Poker Tournament Strategy – How To Play Poker Like The Pros

Let’s face it, playing poker is fun. The problem is, if you play long enough, but don’t win, it isn’t as fun anymore. The good news is, with some poker tournament strategy, it can become fun again, and bringing home more money than it cost you to play starts to make it big fun!

If you were like me and started to play for the fun of it, maybe purely in social situations, sometimes it cost you to play. And again, since it was social, you probably didn’t mind much. Until you realized that the same people were bringing home the pots, but never you. Then you wondered why that is. After all, you had as much a chance at bringing home the winnings as they did. Or did you?

The more I played, and lost, the more I pondered this in my mind. How are these guys doing it? I mean, Lady Luck is handing out the cards and yeah maybe they know a bit more about when to bet, raise or fold, but for the most part every hand is different, with different players in at any given time, so how are these guys having any level of consistency? Yet they were.

After reading up on some of the Pros and really watching my friends closer it became a lot more obvious to me. My friends play poker like the Pros because they had a strategy. They had an overall strategy built on sound fundamentals every hand had! I couldn’t believe it when this became clear to me. Then I thought, well why wouldn’t they, this is a sport after all, and with every successful athlete there was a strategy. The key, I believed was that each player was still unique in their thinking and therefore their style unique as well. Similar to any Olympic athlete I suppose. Each competing athlete had sound fundamentals that the rules usually guided, but each one had their own flair if you will.

As I educated myself more on the fundamentals, I learned that there are distinct situations to make distinct kinds of moves. The Pros all know this and craft their overall strategy around it where openings in the play allowed them to be more aggressive or typical of their flair. I noticed this too in my friends and started to catch on to their “tells”.


So, once I became serious about wanting to have more wins under my belt, the first two things became clear to me. Learn all the fundamentals of the game, then use that to craft my overall strategy, or flair!

Ok, got it. The Pros, and my friends apparently have these two things:

#1. Learn the game. I mean, everything there is about the rules there is to know, and..

#2. Actually have a strategy. Don’t just play, pay attention. To everything and everyone! Seriously, this makes a big difference.

But, what is the Secret that I found that helped me to become a contender? Well, this is getting a bit long, so you’ll have to wait ’til the next time, so see you then!

How to Play Poker - What I Learned From Poker Stars

So, where did my poker tournament strategy begin? With the poker stars, of course. Only natural I suppose, since if I was looking to play poker like the pros, one would find books on poker, or poker books online and poker sites. Amazingly, there is a ton of information out there and plenty of books by the pros.

The rules of poker can be overwhelming at first, especially for a novice. The poker chips, poker rules, betting and pace surely got me confused when I first started, but like anything, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Texas hold em poker rules don't easily lend themselves to a strategy, at first, so reading up on how the pros look at it really started to give me an angle.

My confusion came back as I looked into different poker stars and read more and more. After a while I realized that there were too many differing strategies out there. It seems like they would all work for one reason or another. So how was I to craft MY own strategy? Take bits and pieces from each and use what worked for me? I didn't know what to do, and a confused mind does nothing.

I guess the only consistent thing I was noticing was that there were distinctly different strategies out there that worked for different poker stars. Now what? The best one can hope for is to take bits and pieces from all of them to finally make your own. How long would that take? What kind of guarantee is there? None, as you'd imagine.

Still though, there was a secret that I found, but not before the realization that what I really have learned from the poker stars is that they each created their own distinct winning poker tournament strategy. I also realized that all that reading still hadn't fully helped me to define my strategy.

So, what did I ultimately do to become a contender? I used the secret. I promise I will detail it next time because the important thing I want to stress about what I did find out about studying the pros is that they are each different with different skills and views and therefore different strategies. Remember that because it's pivotal!