Live Tournament Advice

Hi All,

As you can see this is only my my second post here. I have been playing poker both with friends and online for about the past year. I consider myself decent though by no means an expert yet. My question is that I will be playing in only my second live casino tournament* tomorrow night and I wanted to see if anyone had any advice or general tips they would pass along for me to keep in mind as I play. The last tournament I was in was a couple months ago and I did alright. Didn't place in the money, but felt that I played well. Busted out on a hand I was favored to win, but that of course is poker.

Also, one question beyond just general advice: what strategies do you use to minimize your own tells at the table? I am not aware of any glaring tells that I have, but I know that doesn't mean I don't have any. Sorry if this was already covered somewhere else. Looking forward to your advice and glad to be a member here on the board.

*edited to note that this is a MTT I will be playing in.

When the cards are dealt don't look at your cards until it's your turn to act. This allows you to watch the other players for tells and prevents you from giving away your hand when others before you have yet to act. i.e. you look at you cards and look at or go to your chips indicating your going to play or holding your cards like your going to toss them as soon as you can.

Also, when the flop comes out watch the other players react instead of looking at the flop. The cards aren't going anywhere, it's not important to see the flop as soon as it comes out.

Don't talk during the hand. Some are succesfull at this such as Daniel and Jamie Gold but most just give away too much info. You are under no obligation to answer questions from other players, don't.

Just some basic stuff.

Have a look at this thread: transition from online to real life

And also this thread: Live tourney tips

The brief overview: protect your hand, don't string bet, don't act out of turn, verbalise and be nice to your dealer

I disagree with you mr.snake, I always look at my cards as soon as I get them and barring a raise before me I usually know what im going to do when the action gets to me. Waiting til its your turn to look at your cards brings all the attention on you and makes you more vulnerable to reads.

Thanks for those links OE, very helpful.

Another area which I seem to have had conflicting advice over is the line which runs around the table in front of the players. Somebody said to me in one of the tournaments that once your cards go over that line you're considered to have mucked, but when I asked a dealer he said that it's purely a betting line. Chips outside the line belong to the players, but anything inside the line is part of the pot.

The line on the table is an interesting one. Not every poker room has them. My local casino certainly doesn't.

But I believe you're right, it's there for chips and not cards so that there's no confusion between counting out chips for a bet, and the action of betting itself.

Any rule I've ever seen about a hand being mucked refers only to when the cards touch the muck itself (the pile of discarded cards in front of the dealer). A hand is usually declared folded if it you push it away from yourself - on a table with a line, you'd more than likely be pushing it over the line by doing this, but I don't believe that's the binding part of the action. Your hand can also be declared dead for a few other reasons, but again, I've never seen any of these have anything to do with a line on the felt.

xCashin_inx said:

I disagree with you mr.snake, I always look at my cards as soon as I get them and barring a raise before me I usually know what im going to do when the action gets to me. Waiting til its your turn to look at your cards brings all the attention on you and makes you more vulnerable to reads.

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This is a quote from Phil Gordon's Little Green Book:

I never look at my cards before it is my turn to act. I find that if I look at my hand as soon as the cards are dealt, I am often uninterested in the action if I have a bad hand and overly interested if I have a good hand. Players who are paying attention can easily pick up this tell and use it against me when deciding if they should play their hands.

Waiting until it's my turn to act before looking at my cards also helps me to stay focused on what everyone else is doing. By concentrating on how each opponent acts before the flop, I often pick up valuable information that helps me later in the hand and in the game.

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The line on the table is an interesting one. Not every poker room has them.

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Yes, the dealer I spoke to also said that. It does serve a useful function though, because one or two shady characters have been known to try to blur the line between their dwindling chip stack and the blinds that they have pushed forward, this line gives a clear boundary.

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the advice. I really appreciate it. There's a lot of really useful information here and in the other links. Hopefully all goes well. I'm looking forward to the experience if nothing else.

Cashin I agree with MrSnake. If u look at your cards all your doing is thinking about and paying attention to your hand. If your watching the other players look at their cards before you, you may pick up on something about the strength of their hand. When you look at your hand you take your focus off the other players.