The 8 Stages of a Poker Tournament

 The 8 Stages of a Poker Tournament

In this article I will be discussing the main stages and quantifying them. Also, I will show you how to play different types of stacks in each stage. You can also watch the video by clicking here if you're a LearnProPoker Member.

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There are 8 stages to a tournament.

The tournament is in its early stages and we still have more than 85% of the field. These two types of play are very similar, but they differ depending on whether we are in a tournament with re-entry or closed registration.

We often have a deeper average stack (50bb+) during the Early Stages. The theory suggests that the opening ranges should be the best, but the reality is that early stages are much more flexible and we can play more flops against weaker, deeper-stacked opponents.

Re-entry will open, so our opponents will likely overplay their hand, both for value or when bluff catching. However, they are also most willing to make bluffs. They view this stage as low risk, except if they have built up their stack or registration has closed. This is why we should consider ourselves exploitative and be least willing or able to make bluffs.

After registration closes or in a tournament that is closed, our opponents begin to value their tournament lives more and play more cautiously. However, overall, the play is very similar to when entry was open.

You can play in freeze-out tournaments where the rules are very different than re-entry. These are usually "larger buy-in main events," weekend majors, and live series. The early stages in these fields are treated almost as carefully as the final stages. This is due to the fact that many people will be shot at taking part in the field, or winning their entry via satellite. Therefore, they care more about busting then if it were a normal daily freeze-out.

Important to remember that the above generalizations are only applicable to our weaker adversaries. Even though they may make slight adjustments, extremely good regulars will generally play more balanced ranges.

Near Bubble

The "Near Bubble Stage" is defined as: A stage in which the players are away from the money equals 150% of the entry fee. A 1000 player field would have 150 players. The Near Bubble stage would then be defined as 225 players remaining. Similar to the above, when 150 players remain in a tournament that has 100 players, the tournament is considered finished. You can also consider this 7.5% of a tournament's starting field taken out of the money if 15% is paid or 5% when 10% is purchased.

Because of the differences in how small and large field tournaments perform, this sliding scale is proportional to field size. The percentage of the field which is paid out, such as 15% or 8%, also has an impact on the Near Bubble stage.

It doesn't really matter if you consider the "Near Bubble", 2% or 10% of the starting field from money. This stage of the tournament is important because it is wildly different from the earlier stages. It also plays differently to the actual bubble.

It is not difficult to know if you are in a near bubble. We can answer this question: Would it be easy for me as an average stack to fold my way into the money?

Medium stacks will feel a lot more pressure if the answer is yes. Because you can only min cash a significant portion of your equity from any tournament, this pressure is necessary. You can have fun playing for deep runs or winning, but if your goal to make the best decisions possible and make the biggest money, then you need to be serious about mincashing.

For us, this means that we should play carefully when we have a small stack and are able to fold our way to the cash. We should have tighter opening limits, tighter 3-bet ranges and defend our blinds tighter. And we need to continue playing tight after the flop.

If we don't have enough cash, we can put pressure on medium stacks that have looser openings and open jams. We can also apply pressure to our bigger opponents with tighter opening ranges, higher frequency continuation bets, and when we are among the larger stacks. Poker Strategy for the Early Stages of a Poker Tournament