We have put together a list of winning Texas Hold Em Poker tournament tips to help you improve your tournament results quickly.  Our tournament tips include the best ways to adjust your game so that you can make the final table and even win a Texas Hold Em poker tournament!

Poker Tournament Tip #1 – Understand Stack Size vs. The Blinds

The most important tournament tip, and one often misunderstood by cash game players, is the concept of correctly managing the dynamic relationship between your stack size and the increasing blinds.

Your stack size vs. the blinds will dictate how you should play throughout the tournament and the amount of risks that you should take.

In the early stages of the tournament, you don’t want to take on a large amount of risk with a marginal hand for your entire stack as you could face unnecessary elimination.  With a lot of chips still in your stack, you may choose to wait for a better opportunity to put all of your money in the middle.

In the later stages of the tournament, as your stack size is attacked by the large blinds, you no longer have the option to let a marginal situation to double up pass you by.  This may be the last chance you get to double up before your stack dwindles into obscurity so you need to take it!

Poker Tournament Tip #2 – Hand Strength Can Vary For The Same Hand

Tournament play is based around increasing blind structures and your stack size relative to the blinds dictates how you should play your hand.  The strength of a particular hand can vary from strong to weak depending on your stack size relative to the blinds.

For example, small pocket pairs are valuable for set value at the start of the tournament when the stacks are deep.  When the stacks are medium sized in the middle of the tournament, small pocket pairs may become a no man’s land hand as you don’t want to gamble your entire stack with 55 as it is unnecessary, but it may also be too expensive to see a flop if the pot has been raised.

Finally, later in the tournament, as the stacks become smaller relative to the blinds, pocket pairs greatly increase in value as you now need to take a chance and a small pocket pair may be the hand that you need to push all in with.

Poker Tournament Tip #3 – Don’t Wait Too Long To Take a Chance

Dan Harrington developed the concept of M.  M is your stack size divided by the amount of money in the starting pot including blinds and antes.

Once your M is 5 or less, you are in the red zone.  This is a clear indicator that it is time to act immediately and failure to do so will result in you being blinded into oblivion.

It is important to keep an eye on your M and make sure that you get all in to double up before your M drops below 5.  Once M is below 5, even doubling up will have a negligible effect on your stack size and you will need to take another big risk again soon.

Taking a gamble when your M is 5, will give you a chance to win a big enough pot that your stack size will be in a comfortable position for awhile longer.

Poker Tournament Tip #4 – Don’t Panic

It is important in tournament poker to be patient and keep your cool.  Many players become worried that their stack size may not be growing fast enough to keep up with their opponents.  Tournament poker is not a race to the front of the pack but a marathon to see who can last the longest.

If you lost a big pot or your stack is dwindling, do a quick calculation and see where your M is at.  You may be the table short stack but still have a healthy M of 15, indicating that you are in good shape and don’t need to do anything brash.

Just because your stack isn’t as big as everyone else’s is not reason enough to panic.  Keep your head and keep your cool.  A tournament is a marathon session of survival.

In addition to our Texas Hold Em poker tournament tips, we have an entire section on our site dedicated to Texas Hold Em poker strategy that includes a lot of useful tips for different types of tournament poker, such as deep stack poker strategy and freeroll poker strategy.  We also have an extensive list of Texas Hold Em poker tips to help you improve your game quickly.

We hope that our list of Texas Hold Em poker tournament tips has given you some insight into some of the unique strategies and adjustments that are needed to play winning tournament poker.  See you at the final table!