A different look at No Limit Holdem tournament play

No Limit Hold'em Tournaments - No Limit Texas Holdem: "Frankly, No Limit Hold'em is just about the worst game to play with huge tournament fields. Skill will contribute to victory, but luck will be the greater influence. Again, this is the way Holdem is designed. It is a game of small edges. Even 'dominating' situations like AcKs versus Ah7d are less than 3-1. Imagine playing 3-1 situations fifty times for all your chips. Eventually you will lose, unless you get outlandishly lucky. Of course, in the real world often times in all-in situations you will have more chips than your opponent, and thus won't be eliminated when you lose, but still it is a humbling reality to understand that even the greatest player will need a huge amount of luck to win a large No Limit Holdem event. (Luck is not nearly so central to Limit poker, or other games like Draw poker, where dominating situations are 100% to zero, like a pat full house versus a pat flush.)

Lots of people play poorly, and will gladly shove all their chips in as 1-3 underdogs. Part of their poor play is that they have no clue that they are such dogs!

Major No Limit Holdem tournaments are becoming like $3/6 Holdem games in Los Angeles... a large chunk of the skill required to win is very basic and simple, but it is absolute, pure skill where you consistently take the best of it into showdown situations and absorb fluctuations when you have bad luck. Some folks have always claimed they can't beat loose LA $3/6 games, and the reason for that simply is they don't adapt and don't play well. Some skills that work in tougher games are useless, and the way to win is fairly mechanical, but over time it is enormously profitable... even if the psychic pain of often losing to goofball play is hard for almost everyone to stomach.

The game is being revolutionized... good play is being rewarded significantly more than two years ago. But in some cases it is not so easy to see, and in fact, in some circumstances you may never now it."