I've written poker strategy at Upswing for the past year and a half. During this time I've mostly covered specific topics – like bounty MTTs, blind defense, and staking. I strongly believe that working on just one area of your game at a time is the best way to improve, but as … [Read more...]
Complete Guide to Tournament C-Betting Strategy
Continuation betting (c-betting) is now so trivial that even the most inexperienced tournament players do it without thinking twice. Today I hope to answer these questions:Why did near-automatic c-bets become the norm? What does frequent c-betting actually achieve? How … [Read more...]
Short-Stacked 3-Betting in Tournaments Revealed
The Ultimate Guide to Tournament 3-Betting Suppose you're facing a late position raise with a good-but-not-great hand on the button. You're also just 25 big blinds deep--you know, that annoying stack size that makes all of your options (calling, folding and 3-betting) feel … [Read more...]
When Should You Cold Call from the Small Blind in MTTs?
When facing open-raises in tournaments, you should rarely cold-call from the small blind. A cold-call is a call of one or more raises by a player who has not yet voluntarily put money in the pot. The conventional wisdom used to advocate never cold calling from the small … [Read more...]
How to Build Stacks and Avoid Spewing Early in a Tournament
Early stage tournament play, before the antes kick in, is a subject that players have varying ideas about. Some think that the pre-ante phase of an MTT is basically a cash game played with tournament chips. Others think that it's a waste of time to enter the tournament before … [Read more...]
How to Dominate Weak Tournament Competition Post-flop
So you've read part 1 of this series and learned why maximizing the amount of pots you play against weak players is important, and how to make that happen pre-flop. That only part of the job, though. Post-flop poker against weak players is what we’ll discuss in this … [Read more...]
The Ultimate Guide for Dominating Weak Tournament Competition Pre-flop
A targeted approach—focusing on a particular strategy or game type—is exactly the right approach to take toward improving. However, it's important to occasionally step back and consider your game from a broad point of view. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot … [Read more...]
How to Check-Raise with Short Stacks Like an MTT Boss
Check-raising is an indispensable play in tournaments. Since average stack sizes are shallow, a check-raise will typically represent a large portion of your remaining chips. This allows you to put a lot of pressure on your opponent(s), because in order to play back they will … [Read more...]
This Misclick Made Me Bubble the WSOP Main Event
The year was 2010. It was my second time in Las Vegas, and my first World Series of Poker. I arrived pretty early in the series, planning to play a short stint of events over a couple of weeks. I felt great. I had absolutely crushed online in the months leading up to the … [Read more...]
I Flopped A Massive Draw While Short Stacked… Now What?
I've been playing live poker tournaments for about 9 years, and I've written down countless interesting hands along the way. Hands from 2009 to 2011 -- when big events were unbelievably soft -- tend to be the most interesting. In this article series, we'll take a close look at … [Read more...]
An Open Letter to My Younger Self
Dear Miikka, Tomorrow is a pretty big day—a day that will make your poker career. You’re going to play your biggest final table to date, at the Helsinki Freezeout Main Event. And guess what? You're going to win. Yes, you read that right. You'll beat all those professionals, who … [Read more...]
How To Open-Raise In MTTs So The Big Blind Doesn’t Crush Your Soul
MTTs are constantly evolving. New trends emerge, old tricks stop working as the fields learn to adjust, and so on. But while cash games and sit-and-goes are getting closer and closer to being solved by software and the like, MTTs remain the only format where exploitative play is … [Read more...]
5 Poker Tournament Myths Way Too Many Players Believe
Everyone seems to have a strong opinion nowadays, and many people present their views as absolute truth. This is particularly common at the poker table. Poker is a game where only about 1% of all players make money, yet many of the remaining 99% still think they're good--just … [Read more...]
7 Poker Tournament Tips for Running Deep More Often
Poker tournament tips is, apparently, a pretty common search term on Google. I assume the searchers are looking for a quick checklist to go over before playing a tournament, and not advice on how much to tip the dealers after a big win. When I searched "poker tournament tips" … [Read more...]
The 4 Dumbest Career-Ending Mistakes Tournament Players Make
Poker is a hard way to make an easy living. This perfectly sums up life as a professional poker player. On paper, though, making a living playing poker shouldn't be so difficult. Granted, the games are tougher now than they have ever been, but I personally still see plenty of … [Read more...]
There’s Big Money to be Made on the Final Table Bubble
You've spent several hours (or possibly even days) playing in a tournament, and the finish line is finally within sight. Just ten players left. One bust-out away from the final table. And you really, really don't want to be that final table bubble boy walking away with 10th … [Read more...]
