Playing an Invitational Tournament

On my list of recreational activities, video poker comes in a poor third to tournament poker and tennis. Playing poker tournaments revs up my competitive juices and rewards me with extra bread, while hitting tennis balls revs up my otherwise debilitated body and rewards me with physical stamina. And video poker? It serves as a cool-down when I've been eliminated from a poker tournament and is a source of casino comps. And recently it gave me a chance to rev up my bankroll via a $10,000 no-limit hold'em freeroll tournament that the Atlantis Casino in Reno held for a few hundred of its top customers.

Guided by Tournament Director Dave Lamb, who made the tournament fun with his clever commentary, this invitational tournament was divided into three tiers of 36 players each. We started with $1,000 in chips, $25-$25 blinds, and 20-minute rounds. The blinds escalated to $25-$50, $50-$100, $100-$200, and then $100-$200 with a $25 ante, making it somewhat fast. The top two players from each tier went on to the final match, along with three players whose names were drawn at random. First-place prize money was $10,000, and second place paid $4,000.

What strategy do you employ in an invitational tournament designed to reward a casino's "valued guests"? How do you win against inexperienced opponents, many of whom have never played anything except kitchen-table poker? During the tedious drive to the "Biggest Little City in the World," I designed a strategy that I figured would best work in charity tournaments and invitational events in which players were there to have a good time and enjoy some laughs more than to win the prize money:

Find out who has some poker mileage under their belts. I figured that almost none of my opponents would know much about no-limit hold'em, except for what they had seen on television. Ask the players, "Ever played a poker tournament? Do you play poker online?" I discovered that only one player at my table had experience in tournament poker. The others were video poker or slot players, blackjack aces, or craps gamblers.

Play more hands from late position when you can limp into a pot cheaply. In this type of fast structure, you can play some less-than-premium hands from the backside. Then, if no one catches a piece of the flop, you can steal the pot with a bet: the check, check, check, bet-and-take-it routine. I figured that my opponents would bet with top pair, but most would pass with middle or bottom pair. By betting after the other players checked, I won a few pots.

Raise less often before the flop. Unless I had aces, kings, or queens in the hole, I decided that my best move was to just call when I wanted to play a pot. When you're playing against people who don't understand hand values in hold'em, they are likely to call raises with any two cards that look good to them. I predicted that raising would not keep my less-experienced opponents from calling with two suited cards or any pair, or just to have some fun gambling. I figured that my best strategy was to attempt to outplay them from the flop through the river.

For example, here's a hand that came up late in the action. The player under the gun limped in and the button made a weak raise, just double the minimum bet. The small blind folded and the big blind called, as did the limper. The flop came K Q 9. The big blind moved all in and the player under the gun called. The button folded. Their hands? The big blind had the J 10 and flopped a straight. The man under the gun had called the big blind's all-in bet with the J 5 to send the big blind out the door, bemoaning the "bad beat" he took.

I didn't get to the final table, but this strategy kept me in action deep into the event, when I finally fell prey to an 8-7 suited that had called my late-position raise with pocket jacks before the flop. The flop came J-9-2 unsuited, I moved all in, and the 8-7 called with her inside-straight draw, which she hit on the turn, sending me off to a deuces-wild video poker machine.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the Atlantis five-table poker room, my wife, Dana Smith, played the daily winner-take-all, $15 buy-in seven-card stud tournament, which started with 10 players and 15-minute rounds. The two players to the left of the button were given markers that told the dealer not to deal them into the round, so the game was actually played eighthanded until two players were eliminated. The antes doubled in the first three levels, and the fourth level of the one-hour tournament was played no-limit. At the end of the last 15-minute level, the player with the most chips was declared the winner and took home all the buy-ins from the table. I was still slugging it out for the $10,000 when Dana triumphantly marched into the room waving the $150 she had just won - which was considerably better than waving the pizza that second place won.

Hopefully, these strategies for charity and invitational events will take you to the final table, where Tom McEvoy and I hope to meet you one day soon, or at least win you a pizza!

Don Vines and Tom McEvoy are the co-authors of How to Win No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments.