Make a mistake in a cash game, and you can simply pull out your wallet and reload. Make a mistake in a tournament, and you could be watching from the rail.
Because of this discrepancy, players making the transition from cash games to tournaments need to make slight adjustments to their playing styles. Changing your approach to the game is never easy, but it’s much easier for a cash game player to adjust to a tournament than it is for a tournament player to adjust to a cash game. When a tournament specialist sits in a cash game, he can’t employ his usual style because he’s not playing with tournament chips but real money. He’ll be scared to put so much of his own cash on the line, and he won’t play as aggressively as he normally would.
As a cash game specialist, I have a much easier time adjusting to tournaments. All I have to do is remind myself to slow down, be patient, and wait for the cards to come to me. In a tournament I try not to push with a hand unless I’m quite sure that I’m a big favorite or that my opponent is likely to fold. I don’t gamble because I know that losing one big pot could be enough to knock me out of the tournament.
In the main event of the 2003 World Series of Poker I laid down top two pair after putting a lot of money into the pot. The hand occurred in a no-limit hold’em tournament, but the same lesson applies to a pot-limit Omaha tournament. On the turn there was $50,000 in the pot, and I bet $50,000. My opponent raised me $250,000. So many players would have gone broke on that hand—top two pair is a strong hand in hold’em—but I laid it down.
I was able to get away from that hand by following one of my golden rules: when your opponent has very few chips in the pot and he suddenly makes an enormous bet or raise, no matter what you have, you can be certain he’s got you beat. If someone pulls this move and he doesn’t have a hand, it might work once, it might even work twice, but soon enough he’s going to go broke. In that same tournament Scotty Nguyen bluffed me out of a big pot with A-J, but I didn’t mind making that laydown because I didn’t have much invested in the hand so it didn’t cost me a lot of money. I wasn’t going to let a small setback escalate into a big disaster that might jeopardize my chances of making the final table. I was thinking the same thing when I folded my top two pair. I wasn’t going to risk my tournament life with that hand so I laid it down, and my opponent showed me bottom set.
It’s especially important to play conservatively in the initial stages of a pot-limit Omaha tournament because no hand is a huge favorite over any other. It’s not like in hold’em where pocket aces are a near lock at 81 percent to beat pocket queens. In Omaha wraps and redraws diminish the strength of sets so even if you flop the nuts and put all your money in the pot, there’s always a chance you could go broke on the hand. For this reason I try to avoid getting in confrontations that could end up costing me a big chunk of my chip stack. I don’t bet when I’m on a draw. I wait until I make my hand before I attack. That’s one of the biggest differences between tournaments and cash games. If I have a full wrap and a flush draw in a cash game, I will play that hand very aggressively. Even if I know my opponent has a set, I’ll still come over the top of him on the flop because with two cards to come I know I have more outs than he does to make my hand. I also know that if I miss I can simply reload. I don’t do this in tournaments. I wait to make my hand first, and then I bet it.
I also tend to bluff less often in tournaments. There are so many bad players in tournaments these days and, as I’ve mentioned before, you can’t bluff bad players because they don’t know where they’re at and they’re going to call you down no matter what. When you’re thinking about making a bluff, it’s really important to know who you’re up against. Scared players can be bluffed. Good players can be bluffed. Bad players can’t be. I can’t tell you how many times a bad player has said to me (right after he’s called a huge bet on the river with nothing more than a pair), “I called because I just wanted to beat you. I wanted to beat Sammy.”
You need to be really careful when you’re up against one of these players in the early stages of a tournament. While you might double your chip stack against one of them, you might also go broke. I’ll always remember this one hand in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha event at the 2006 World Series of Poker. I had 10-9-7-6, and the flop came 10-6-2, giving me top two pair and an inside straight draw. I bet, my opponent moved all in, and I called. It was a good call. My opponent only had a pair of 6s with an ace kicker. That’s it. His ace was his only live card against me. He had three outs. But, of course, he ended up catching an ace to make a bigger two pair than mine. Before that hand I had $40,000. After it I had $10,000 and a headache.
“What were you thinking?” I asked him as calmly as I could.
“I put you on aces,” he said, which made the whole table laugh.
“Really? You put me on aces? So a pair of 6s is favored against aces?”
“Uh, no, I wanted to put pressure on you.”
If I’d won that hand, I would have had $80,000 in the first hour. Instead I got knocked all the way back to where I’d started.
While the way that player played his hand upset me at the time, it’s comforting to know that he and other players like him are willing to invest $10,000 in a poker tournament. Even though he won the hand, he played it very badly. You can’t play like this and expect to win a tournament. You can’t raise all in with middle pair. You can’t put all your money into the pot with a flush draw when your opponent has a set. This is the wrong way to play in a tournament.
The best way to play in a tournament is to play the right way. You need to be patient, make a hand, and then get your money in. The only way you can advance in a tournament if you’re taking chances is to get really lucky, and in poker you should never count on your luck. If you play the right way, you’ll be getting your money in with the best of it and slowly building up your chip stack.
* * *
If you have the good fortune of being the chip leader or having one of the bigger stacks in the tournament, you need to adjust your strategy once more. You can now be selectively aggressive, which means picking the right moments to gamble. If you have a big draw, and you’ve got a lot of chips, and your opponent doesn’t, you can play the hand aggressively. If he bets on the flop, you can raise him for all his money.
But if you’re up against a player whose stack is equal to or bigger than yours, you want to make sure you have a hand before tangling with him. You don’t want to push a draw and put a big dent in your chip stack because you gambled and lost in a situation where you didn’t need to. If you’ve got a lot of chips, you generally want to avoid getting into confrontations with other players who also have a lot of chips because they’re the ones who can hurt you.
I wish I had followed that advice during the $10,000 Doyle Brunson North American No-Limit Hold’em Poker Championship at the Bellagio in 2004. There were less than 30 players left, and I had close to $600,000. I had what seemed like an insurmountable chip lead—the player in second place only had about $350,000. All I had to do was stay patient, let the other players knock each other out, and I was all but assured of making the final table. That should have been my only goal. You can’t win a tournament with three tables left. You can only win a tournament at the final table, but you have to get there first.
Because I had such a big chip lead, I could have easily afforded to muck every hand but pocket aces. If we were playing pot-limit Omaha, I wouldn’t have played a hand beyond the flop unless I had the nuts. If you’re the chip leader, it makes no sense to gamble, and if you do decide to play a big hand, you need to make sure it’s against one of the short stacks. I, of course, broke both of these rules at once during the tournament at the Bellagio. I got involved in a huge hand with the player who was in second place. I was favored to win the hand, but I didn’t and it knocked me all the way down to $250,000. From that point on I couldn’t win a hand. Carlos Mortensen (who went on to win the tournament) cracked my pocket kings with pocket 6s by making a runner-runner straight to knock me out in 26th place.
As patient as you need to be when you’ve got a lot of chips, you need to be equally willing to mix it up as soon as your chip stack dips below a certain point. When I get short-stacked, I tend to gamble a little more. As soon as I pick up a reasonable hand, I’ll push it as hard and as far as I can. This is not to say that I blindly push all my money into the pot as soon as I get low on chips. If I commit three quarters of my stack with a raise before the flop and the flop totally misses me, I won’t just shove in the last of my chips into the pot. I’ll save what I have left because I’ve seen a lot of players win tournaments after nearly losing all their chips. During the main event of the 2003 World Series of Poker I got down to my last $4,000 during the third day before I built it back up to $57,000, and I went on to finish second to Chris Moneymaker and earn $1.3 million. I learned a big lesson. As long as you have some chips in front of you, no matter how few, you can still win the tournament. Just continue to be patient, and the cards will eventually start coming your way.
* * *
I hadn’t planned on entering the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament at the 1996 World Series of Poker. Two of my friends motivated me. Both of them were losing at the tables, and they wanted to back me as a way of recouping their losses.
“Sammy, this is your game,” they said. “You have to play.”
“I don’t like tournaments,” I told them.
“C’mon, we’ll each take a third of you.”
“I don’t need your money.”
They wouldn’t drop it. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll bring you some luck.”
“Okay, I’ll play. Maybe I’ll have some fun.”
My attitude going into the tournament was what the hell. I didn’t take it very seriously until I got involved in a hand with Roger Moore about halfway through. Roger was a great player. He made eight final tables at the World Series and won one gold bracelet, while I was still relatively unknown at the time.
On this particular hand Roger raised before the flop with aces, and I called with a rundown hand, something like 10-9-7-6 suited. Both of us had fairly big chip stacks. The flop gave me a pair and a straight draw. There were also two cards to a flush on the flop. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that flush draw.
Roger was first to act, and he bet. I knew he had aces so I figured I would take one card off and see if the turn improved my hand. I called and picked up a backdoor flush draw, giving me even more outs. Once again, he bet, and I called.
On the river the backdoor flush hit, and Roger bet the pot. I had a nine-high flush and a tough decision to make. If the flush that was made on the river was the same as the flush draw that was on the flop, I would have folded my hand immediately. It would have been easy for me to give the pot to Roger because on the flop he could have had the nut flush draw in addition to his aces. More importantly, I didn’t have that flush.
However, I did have the backdoor flush, and I had to decide if it was good. First, I asked myself why Roger bet so much on the river. If he had made the nut flush, why would he bet the pot? I didn’t believe he would have. He would have made a value bet, especially if he’d made a backdoor flush because the chances that I’d also made a backdoor flush were so small. In a tournament you want to pick up chips whenever you can. If he had the nut flush, he would have bet a small amount, hoping to add a few more chips to his stack. Instead, he made a big bet, trying to scare me. He was trying to make me lay down a hand like two pair. He was trying to represent something he didn’t have. I put him on having two aces with one of them being the dry ace. I called, and, sure enough, my flush was good.
I doubled up through Roger, and that put me in great position. I had a lot of chips after that, and when I have a lot of chips I play really well. I don’t make a lot of mistakes. I become even more dangerous because of my aggressiveness. At that point in the tournament my confidence was soaring.
* * *
As it turned out, my confidence was justified. When I got to the final table, I had a huge chip lead with over half the chips on the table in front of me.
The first thing I did when I sat down at the final table was come up with a strategy for how I wanted to play against each player. For example, I knew Brent Carter was a good player but also a very tight one, which makes him the perfect player to bluff against. I also knew that another player at the table had made a big side bet at the start of the tournament as to which place he’d finish in. In those days the vast majority of the players who entered the tournaments at the World Series were professionals so we all knew each other’s business. We knew which players had made side bets and which ones had not.
Knowing that this one player had made a side bet was a very important piece of information for me to pick up. I knew that if I got involved in a hand with him that I would have a better than usual chance of bluffing him because he would be so concerned about inching his way up the leader board. It’s human nature. Having a big side bet like that always makes players tighten up. With that in mind I devised a plan for how I would play against him if we ever got involved in the same hand. If he came over the top of me, unless I had the nuts, I would have to fold because I knew he wouldn’t jeopardize his chances of winning that side bet by bluffing. I also knew that if I was the one who came over the top of him he wouldn’t call me unless he had the nuts.
Sure enough, the two of us got mixed up in a hand when we got down to the final six players. The flop came K-K-10. I flopped three kings with a weak kicker, and I had a lot of chips in front of me. The player with the side bet checked, I bet, and he called. To call me in that spot, I knew he had to have a better hand than I did, at least three kings with a better kicker, but because of the side bet he hadn’t raised, which led me to believe that unless he made a full house I could take this pot away from him.
The turn was a blank. He checked, and I bet the pot. If he called, he would be all in. I knew he had a big hand, but I also knew he wouldn’t risk getting knocked out unless he had the nuts. To emphasize the importance of the decision he was about to make, as I was betting on the turn I said to him, “I put you all in.”
He must have thought about it for 10 minutes. “I know I have you beat,” he said finally.
I didn’t answer him.
He showed me his cards, two of which were A-K. “Can you beat this?”
“Maybe.”
Then he threw his cards—the winning hand!—into the muck. He laid it down because there were a couple short stacks at the table and he wanted to try and outlast them so he could make more money from his side bet.
To make that play I had to take advantage of some information that had very little to do with the cards in our hands and everything to do with my opponent’s state of mind. This is the kind of information that makes it easier to put pressure on your opponents and helps you build your chip stack.
It’s also nice when you get lucky on a hand. With three players left I had Q-Q-8-4, and the flop came A-Q-7. I had flopped middle set. I bet, and Phil Mazzella raised. I suspected he might have three aces, but I decided to take a chance because, even if I lost the hand, I would still be the chip leader. The fact that I could knock him out of the tournament if I won the hand was the deciding factor. I reraised him, hoping my set of queens was the best hand. It wasn’t. Phil had A-A-5-2, giving him top set. His call put him all in. I needed to get really lucky to win the hand, and I did when the board finished with a 6 and a 5, which gave me an improbable straight and knocked Phil out.
Just before I was about to start playing Brent Carter heads-up for the gold bracelet, my friends who were backing me asked me if I was going to make a deal.
“If you guys want to make a deal, I’ll buy your share,” I told them. “But I’m not making any kind of deal. I’m here to win.”
One of them, he’s a gambler like me, he said, “I like your style, Sammy. I don’t want to make a deal either.”
But my other friend wasn’t much of a gambler. He was more of a businessman, and he saw guaranteed money that he didn’t want to lose. “I think you’d be better off making a deal,” he said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I told you. I’m not making a deal. If you want to make a deal, I’ll buy your share. How much do you want? I’ll give it to you.”
My confidence convinced him. I didn’t make a deal, and I went on to win the tournament as well as my first gold bracelet.
That was the first poker tournament I had ever played in.