Divide your Poker Tournament into Stages

Poker tournaments are hard enough to navigate as it is. If you don't take the time to divide your tournament into stages your job will be even more difficult. By dividing your tournament into stages it gives you a barometer of where you need to be and when you need to be there. It's true that there are other factors involved and that it isn't quite as simply as slicing up the tourney but it does help you to keep your overall perspective on the tournament.

There are three stages to tournament play and they are as follows:

Early - this stage is usually the first ninety minutes of the poker tournament. Basically your job is to build your stack as quickly as possible and then take advantage of that stack with speculative hands and calling small raises in attempts to grow it to a larger one.

Middle - the middle stages are where you probably have a decent sized stack by now and are working towards the money. You still want to double up when possible but the weaker players are mostly gone from the field with a few exceptions.

Late - this stage of the poker tournament is devoid of weak players. All of your competitors know how to play tournament poker and blind stealing will be at a premium. You are in the money and making a run at the Final Table from here.

By observing where you are at in the poker tournament you can better pilot your arrival at the final table. With a little luck and a lot of skill you will make your fair share.