'em Tournaments. This book will teach you how to handle the different post-flop scenarios, how to handle your chip stack in different stages of a tournament, how to successfully execute bluffs, and maintain a healthy chip stack all the way to the final table. If you read and study this book, you will find yourself making it more deep in tournaments, as well as even taking your fair share of cashes. I highly recommend this book to all players of all skill levels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joshua Sasse
• Release date: Sep 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536563108

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Part 1-The Basics

Chapter 1-Betting

Chapter 2- Odds

Chapter 3- Character types

Part 2- Pre-flop

Chapter 4- Big Pairs

Chapter 5- Medium Pairs

Chapter 6- Small Pairs

Chapter 7- Broadway Hands

Chapter 8- Speculative Hands

Chapter 9- Trash Hands

Part 3- Post-flop

Chapter 10- The Flop

Chapter  11- The Turn

Chapter 12 – The River

Part 4- Tournament Tactics

Introduction

Chapter 13- Stack Sizes

Chapter 14- Stages of a Tournament

Chapter 15- Magriel's M

Chapter 16 – Stealing Blinds

Chapter 17- Small-Ball

Chapter 18- Long-Ball

Chapter 19- Table Image

Part 5- Heads-up

Chapter 20- Heads-up

Part 6- Psychology

Chapter 21- Psychology

Conclusion

Going to War, A Guide to NL Tournaments

Introduction

No Limit Hold’em is a fast paced and incredibly challenging environment where players vie for supremacy and the shot at winning tons of money.  You can win quite a lot playing on a daily basis if you consistently use the strategies outlined in this book to help you improve your play and make well educated and excellent decisions based on the current betting, the situation, and the image that is either conducive to you, or your opponents.  For example if you have folded the last round and have not played a hand or even two rounds, you could possibly try a steal in late position and try to compensate for your blinds and antes that you have posted the last few rounds.  You need to do this especially late in tournaments with some speculative hands to even break even and stay alive in the tournament, as you will rarely pick up premium hands that are worth raising in early position.

We will discuss various strategies for raising and when to enter a pot throughout the book, as this book will elaborate on ideas and strategies that are good for winning multi-table tournaments and at least give you a shot for making the final table in any given event.  We will also discuss the difference between the various limits and which strategies to employ against specific opponents in whichever stakes you choose to play.  Micro stakes typically require a more tight strategy from my experience because more people will call and raise with less strong hands and play with more speculative hands from any position; but you will encounter that just because it is a beginner’s flaw to play too many pots without the necessary hand reading skills.

This is not necessarily a book that will make you the best player in the world over night, but it will greatly help you in making strong strategic choices in your betting and which hands to play in what position.  You will see automatic profit and start to walk all over the less experienced players and take their money.  Note that this book is meant for tournament play, but the concepts can still be carried over to cash game play and used to destroy the smaller stakes games.

On that note, I think we should start discussing tournament strategy and examining situations that are viable for smart choices.  There will also be a section for each number of players at a given table from a full table (9 players) to short-handed (6 players) to 3 handed (3 players) and even my favorite- heads up play (2 players) remaining.

I would recommend gradually incorporating the concepts described in this book into your game and read this book thoroughly while studying it.  Good luck at the tables!

Part 1- The Basics

Chapter 1-Betting

When you play poker the most important aspect is controlling the betting.  Although you will make lots of mistakes starting out, and still make mistakes as a top player, you will learn how to extract the most value out of hands and learn when to fold at the right times.  I will open this section by explaining the different kinds of bets that can be made and when to pull the trigger or make a value bet.

The Value Bet

The value bet, as commonly known, is used to extract more chips out of your opponent than you would normally by just checking any given hand down to a showdown.  You usually make value bets when you feel you have the best hand or flop a good hand like top pair at a short-handed table.  A hand like King Queen suited of hearts on a flop of K 8 9 rainbow is a good situation for a value bet because you want to get a bet out of the worse hands that are out there and the potential straight draw will also usually call you.  Thus, the bet achieves 3 purposes:

You get the most value with the best hand

You get your opponent to fold and win right away

You make the weaker hand pay to win

Always remember in most cases that there is more value in betting than there is in checking because you have more opportunities to win a pot by than just checking to a showdown.  We will also discuss when to check your hands and when to launch a bluff later in the book.

The Mini Bet (minimum)

When you mini-bet you are usually representing a weaker hand than you would be if you bet the pot or half the pot on any given flop, turn, or river.  Some people will actually take this the opposite way and interpret the minimum bet as a show of strength and just smooth call the bet in fear of losing more chips and shut down; this would be a good opportunity to mini-bet your draws and speculative hands to potentially suck out on a stronger hand. You are laying yourself good odds to see the next card even if you have bottom pair- potentially 20% to hit two pair on the turn.  More on this in pot odds.

The other option is mini-raising your opponent with a speculative hand or a draw.  You can achieve several aims with this bet and they are thus:

Get your opponent for some extra chips if he is drawing thin or none

Shutting down your opponent on a draw heavy board

Prevent your opponent from putting more chips in the pot on later streets

Raise with the intention of seeing a showdown with a medium strength hand

As you can see, the mini-bet has many uses and is a very important weapon in your arsenal to use when you see the right opportunity and the time is right.  It can be just as significant and achieve the same purposes as a much larger bet and will usually work against less experienced opponents!

The Probe Bet

The Probe bet is closer to 1/3 the size of the pot or smaller.  It is designed to either fold out a stronger hand or see where you are at in the hand and go from there.  The concepts are very similar to the mini-bet except that you have more fold equity in the bet, and you can potentially get a little more information than you would with just a mini-bet.

Half-Pot Bet

Raising or betting half the pot is the most commonly used betting strategy among top players who play against other top players.  The reason is because: 

You risk less to win more when you either hit or miss the flop

You get more information

You force weaker hands to muck

You get legitimate value off your strong hands

You disguise the strength of your own hand

You are playing Small Ball (more on this later)

You usually give your opponent the incorrect odds to call, except on the flop with draws present

Three-Fourths the Pot

You usually want to make this bet when you are charging draws or similar hands, to pay to see the next street.  If  you make this bet, you are usually denying your opponent the odds to hit a hand and are disguising your hand somewhat. It is bet sizing  that can work by betting with good hands as well as hands that missed the flop. 

Pot-Size Bet

Betting the pot is the most commonly used strategy in No-Limit Hold’em.  It is good in several situations:

Your opponent calls or raises too much

You have a strong hand

You get more value

You charge draws the maximum

When you give your opponent the incorrect odds to call

The All-in Bet

Going all in is usually correct when the pot is big enough to warrant it.  For example if there