Texas Hold Em Tournament Strategy - Not Just the Blinds

Any good Texas Hold Em Tournament Strategy will stress the importance of stealing peoples blinds, and the ante's, to increase your stack size. I'm not denying this, actually I totally agree with it, but I am also stating that its not just the blinds that you want. You want the massive big pots because its these juicy wins that really pump up your stack and make you powerful. As soon as you stack increases to a point you can bully and bully and take more chips.

Determining the best way to get the most chips out of your opponents is crucial. Stealing blinds is a good way to do this. Having them make big bets and you stealing that is a better way of doing this. You can usually on steal big bets when you have the best cards/hand of a given round. So when you have a good hand, or think you have the best hand you need to bet accordingly to get your opponents to put in as many chips as possible.

To win a poker tournament you're going to need to win nice pots, not just pick up blinds. At some point you're going to have to play a hand right through a take a big pot. Your preference should be to do this when you have a great hand. In some situations you may be forced to play less the optimal hands but your goal should be to only play big pots when you have a great hand and a sure chance of winning.

You need to get the most value out of your good hands and you do this by betting correctly. Betting the right amount in any given situation is an art. The main idea though is to bet small enough so people will call you but bet just high enough to make the bets kinda big. No point picking up pennies. Try one or one and a half or two times the big blind (test and go as always). After the flop limp in or if someone makes a bet before you raise them just a little bit. Ever so slowly and slightly tap the pot up by little bits at a time and it will soon be big.

Your Texas Hold Em Tournament Strategy needs to incorporate big pot wins if you ever expect to get to the money tables and take first prize. Just stealing blinds and antes isn't going to do it for you. You need play pots when you have good hands and more importantly, you need to beef those pots up so when you do win you win a good amount.