Some poker players do quite well when it comes to the beginning stages of a poker tournament, only to find themselves struggling in the middle stages of tourneys as the blinds start rising and weaker players are thinned out. And this is unfortunate too because you’re wasting a lot of time by getting to the middle stages of poker tournaments – only to bust out before you have a chance at the money.
This being said, one of the main things you can do to improve your middle tournament play is look to steal as often as possible. Since the blinds are getting higher at this point, every pot you can steal will help tremendously. One of the best spots to steal at is in the blinds because you can watch for frequent late position raisers who are also hoping to steal.
Assuming you’ve watched them long enough to define a range for their late position steals, you will have a very good idea as to when to re-raise. It’s especially nice if you’ve seen a late position raiser fold after being raised by somebody in the blinds. Of course, if nobody has raised when action reaches you in late position or the blinds, then you can be looking to steal when no extremely aggressive players are left to act.
In addition to trying to steal blinds and small pots, you should also limit the amount of flops that you see. Now this isn’t to say you should become a nit who waits for the perfect hand to trap somebody with. However, you don’t want to be trying to see flops with every suited connectors hand because this will cost you a lot of blinds.
Above all, don’t wait to make your moves in the middle portion of a tournament because if your stack gets too low, you won’t be a factor.
