Watch television and you will see amateur poker players winning millions of dollars.
How do they do it against the more experienced pros?By educating yourself and sticking to a good strategy, you will have a good chance of winning any poker tournament.
The early stage of a poker tournament is characterized by small blinds and large chip stacks.
In this stage of the tournament, you should be focusing on accumulating many chips.
You can do this by knowing which hands to raise and which hands to fold.
You should be raising three times the big blind with: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, and AK.
In late position you should be raising AQ, AJ, KQ, and KJ.
With smaller pairs you should be limping in any position.
These smaller pairs include: 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, and 22.
If you are in late position, you can also limp with any suited connector.
A suited connector is a hand where you have two consecutive cards of the same suit.
In this stage of the tournament, you should try to double up or accumulate as many chips as possible.
Be very observant of your opponents and try to get inside their head.
As you progress as a poker player, you will learn how to play more hands.
When you are in position, you can raise a wider range of hands and play them aggressively.
Your ability to read opponents will allow you to play more aggressive and bluff opponents off pots.
Stay focused throughout the poker tournament and control your emotions.
Stick to the game plan and force yourself to learn on every hand that you observe.
Poker is a game of observation and it is your job to remember everything that is going on at your table.
I wish you good luck and hope to see you at the final table.