If you’re planning on getting involved in a poker tournament either online of offline the one single most important thing you should bear in mind the whole time you play is simple: your chip stack. While in most casual games a chip stack is simply a representation of your money and you don’t need a big chip stack to have fun and even possibly come home with more than you left with in a poker tournament your chip stack is the primary deciding factor your placement and, ultimately, whether or not you ever see any money back from your endeavors.

With your chip stack, playing such an important role in a tournament it is important, therefore, to develop an adequate strategy to not only develop but also protect your chip stack from other players that may be hoping to use you as leverage to get to the top ranks and into the paying “bubble”. Thankfully there are a few basic strategies you can employ to help keep you in the tournament and on your game longer, thus helping you develop a better chance of making it to the top paying group and seeing profits rather than loses.

First and foremost, in the early stages of a tournament be sure to play tight and not take unnecessary risks with cards that are moderate at best. any times in the early stages novice players attempt to make big plays that may give them some advantage over the rest of the players later on. Unfortunately, for them it is the overly loose players that tend to pad the pockets of the careful, diligent players that are patient with their cards at the beginning, thus protecting their value money and not risking everything on a quick, easy leap forward.

Later on as the play progresses you can feel free to loosen up a bit more with your plays and chip usage in order to better help move you towards the top of the tournament standings but at the same time be sure to still maintain some semblance of control over your funds lest they may easily be targeted by others as potential fodder for advancement. This could be one of the worst of your troubles if you spend too much time focusing on yourself and not enough time watching other people and studying them for use later on.

Finally, when conducting most of your bets pay careful attention to how large or small your opponents’ chip stack is as well. By keeping a quick mental note of this you can easily decide who to target for most of your plays given the fact that most players with a mid-size chip stack tend to be the highest paying as they have just enough funds to make them feel comfortable and not call out every buff but still poor enough to be willing to take on your bet (if the price is right and the opponent you are targeting feels they could use the pot to help them get into a higher rank).

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