A little more work on my Poker Plan w/ some good tournament strategy links.

I outlined my reading plan in a recent post. Here are some players’ thoughts with regard to the order in which to read the books I recommended.

I got a little busy at work last week and was putting in some long hours so I opted not to play much in my exhausted state, but I have been doing a lot of reading. I’m still working my way through Sklansky & Miller's No Limit Hold'em Theory & Practice. And I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading in 2+2’s Multi-Table Tournament Forum and Small-Stakes No-Limit Forum.

I’ve also been working on fleshing out my plan for my poker education a bit more. Although I’ve played some larger buy-in online tournaments including $200+15s and $600+15s, it has been awhile since I played tournaments either seriously or consistently. Therefore, in the near term, I’ll be focusing on playing smaller stakes tournaments like the $3-$11 buy-in tournaments at Pokerstars and Party Poker. My immediate goal is to be playing at least one tournament five days a week. Here's a discussion of which online tourneys are best for small stakes players looking to build their bankroll.

I’ve also decided in the near term to focus most of my online reading to MTT strategy posts at the 2+2 Multi-Table Tournament Forum and similar other forums rather than on things like how to play Kjo out of position. My reason for this is that in evaluating my play, I feel like tournament strategy is a big weakness for me. When I don’t get deep in tournaments it tends to be because of something like playing too aggressively at a period of the tournament when I should be playing tighter or vice versa. I’m not getting the inflection points right – not changing gears. That’s just an example, and I’ll still work on the play of individual hands. I’m certainly not saying I’m an expert, but I’m going to try to focus on what I see as my bigger weakness first.

I’ve also been finding myself short-stacked too early in tournaments. This tells me a couple of things I’m probably doing wrong. First, I don’t think I’m playing enough pots early on. When I do play them, I may not be getting out of them quickly enough when I’m on the losing end. I’m also probably calling more often than I should when I’m not committed to the pot. Here are a few good posts on building a stack early in tournaments that I’ve been reading this week.

Survival is not the goal.

Survivors vs. Accumulators.

How chip values change during a tournament.