Decrease the field and Increase your Profit

Did you know that by decreasing the number of entries in your tournament you increase you opportunities to cash? You know now. Usually this mistake is made by poker players that are new to the game. The excitement of getting out there and playing a tournament can be overwhelming for some. Unfortunately, you can also forget about the details if you allow your excitement to stop you from thinking clearly.

It is true that many poker tournaments today have much larger fields than they used to due to the growth in popularity of the game. Tournaments that used to field 100 to 300 players now have 500 to 1000+ players. This is even more evident in the World Series of Poker where the numbers steadily increased up until this year for the No Limit Main Event. One thing that I believe is key to tournament selection is the size of the field. None of us can predict the exact number of entrants in any tournament until it is announced. However, we can approximate based on similar events in the same venue and therefor arrive at the correct conclusion when entering the tournament.

Most times I plan on the field being larger than I anticipated. Usually it isn't by many but over the past 3 years poker tournaments continue to do well in casinos around the world. I know that most of the time I am going to have a reasonable edge on my opponents. Therefor the smaller the field the better the opportunity there is to cash and make a run at the final table. Smaller fields mean less variance and less variance means the better players are going to "get there" more often than most.