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 he Guardian Poker Column |
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| Victoria
Coren |
| Friday May 5, 2006
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How to play poker
(How to play has been running from issue 16) |
In a cash game, it's easy to know how you're getting on.
Do you have more money in front of you than you sat down with, or less? That's
pretty much the only question you need to ask yourself (apart from, if the
answer is "less", the subsidiary question: "Why?").
In a tournament,
it's not so straightforward. You might have more chips than you started with,
but still be in bad shape. You can't cash out with your increased stack and
pocket a small profit. You will be leaving the table when you've got every chip
in play, or none of them. |
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There are two ways to gauge the health of
your chip stack. The first is in relation to your opponents. In a multi-table
tournament, although you are concentrating on the players who are sitting at
your table, you are actually playing against everybody in the room. You should
always have a rough idea of what the average chip stack is for the whole
field.
A well-run tournament (whether live or online) often has an
electronic display that simply tells you. If not, make sure you note how many
players begin the tournament, so you know how many chips are in play. As
players get knocked out, keep dividing the mass number of chips by the number
of players remaining, and be aware of your own stack relative to this average.
In rebuy tournaments, pay attention to the announcement of how many rebuys have
taken place. Don't get too distracted by how much money this means you could
win; concentrate on what it tells you about the number of chips in
play.
These calculations should not be an obstacle to your concentrating
on your cards and your immediate opponents. You are there to play poker and win
the competition, not to count your way nervously towards the payout spots. But
the chip average should be in your mind as a constant backdrop, helping you to
know how well you're doing.
You also need to have a sense of your chips
in relation to the increasing blinds. Like your home, your stack might stay
exactly the same size, but its value changes all the time. Unlike the current
housing market, the value of your chips is going down rather than up. You must
keep building to stay ahead. How many blinds should your stack contain for
perfect health? We'll discuss that next week. For now, concentrate on the fact
that your chips are not in a vacuum, and your table isn't an island. It's all
relative. Your tournament vision should be simultaneously focused and sweeping.
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