The action is folded to me and I decided that I was ahead after some careful thought and decided to Jam. Albert called immediately and showed A8 so my read was correct and had a great chance to take out a dangerous player. I was 63% favourite to win the hand when all of the money went in, a tie was 23% and Albert 14% (approx percentages) .The turn was Jc therefore going to the river it was looking good anything lower than a 8 I win and anything higher it ’s a split but oh no it was my favourite dealer King Jack off who decided to put down the 8 of hearts doh!!!. The funny thing is that I knew it was coming sometimes you just know and I got up from my chair and wished Albert and all of the rest of the table the very best.

So lets move on to the middle stages of a tournament and contemplate what we should be doing? I have one friend online a big Multi specialist who actually pays someone to play the early stages of the tournament as he gets some sleep, which I always find quite amusing. Well this is my favourite part of the game, as your strategy needs to adjust accordingly with the blinds, as they are now a significant part of your chipstack.

Therefore gone is all of the limping and playing pocket pairs out of position and you will often see players raising when entering the pot pre-flop. You cannot call preflop raises with hands that are dominated unless you and your opponent both have deep stacks, which means that the player who enters the pot with a raise often wins the pot, or can take down the pot with a bet on the flop. The players who are tight will often see their stack diminishing whilst the aggressive players take control and my advice would be to at least minimum steal the blinds once or twice per round. Remember you want to be raising not calling raises in the middle stage of the tournaments - and especially not out of position. Try to get in with a raise and take the blinds down pre-flop, or with a bet on the flop. Stealing blinds will allow you to survive long enough and then get dealt premium hands.

The overall strategy that I try to practice myself is one that does quite a bit of blind stealing whenever any type of positive situation arises, but also exercises some restraint based on my image as well as the players left to act behind me. Most people at the big slick know me well for my tight aggressive approach and the constant murmuring of RAISE!!

If you happen to find yourself at a normal table, try to pick a better than average hand in middle to late position and also try to attack players who don't play a very confrontational style. If they are habitually releasing their big blind to a raise, they are the player you want to attack if you are in late position and everyone has folded to you. By the same token, if you notice someone raising your big blind almost every round if he's the first in the pot, don't just sit there and take it! Pick a hand, and play back at him and Jam!

Finally some other comments on blind stealing are that you should mainly use standard 3x or 4x the big blind raises. You want to go as small as possible while still having a good chance of winning right away. If you notice that the table is folding to 2.5x raises then go ahead and alter your steal raises to match that. The important thing is that you don't want to go too small that people are going to call but you also want to save chips when someone reraises and you have to throw your hand away. Also, take a look at the stacks of the players behind you and figure out whether or not you will be pot committed to call their reraise all in or not. The amount of players I see raising a short-stacked players Big Blind with muck is ridiculous and effectively this is a criminal offence in my book. If you can get away from your hand, then just make the normal raise. If not, it is a mistake to not just go all in to begin with and make it harder for those players behind you to call your bet. This is something most people don't even think about, but is actually a huge part of tournament strategy.

Finally on a personal note things have been going well online after winning a trip to Singapore last month I finished in the top 10 for the Mid to High stakes on Betfair Poker for the month of August.

In my next article I shall cover the end game.

See you at the tables …

Scotty ((Shaa boom))