Tournament poker is one of the most exciting ways to play one of the most popular card games around. Since Jamie Gold won 12 million dollars at the 2006 WSOP, there is more incentive than ever to get involved in poker tournament play. One of the interesting things about poker tournaments is it provides myriad opportunities for implementing poker strategy. One thing you will have to understand to play tournament poker effectively is how to handle play on the button.

The button represents the player who is last to act in a given round of play. Acting last in a poker tournament gives you a tremendous advantage, as you will have information about how all the players feel about their hands (or how they want you to think they feel) before you act. What you do with this information can make all the difference in how you fare in the tournament.

When you are on the button, you should be willing to play more hands. This is because you are unlikely to be raised pre-flop since there are only the blinds to act after you, so you will rarely be forced to commit too many chips with a marginal hand. Additionally, if you do flop a strong hand, you will be in the best position to extract chips from your opponents, which obviously is a good thing in a poker game.

You should be less interested in moving all-in from the button than from other positions, although sometimes it will be necessary. Moving all-in pre-flop negates your button advantage, since it eliminates all post flop decisions, and it is in those decisions that your extra information comes into play.

You should be thinking about stealing the blinds when you are in late position. If everyone folds to you, you only have to get past the small and big blinds to win the hand, and unless they have strong hands, which is statistically unlikely, you will usually win the pot right there. When you play poker in a cash game this is a nice bonus, but in tournament poker, it can be a key factor in winning, since the blinds rise in a tournament, meaning they are often much more worth risking chips to win than in a cash game. Players will suspect you of a steal when you raise from late position, but if you make a significant raise, it will still be difficult for opponents to call you without some kind of hand. If you raise too frequently from the button however, you can expect to be called and raised more often.

You may find the player to your right raises often when it is folded around to him. This player is called the cutoff, because he “cuts off” your chance to steal. If you suspect the cutoff of raising on a steal most of the time, you may try a resteal, raising this player again. Many times he will surrender without a fight, since he will assume he is facing a real hand. Even if he calls your raise, you will have position on him throughout the rest of the hand.

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