Learn poker tournament strategy by watching these FREE video tutorials.

This hand could easily be called the battle of the lags!  Pre-flop there’s a raise and reraise with two callers and the best hand is pocket 9’s.  Going to the flop we have  Daniel with the best hand, 99, followed by Antill with 44, Stucke has KTo, and Jones with 72h.  The BB is 600 and Daniel has made it 2200 to play so the only player with odds to make the call here is Antil with the implied odds to set mine.

You may be confused about this title. After all the likes of Harrington, Gordon, Hellmuth, Duke, and even Vorhaus have reinforced through numerous writings the idea that there are three stages to a tournament. Maybe they believe that, but I really think they may be holding back the goods. I will tell you some of the goods right here and now. Three stages to a tournament is far too simplistic and none of these writers really play by that belief either, whether they believe it or not.