Over the last few years, tournament poker has evolved from a simple casino marketing tool to a major industry generating billions of dollars in profits for casinos,
card rooms and online poker sites.
Small stakes poker tournaments used to be a way for
card rooms to increase business during the slow times of the day. Many of them were held in the mornings with the goal of bringing in players who would then stick around and play in the live games once they busted out of the tournament.
In the last few years the popularity of poker tournaments has increased and the
card rooms have been raising the amount of money for the registration fees they collect to capitalize on this. The registration fee can range from five percent to 25 percent or higher. Whereas in the past, the tournaments were a break-even proposition to attract players, they have now become very profitable for the
card rooms to run.
Poker is a game of skill, and the players at the table are competing against each other. The
card room makes its money by taking a small percentage on each pot in live games. This is known as the rake. In a poker tournament, the house can’t rake the pot because the players are using tournament chips. Instead they collect a registration fee from each player. When you see the entry price for a tournament they will list the buy-in and the registration fee. The buy-in goes toward the prize pool and the registration goes to the house. A $120 tournament may be listed as 100/20 meaning the $100 is returned to the players in the way of the payoff and the $20 goes to the
card room.
Since the demand for tournaments has increased along with the profitability for the
card rooms, more poker tournaments are being held now than ever before. These are not just lower stakes tournaments, but full blown major tournaments with a buy-in of $5,000 to $10,000. There was a time when tournaments this size were only held a couple times a year. Now however, you can find a couple this size each month in locations all around the world. The majority of them have satellite tournaments you can enter to win your way into the tournament.
Satellites
The first satellite tournament was held around 1978 for the World Series of Poker tournament. In the early years of the World Series of Poker, there were not many players who could afford the large entry fee into the final event. At the time tournament director Eric Drache was trying to entice players to sign up for the $10,000 main event in hopes of topping the number of entries from the previous year. He looked at one of the cash games taking place in the casino and noticed all of the players had at least $1,000 in chips in front of them. He suggested that each of the players put up $1,000 and play a freeze out with the winner getting the entire $10,000 to pay for an entry in the ‘Big One.’ They agreed and the first single table satellite was held.
Since that time satellite tournaments have continued to be a way for a player to win an entry into a tournament they may not have been able to afford. In 1983 Tom McEvoy became the first player to win WSOP via a satellite entry. Satellite tournaments have evolved from the single table format to multiple table, mini-tournaments with low entry fees and a chance of winning an entry into a major poker tournament.
Online Poker
With the advent of online poker rooms, the price of the satellites has been lowered because of the sheer volume of players who are willing to take a shot in a multiple table satellite. When Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP in 2003 after winning his entry via a $39 online satellite, the future of all major tournaments was changed forever.
In last year’s WSOP event there were 5,661 players with the majority of them winning entries via satellites either in
card rooms around the country or online. One online site sent a record number of 1,116 players to the big event. This year some poker sites are offering players a chance to win an entry into the big event with satellites that cost under $2 to enter.
The WSOP is only one of many major tournaments in which a player can win a seat via online poker sites or through a satellite. Players can win an entry into all of the events on the World Poker Tour via satellite. Thanks to these satellite tournaments, the number of players in each of the big tournaments has been beating the previous year’s entrants.
Many players who gain entry into major tournaments by winning low stakes satellite tournaments online end up being dead money. The term ‘dead money’ is used to describe a player who has no chance of winning. Essentially the money this player puts in the pot is up for grabs for the more skilled players who will finish the tournament in the money. It is possible that the ‘luck factor’ will help some players make it into the money, but to be a consistent winner requires skill.
Skill vs. Luck
Some players are introduced to tournament poker by watching it on television. Watching a one- or two-hour television broadcast of a poker tournament is akin to watching the highlight films of a championship boxing event. You get to see the knockout but you fail to see the grueling sparing that led up to the final blow. The TV tournaments have been edited down to the most entertaining and exciting hands. You will see the hands where a player bluffs another player out of a big pot or one where an all-in player catches a miracle card on the river to knock out his opponent after shoving all his chips into the pot. These types of spectacular plays are great entertainment, but can lead to the impression that winning a poker tournament is all about bluffing and getting lucky.
If winning a poker tournament was based strictly on luck, then everyone would have an equal chance of making it to the final table and taking home the top prize. If the same 300 players entered a tournament based solely on luck then a player could expect to win the event one in 300 times. To dispel this notion you only have to look at the World Poker Tour broadcasts over the first three seasons.
Amateur vs. Pro
Satellites may have leveled the playing field as to who can enter these tournaments, but how do the amateurs stack up against the pro players?
Since its first broadcast in 2003 there have been five players who have won WPT tournaments two or more times. There are more than a dozen players who have made multiple final table appearances. If you look at the results of other major tournaments that have not been on TV you will see many of these same names as the winners or top place finishers. Although the day may be coming, I have yet to watch a broadcast of a tournament that included all amateur players at the final table.
This is not to say that the pros always win. There are many tournaments that are being won by amateur players. In fact, more and more events are being won by these so called amateur players. Many of these players are extremely skilled but chose not to make their living playing poker. Perhaps rather than pro vs. amateur it would be better to define this as the skilled vs. unskilled or lesser skilled lucky players.
The skilled players have an uncanny ability to be able to read their opponents. They think on a completely different level than many of the novice players. I refer to this as the level of awareness and you can define a player into one of three basic levels.
Levels of Awareness
Level one: What do I have?
Players at this level are looking at their two cards and reading the board trying to determine their best hand. They are wearing blinders and are only focused on their hand. Depending on their skill level they may also be thinking about their odds of making a hand if they are on a draw. This type of player is usually oblivious to any of the other players involved in the hand.
Level two: What does my opponent have?
Players at this level are paying more attention to the other players at the table. They are looking beyond their own hand trying to figure out what cards their opponent has. Based on betting or previous play they try to put their opponent on a range of hands and then determine their chances of winning the hand. They will make decisions based on what they think the other player has and their odds of winning the hand. With practice a player can learn to read the other players at the table.
Level three: What does my opponent think I have?
Players at this level are trying to get inside the heads of their opponents. These players are experts at reading their opponents based on previous betting and actions they have made in the past. They do more than put a player on a hand. They take into account the playing style of their opponent such as whether they are tight or loose to further size them up. They try to determine what the other player thinks they have for a hand and how they can exploit it to their advantage.
While these levels are an over simplification, they do give you an idea of the degrees of skill that different players possess. The further along you go in the tournament the more important these skills will be. A major challenge in a huge tournament such as last year’s WSOP with 5,000 entrants, is survival to get to those later rounds.
Surviving the Minefield
The sheer volume of players entering the major tournaments has created a minefield as such for the skilled players. You can’t win a poker tournament in a single hand but you can get knocked out with one. This is where the luck (or lack of) factor comes in for many tournament players. They suffer one or two bad beats and they are knocked out of the tournament. A bad beat in poker is when you have a good hand that is a favorite to win, beaten by another hand. Most of the time it is a hand that caught a miracle draw on the river and the player should not have been playing it to begin with.
Many of the players who have won their entry into a big tournament via a low cost satellite have a completely different mindset than the player who paid $10,000 to enter. They are more inclined to gamble and take a chance playing inferior hands in the hopes of getting lucky. They figure if they get knocked out, they are not losing that much and they may even have a good story to share.
Many of these unskilled players have two moves during a no-limit tournament. They either fold their hand or they go all in. This strategy may work fine for awhile and win you a few pots, but it will never win you the top prize. What it will do is knock out a few good players along the way. This is why many of the top players will try to avoid these confrontations for all their chips early on in the tournament. One of the most common mistakes that amateur players make in no-limit tournaments is the way they bet their hands.
Betting
One aspect of the game that separates the pros from the amateurs is how they bet. Winners bet while losers call. You will see the pros taking the offensive and playing very aggressively. They tend to initiate the action whenever possible. They can also pick up quickly on the betting patterns of their opponents.
The way you bet your hand in a no-limit tournament can give the seasoned player valuable information about the strength of your hand. Novice players tend to
over bet or under bet their hand. When you
over bet a hand you are putting in a large amount in relation to the size of the blinds if pre-flop, or the size of the pot after the flop. The all-in strategy would be an example of
over betting the pot. Players will make this move when they have a strong hand and want to try and double up early in the tournament and want to be called. They may also make it later in the tournament with a weaker hand when they are trying to steal the blinds.
When you
under bet the pot you are limping in (just calling the big blind) pre-flop, or making a bet smaller than the size of the pot after the flop. Many players will try to limp in with a weak hand to try and see the flop cheaply. Sometimes they will
under bet the pot after the flop if they are in late position and everyone has checked in hopes of stealing the pot. In later rounds of the tournament they may
under bet the pot with a strong hand in hopes of inducing a call.
Once you showdown a hand or two it will be easy for a sharp player to read your future hands by your betting. I was in a game where a player at my table would raise a large amount when he had a very strong hand such as a pair of aces or kings, and raise a little when he had two big cards. If he had a weak hand he would just limp in. He was very easy to read.
If you watch the pro players they tend to keep the size of their bets standard by raising three to four times the size of the big blind before the flop. After the flop they may make a bet equal to the size of the pot. By making the same size bet every time regardless of the hand they hold they are not giving away any information. You can’t tell if they are raising with pocket aces or 7-2 off suit.
The next time you play in a tournament or even watch one on TV, pay close attention to the betting patterns and you will see for yourself how you can read a player by watching how they bet.
Knowledge and Experience
There is a vast amount of good information available to help new players improve their game. With the availability of tournaments online, the learning curve has been flattened. An online player can gain experience much faster than a player could in the past. This is why we are seeing many more ‘amateur’ players making it to the final tables. Some of these players will be skilled enough to do well in future tournaments. Those who made it through sheer good luck will end up like the one-hit wonder singing groups who were nothing more that a flash in the pan. Even the best players in the world will tell you they are still students of the game and are constantly striving to learn more. As one pro told me years ago, “Show me a player who says he knows it all and I’ll show you a loser.”
- Bill Burton is a well-known gaming author and regular contributing editor here. His latest book, 1000 Best Casino Gambling Secrets is available in most major bookstores and retails for $12.95. To order an autographed copy directly from the author for $13 postage paid go to
www.billburton.com.
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