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Since a couple of weeks PokerStars you can play some satellites for a regional championship here in Belgium, called ‘Pokerkampioen van Vlaanderen’ or ‘Pokerchamp of Flanders’ translated to English.

The first 20 in each day’s sattelite tournament will qualify to Sunday’s final, another satellite to the grand final held in October.
Yesterday was the 5th time I played in these daily satellites, but the first time I took the tournament serious like a real cash game. No more joking around and calling with crazy cards.

The first 5 or 6 hands I got were complete rubbish. I was folding them all. Then a few decent hands came by, like 10 J, 88, QK, 10 A. I only managed to win one pot with them, the pocket eight’s gave me trips on the turn.

With some minor hands after that, I actually won a few more pots, because the flop was always into my advantage. Within 4 hands time I won 2 pretty high pots. Once with 7 8 clubs, that made me a flush on the flop (J 2 K). I went all-in for about 1900 chips and got called by one guy, who hit two pair with his K J. So if no other King or Jack finds its way to the table, I was safe. It didn’t so I won the pot.
The second time with A8 off-suit I got a Full House on the flop (8 8 A) and slow played it. Another advantage I had in this hand was that I was on the small blind, so I could easily check and see what other players would do. In a 6-handed game and an Ace on the table, at least one player should make a bet. The 4th player in the game made a small bet, probably to see what others would do or letting us know he could have an ace. Then the button player made a re-raise. On my turn, I hesitated a bit and made the call. The players next to me all folded quickly and the initial raiser made the call also.
So what hands would they have? I was pretty sure one of them had the Ace (I’m guessing the first raiser) and one of them could have made trips with an 8, maybe the button-player? If that was the case, I was still way ahead. Only if a higher pocket pair than the 8’s on the table made trips, I would lose. Else the least I could have was a split pot with the last ace on the turn or the river.
The turn was a 4, nothing for me to get worried about, so checked again. Next player checked also and the button player didn’t wait to see the river and went all-in. So I was pretty sure he had the last 8 and was playing trips. But to do better than my Full House with the aces, I doubt it
Again I hesitated to call him, not giving away I have the possible best hand. For a second I thought about going all-in, but to get as much as possible out of the pot I just made the call, hoping the next player would call also.
Instead of calling, he went all-in. Could he have AA? That would beat my Full House. Or does he have the last 8? In my head, I played over his play again to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. In my eyes he couldn’t have pocket aces, so I made the call. It certainly would be very difficult to fold this one otherwise.
So my Full House AA 888, against A88 85 for the player next to me and A88 AK for the player on the button. Chances that I would lose are nil, only a split pot was still possible if the last ace hit’s the table. It didn’t and I tripled my chips, pushing me to the 18th place.

Then for the next hour, I kept on playing around the first 40the places with a minor setback after a bad call I made with AJ in my hands. I thought my pair of aces would be enough, but it could stand up against 2 pair. I lost 1/3 of my chips.
But with some good play and some bluffing every now and then, I always came back to the top 20.
Then player countdown started. 40 players left, 39, 38, … At the time only 8 players had to get busted I was playing on the 25th spot.

With big blinds, 35% of my pot and being the 2nd smallest stack at the table I had to be very careful what hands to play. No good hands came by and I folded everything. Then on the big blind I got K5 off-suit. 4 players called, 1 player went all-in. Of course I made the call as it would only cost me an extra 148 chips. Luckily I did. Flop made me trips with 55 J.
I went all-in instantly and got called by one guy who played for the flush, but also could spare some chips.
I showed my trips. With a Queen on the turn, a 2 on the river and none of them spades, I won the pot. Pushing me away from the last places.
The next hands I folded all, not wanting to take the risk and becoming the last player to drop out.
5 minutes later the sattelite tournament was over, I did manage to win one hand with my pocket Queens, but most importantly I qualified for Sunday’s weekly sattelite tournament final.

Now let’s see if I can get in the top 5 spot there and October’s final is very close then.

Yesterday I played a $1000 freeroll tournament on PokerStars. In the beginning I managed to play lots of hands as my cards where pretty good. This made me climb up to a spot around the first 300 players in a 3000+ tournament.
A play I liked very much was the one where I received pocket kings. Being seated just after the big blind, I didn’t want to make a big raise to let everyone know I had a high hand. So I slow played my kings with just a call and waited to see what everyone else was doing. The next 5 players all folded their hand. Another player called together with the SB and the BB made a small raise. This made me think, should I re-raise him know, or just call him? If he had an Ace and the flop paired him, I had to fold. But I took the risk and just called. The other 2 players in the pot also made the call and the flop showed 5 8 10. SB checked and the BB raised. I decided it was time to stop slow playing my KK and re-raised him. This made everyone fold except the BB, he re-raised me instead. Now the my head was saying me, be careful, maybe he has 2 pairs or a open ended straight draw with 67 or 9J. I called him to see what his next move will be. On the Turn we got a 3 and he checked after taking some time. I on the other hand made a big raise, pushing him almost all-in, what I actually expected him to do, but he just made the call. The river gave us a 7 and sealed my win. I knew after his call on the turn he had nothing that would beat my pair of kings. So I went all-in hoping him to call me, but as predictable, he folded.

But then my luck started to change, I was losing hand by hand, pushing me back in the rankings deeper and deeper. With a flush after the turn, I made a big raise to let everyone know I had a big hand. 2 players called instead. But I knew another spade will make my hand lose as my highest spade was a 7. And of course the river was against me with another spade, so I had to fold my hand after a big raise from the player next to me. I could have called him and take the risk, but another player in front of me called also, so it was pretty clear I lost the hand. At this time I had only 480 chips left from a stack well over 10000. I was pretty frustrated about how the table worked against me and almost went all-in the next hand with 3 7 off-suit, knowing I can’t win with that hand.

But just in time I calmed down to not play that hand and wait for a big one. The one thing I was lucky about is that I was on the dealer button. So I had some time to think about which hand to play.
4 Hands later in middle position I got KQ off-suit and went all-in the first time pre-flop. 2 players called, but on the flop I already made 2 pair. Luck started to change again.
Back with around 1300 chips, I still had to be careful about what hand to play, so playing very tight was the only option. With AK suited (spades) I went all-in a second time. Now everyone at the table seemed to know that I was playing very tight so everyone folded.
Hey I could use this into my advantage. But first I had to play a big hand against another player to really let them know I was playing very tight. And 2 hands after everyone folded on me, I got AA, went all-in again the 3rd time and was up against 2 other players. AA against KQ and QQ. I had a big advantage. After the flop I got trips and nothing seems to be in my way to seal another big win. The river proved me right.

Now I could take advantage of my status on the table. On the button, I made a big raise against 3 players in the pot, making them fold.
After the turn, with the lowest pair possible, I bluffed my way to victory once again. In no time I was back into the top 100.
With only 400 players left, I also was pretty sure, nothing could stop me from finishing into the money. 70 cents, was the lowest tournament price you could win. Only 32 players had to be knocked out of the tournament.
Just after the first break, it was a won deal. I made it to the money. Who would ever thought off that after my losing streak? It made me very happy, that I didn’t went all-in with that 3 7 earlier on.

I managed to play for another 20 minutes or so, finishing me on a 122nd place, earning me $1,30.
As I recall, one of my highest finishes in PokerStars weekly $1000 freerol.

And with this I also broke the $90 barrier in my quest. I’m just $9,01 away from my next $100 goal.

So a few tips from me for not playing on tilt:
• Keep your calm
• Clean out your head
• Don’t look back at lost plays
• Don’t focus on the players you lost against! If they’re any good, they’ll know you’re on tilt and will knock you out for sure!
• And keep the fun in the game.

I’m pretty sure one of you experienced a similar case once or twice. You have any tips on beating going on tilt?

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The final table is what every poker player that enters a tournament wants to reach.
It’s hard work to get there, so whenever you do, you definitely don’t want to go out first. Especially if you know that the real money is in the top 3 places.

So whenever you’re at that precious final table, make sure you play your best poker of the whole tournament.

Depending on what stack you’re having, you’ll have to change your strategy, because you can’t just play anything with a low stack and high blinds. So when your low stacked, it’s probably best to go all in preflop whenever you have cards like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010 and even 99. Also suited AK, AQ, AJ or non suited AK can be played like this. If you get called, you probably have the highest chance to win the pot. And if you do lose, well to bad, cards are unpredictable. But if you do win, you’ll double up and you’ll have another chance to play some more cards and finish higher. So key play here is very tight!

If you’re mid stacked, you can play a bit more hands than if your stack is low, but you’ll have to be careful whenever you play a hand. Especially against a player with a high stack. They tend to try and scare other players with making big bets, even if they don’t hold anything. So only call those bets if you’re more than 80% sure you can win it. Otherwise it isn’t worth the risk, you can start to play the low stack strategy again before you knew it.
On the other hand, if you’re playing a low stack, you can make some small bets to see how far he’ll follows. Mostly they fold after the flop if they don’t have the highest or 2nd pair. If they didn’t fold on the flop, try again on the turn, but make your bet a bit higher, make sure he won’t get the river card for free. If he still call’s this bet, he’ll probably have a better hand than you, so check on the river if you can as it could cost you more if you don’t.  Only make a bet here if you’re pretty sure you’re holding the best hand.

If you’re high stacked, I feel it’s probably best to first observe how your opponents are playing. Only play top hands at first and let them think you’re playing very tight. An advantage of observing is that some impatience players will go all in after a few hands and hopefully loose, making sure you’ll end up higher than the 9th place. Another strategy is to play against the low stacks. Make big bets, almost pushing them all in preflop. They only call with big hands. And if they don’t call, the blinds will shrink their stack play by play.
After you observed your opponents, you probably recognized their playing style and you can adjust yours to beat them. What I try to do is always stay in the top 3 stacks at the table. Don’t take too much risk, but do call a hand sometimes (if it doesn’t cost too much) even if you know you’re losing, just to know what they’re playing. You can use this info later in the game.
If you came to the river against a low stack, always go all in if you think you’ll have a 60% of winning. If they call and you win, it’s a player less to worry about. If they win, too bad, but it didn’t cost you much. If they don’t call, congratulations, you won another pot.
Playing against mid stack players after the river can be played like this also, but here you’ll probably be 90 to 95% sure you’ll win. This will cost you half your stack if you lose, and we don’t want that.

Before you’ll know it you’ll be playing heads up.

What about you, do you change your strategy once you’re at the final table?