Gus Hansen

This week starts the largest, richest tournament in poker history – the Main Event of the World Series of Poker*. For anyone who makes it deep in the tournament, there will be several long, exhausting days of poker. So, going in rested is extremely important. Beyond that, however, there are ways to approach different portions of the event that could help you develop and maintain a healthy stack.

In the early stages of a large tournament like the Main Event, chances are you’ll be seated with nine players who are complete strangers to you. Most of them will probably not be all that strong. Also, at this point in the event, you’ll have a lot of chips compared to the size of the blinds. In these portions of the tournament, you should try to slowly build your stack. You don’t need to double up quickly and you don’t want to commit a lot of chips to the pot unless you’re pretty certain you know where you stand.

This is not to say that you should be tight pre-flop. Actually, when playing against weak opponents while holding lots of chips, you should try to see more flops as cheaply as you can. You can limp, call raises or even raise with a wide variety of hands, and then proceed from there. Most of the time, you won’t hit the flop very hard, but in those hands where you’re forced to fold, you won’t have lost much. When you do manage to catch a hand, you’ll pick up a lot of chips from players who don’t make very good decisions much of the time. You can use your skill advantage to balance your wins and losses, and slowly build your stack.

As the tournament moves along, many will bust and the fields will get tougher. The players you’ll encounter later in the tournament are more likely to make good decisions post-flop. Some will be excellent players – even top pros who are capable of very good reads. At these points in the tournament, you’ll have a lot of chips, but the blinds will be much higher; the average stack may only have 25 or 30 big blinds.

This is also the time when you need to be more willing to gamble. By “gamble” I don’t mean that you need to over-commit with a hand where you’re hoping for a race. Rather, there are some situations where you might be compelled to put all your chips in the pot, even when you’re not thrilled with your hand.

For example, in the early levels of a tournament, I’m unlikely to commit my entire stack with a hand like top-pair, top-kicker – it’s just not strong enough. But later in the event, I’m likely to have no choice but to commit all of my chips if I have Ace- King and hit a King on the flop. To me, going with this kind of hand is something of a gamble.

These are some general guidelines to playing large tournaments. By seeing lots of flops early, you’re likely to build your stack slowly by taking advantage of your skills post-flop. And later, you’ll do better to tighten up and look for opportunities that require a little more gambling.

If you’re playing in the Main Event, keep these thoughts in mind and good luck!

Mark Vos

A couple of weeks back, I won the $2,000 No-Limit Hold ‘em event at the World Series of Poker*. It’s a great honor to have the bracelet. The $800,000 that I got for first place is, of course, awesome. For most of the tournament, I was short stacked. But, I think I played my short stack well and, for this tip, I thought I’d share some thoughts I have on short-stack play.

The key to my short-stack survival was that I was able to steal enough pots to stay alive. There was only one play I could use; move in, and hope everyone folded. It worked out for me, despite the fact I was card dead most of the day.

There were a couple of reasons my steals were effective. First was that I was careful not to let my stack fall below seven or eight big blinds. In No-Limit tournaments, it’s very important to do your stealing when you have at least eight to 10 big blinds. If the average stack is between 20 and 25 big blinds, which is common in the later stages of tournaments, and you move all-in for eight or more big blinds, only very strong hands are going to call you. Your opponents won’t want to risk becoming a short stack by losing a confrontation, so there’s a tremendous amount of fold equity.

If your stack drops to the point where you only have five or six big blinds, you’re far more likely to get called. So you need to be very aware of the size of your stack and the location of the button. If you’re sitting on eight big blinds and you’re in middle position, you should look for a chance to push in and steal before you move through the blinds.

While you’re on the short stack, you also want to have a tight image. You want everyone to think you’re patiently waiting for a strong hand. If you give off this impression, you are going to get a lot of respect, which should increase the likelihood that your opponents will fold when you move in.

When I’m on the short stack, I don’t mind moving in from early position, even when I’m under-the-gun. I did this frequently in the WSOP* tournament I won, even when I was holding rags. It worked out well. I had a tight image, so an early position move looked very strong. Unless someone picked up a hand like pocket Queens or Kings, I was likely to pick up the all-important blinds and antes.

When you’re on a short stack, you need to stay alive while you wait for decent cards. The key is to find situations where your opponents are likely to fold. If you keep your stack over eight big blinds, create a tight image, and move in from a variety of positions, you have a good chance of stealing enough pots to stay alive in the tournament. Hopefully, things will go your way and you’ll pick up some hands so that you can build your stack up and take out the tournament!

Brian Koppelman

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to play as a red pro on Full Tilt Poker? “Rounders” co-writer Brian Koppelman did, so we gave him the opportunity to experience life as a Full Tilt Poker pro for one day. This is his story.

A couple of weeks ago, Full Tilt Poker made me red for a day. That’s right – for 24 hours, I got to be a Full Tilt Poker pro. My new status gave me a slight edge on the virtual felt, but it also put a giant target on my back. I saw first-hand how fast any table I sat at filled up, how intent my opponents could be about breaking me, and how differently the other players reacted to the way I bet my hands.

My brief time as a Full Tilt Poker pro began during an email correspondence with my friend Erik Seidel. Erik and I met after he was featured in “Rounders,” a film I wrote with David Levien. In the movie, Matt Damon’s character watches and re-watches a clip of Erik getting trapped by Johnny Chan at the final table of the 1988 World Series of Poker*. As a close-up of Erik appears on screen, Damon’s character describes what it feels like when you are gutted. The implication being, “I am a loser, like Seidel is a loser.” There is no mention of the fact that Erik took home second place money in the WSOP*, that he’s one of the leading money winners ever at the WSOP*, and that he’s better at poker than 99% of the world. Nope. All you see is Erik, his goofy hat, and his loser’s hangdog expression.

Some guys would have reacted poorly to such a portrayal in a feature film. Not Erik. He’s always been good-humored about it and, I think, glad that in raising poker’s profile, the film helped to raise his profile too. In fact, in the years since “Rounders’” release, Erik and I have been frequent email correspondents, and he has been kind enough to serve as technical advisor on any other poker project I have done.

So, it makes sense that when I play online poker, I play at Erik’s site. Recently, the two of us were talking about Full Tilt Poker and about how much I enjoyed playing there. Soon, the idea came up that we should both enter a Bust-Out Bounty tournament so that he could show me first hand what it feels like to be gutted in public. Let’s save the fact that I outlasted him by hours and finished a hundred places ahead of him for another article. Instead, I’d like to take a moment to tell you how the game plays when your screen name appears in Full Tilt Poker Red.

The first thing I should say is thanks to all the Full Tilt Poker players who took the time to check in with me in the chat box. It’s great to know that “Rounders” has inspired so many of you and brought you to the game. It’s really rewarding that so many of you can quote the film line by line. However, it somehow feels less rewarding when those same lines get thrown back in my face as you are raking in my chips. One player, who hadn’t let on that he knew who I was, trapped me with top-two against bottom two. He took half my stack and, as I was trying to collect myself, he was kind enough to tell me that the only thing he was missing was the rack of Oreos.

What was also new for me is the amount of observers drawn to any game I was playing in. This gave me a true appreciation for how hard it must be for the pros on television to ignore the cameras and just play their cards. I felt like every raise, weak call or foolish bluff I made was magnified. Each time I won or lost a hand, the railbirds would comment, letting me know how lucky/unlucky or good/bad at poker I am. It’s difficult enough to make the right decisions at the table without wondering how onlookers will receive those decisions. More than once, I made a bigger bet than I might have on the river, hoping my opponent would fold and I would be saved from the embarrassment of having to reveal the horrible cards I had played.

On the flip side, those opponents did fold more often than they would have if I weren’t in red. Not in the Bust-Out Bounty tourney (where I figured out that I should almost never bluff), but in the ring games and Sit and Gos where my hands got much more respect than they normally would have. Players assumed that I knew what I was doing and they were wary. I understand it. The day before I was in red, I found myself head to head with Huckleberry Seed at an Omaha table. For the first 15 minutes, I was totally off my game. I couldn’t play back at him for fear that he would jam me, read me, and crush me.

After a while though, I found my footing and remembered that in the short term, if I had the cards, I had just as good a chance as anyone.

In the end, that’s the thing, I guess. Being in red does change the way other players react to you. For a time. And it changes you too. For a time. But, if enough hands go by and enough time passes, the distinction passes too. And everyone goes back to being what they’ve always been. What I’ve always been proud to be. Just another poker player.