ABSOLUTE POKER

World Series of Poker is all about strategy. Winning at tournaments like this one requires sound poker strategy, but emphasizes several factors more so than ring games:

Your chips have a different relative value. In a standard poker game, you should view each dollar as having equal value. This is not the case in a tournament. When you start off with an initial thousand in chips, that thousand is worth a lot more than the next thousand you make.

Since you cannot buy back in, you always need to have chips in order to survive. At the beginning of the tournament, you should be more reticent to go all in because even if you win you are not in much better of a position. However, later in the tournament you must gamble or else you risk just losing by being blinded away.

Domination plays a much bigger factor playing the World Series of Poker. Later in the tournament, the blinds will be so high that most players in contested hands will be all-in preflop. Thus, as a strategy, you want hands that dominate other hands.

High pocket pairs are good because they dominate lower pocket pairs, and ace with a good kicker is a good hand because it dominates many other hands. Many players make the mistake of betting very hard with a low pocket pair such as 55. In truth, these low pockets are only good for stealing blinds. If someone calls you, you are at best a 50-50, while you are a 4.5:1 underdog if they have a higher pocket pair.