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This book is for players who share one or more of the following characteristics:

 Players who know how to play no-limit Texas Hold’em and have done well in cash games. This book assumes you know how to play no-limit Texas Hold’em. If you are completely new to Hold’em then you should read my book Quick and Easy Texas Hold’em. That will cover the basics and give you a foundation for winning play. If you have only played limit Hold’em and never played no-limit Hold’em than you would do well to read my book No-Limit Hold’em Hand by Hand. This book covers many no-limit Hold’em concepts that will be valuable to your tournament play. Having said this I will emphasize throughout this book that no-limit Hold’em played for cash and tournament no-limit Hold’em are very different games and must be treated differently. If you are unaware of the essential differences you will play one, and possibly both, badly. Superficially they appear to be the same, but they demand different strategies. This is why some good cash players never do well in tournaments and vice versa; they fail to adapt their game to the different structures of cash and tournament play and suffer accordingly. If you are a successful cash player you will learn what it takes to do well in fast-structure, multi-table no-limit Hold’em tournaments.

 Players who play tournaments regularly but have never done well. You somehow got bitten by the tournament bug. Maybe you watched TV poker, maybe you played small tournaments with friends, or maybe you played in a charity poker event. You may have actually played a lot of tournaments but have never or only rarely finished in the money. If this describes you a lot of this material will come as a revelation. Careful though! It may test some of your most fondly held yet erroneous assumptions about correct poker tournament play. Admit it, if you knew how to play well in tournaments you would have done better in them, right? It’s no use blaming bad luck or bad beats either. You know deep down that we all enjoy and suffer the same luck over time yet you have seen those players who regularly appear in the money. If you want to have any hope of joining them, put aside your ego, stop feeling like a victim, open your mind, and I’ll show you how to become a winner. You will learn why you have not done well and learn a method that with practice and application will make you a consistent winner. You will need to study but I’ll make it fun.

 Players on a limited or small bankroll. One of the irritating facts of poker is that you need money to play. In my first book, Quick and Easy Texas Hold’em, I gave some basic bankroll guidelines for the casual player. These will serve you well if you only play the occasional low-limit game and play a fairly conservative strategy. However, even these moderate sums may be too rich for some. Also, if you plan on playing regularly your bankroll needs for a cash game may be considerably greater. Tournaments offer the rare poker possibility of strictly limited downside risk, namely your buy-in, and the chance for a big payday. Of course many if not the majority of the entrants have almost no realistic chance of a money finish. Poker players refer to this as “dead money” and it increases the “overlay,” or betting advantage, of the better players. If you follow the guidelines in this book your money will not be dead and you will have a far better than average chance of a money finish. The fact is you can play a tournament and receive 1,000 to 3,000 tournament chips or more, depending on the tournament structure, and experience the thrill of no-limit poker. The buy-ins are often less than $200 and prizes, depending on the number of entrants, can be in the thousands. If you get into the latter stages of a tournament that has a few hundred entrants you may find yourself pushing around $100,000 in tournament chips, all for the cost of the entry fee. Losing is always a downer but your consolation is all the thrills and hours of entertainment have not cost you your life’s savings. These days there are hundreds of regular tournaments to play in, both in land-based and Internet casinos. The next low-cost entry tournament is rarely more than a few hours away.

What Is Not Covered in This Book

Even authors of staggering genius are unable to cover everything in one book. I am not such an author and so this applies doubly to me. This book will be to your benefit if you play in multi-table, fast-structure, no-limit Hold’em tournaments. By fast-structure I mean tournaments that last less than one day, usually somewhere between four to seven hours on average.

You will need greater and more varied poker skills if you want to succeed in the big slow-structure tournaments such as the main event at the World Series of Poker and the many televised tournaments you have probably watched that form part of the Professional Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour. The skills you learn here will serve you well if you play in the tournaments but they are not enough to carry you through unless you are very lucky. Your opponents, especially in the latter stages will usually be of a higher quality than those you run across in the smaller tournaments and the slower structure and bigger stack in relation to the blinds will often mean that you will have complex poker decisions to make.

Some players specialize in Sit and Go tournaments that usually consist of one table (occasionally two or three) paying prizes to the first three finishers. These tournaments have a very fast structure and players with a fixed, almost robotic playing strategy can do quite well, if they understand exactly how to play these to optimum effect. These tournaments are not covered in this book.

Satellites have similarities to Sit and Go tournaments and may consist of one or many (Super Satellites) tables, the prize usually being a seat in a bigger tournament. Satellites represent an excellent opportunity to gain entry to the event that may have entry fees of $5000–$10,000 and more. The satellites entry fee may be a few hundred dollars or less. Internet poker rooms have satellites for as little as $10. It was by entering one of these and finally winning the main event that Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker in 2003. As one western poker writer has stated, it’s like taking a toothpick and turning it into a lumber yard. I can think of no competitive arena that offers similar opportunities of growing a modest stake into almost instant riches. Like Sit and Gos, satellites have their own specific strategies and considerations. I recommend playing in them and becoming skilled in their execution, but again, how to do so is beyond the scope of this book.

Also, there are many tournaments that are not no-limit Hold’em although no-limit Hold’em tournaments are by far the most numerous and popular. If you are a skilled Seven-Card Stud, Omaha, Razz, or Limit Hold’em player you can certainly find tournaments that use these poker forms, but they can be hard to find outside of the larger poker events, like the World Series. Right now, no-limit Hold’em all but dominates the poker scene. Events played that do not feature no-limit Hold’em may well be very lucrative, because these days few players are willing to devote the time to playing them well. However, smaller fields often mean lower profit potential and you may run into expert specialists. If you are willing to devote the time and study to becoming one of these you can do well, but these forms are not covered in this book.