The Middle Stages of a Poker Tournament: Accelerating

 Accelerating through the Middle Stages of a Poker Tournament

Once you've made it to the end of the first hour, you'll be moving on to the middle stages of the tournament.

The time it takes to make that transition will depend on how many players are playing and how the blind structure is set. It is easy to see that the blinds are increasing in height compared to the shorter stacks. Players who have not increased their chip stack enough to keep it in line with the average will begin to find themselves in a very difficult spot.

The question is how do you keep playing or what should you do to change your early play?

It's possible, but not likely. It's difficult to describe poker play because there are so many variables. Experience is the only thing that can replace it.

Strategy for the Middle Stage Tournament

First, assess your current position in the tournament. Which stack are you currently holding? Compare this to the average stack. How long have I had to work?

It is important to know how many orbits your stack has. This is the time it takes for the dealer to move back to the same person. Otherwise, you could sit there and never play a hand until you run out. The average stack and this will give you an indication of how you are doing in the tournament.

Our middle stage strategy is built on the principle that we want patience, just as we did in the early stages, but that we don't want our chip stack to shrink to the point we have no fold equity.

Like we discussed earlier, folding equity occurs when you are the aggressor. This means that you can make a bet or raise to give you another way to win the hands. You will not only have the best hand in a showdown but also the chance that someone may fold after the bet/raise. Fold equity is lost if you allow your chip stack to get too low. If your raise or bet are so small in comparison to your opponents stacks, there is a higher chance that someone will call.

So, we need to identify when we are close to being a short stack and then switch gears in the middle. We will take greater risk to avoid reaching the mission-critical short stack stage, where we have little fold equity.

We will be discussing how to monitor and calculate key indicators and how to adjust gears when necessary. We will also be discussing other strategies topics like the Gap concept. This is a strategy topic that comes into play during the middle-to-late stages of a tournament. Tournament Poker Strategy - Middle Stage Play