Mental PreperationOne of the most overlooked aspects of winning poker is attitude. Being cocky can lead to great success in poker. Whether you are entering a poker tournament or a cash game you should sit down with the attitude that "I can, I will, and I am going to win!." Optimism is crucial in anything you want to be successful at in life and especially POKER. Like anything else if you go into it with the wrong pesimistic ideas like "I hope I don't do too bad, or I want to at least win my money back" you won't do very well! It is also important to get plenty of rest the night before and get a good meal in you before playing serious poker. This will allow you to sit down at the poker table full of energy, and ready to take on all comers.Early StagesAt the start of a poker tournament people tend to play very loose seeing a lot of flops with hopes of just getting lucky. They do this simply because the blinds are so inexpensive in the beginning of a tournament. They think well it's only 50 chips to me. This is the absolute wrong way to start a poker tournament. Lets say the blinds are 25 and 50. If you see 10 flops with marginal hands that is a minimum of 500 chips you will have lost. That's pretty substantial. I start every tournament as if each poker chip represents one dollar of my own real money. I play solid poker accumulating chips with strong holdings against their limping hands. This allows me to work my way up to the top of the leaderboard pretty easily. The whole time my chip stack is increasing while theirs is dwindling away.Mid To Late StagesRight about now you are sitting pretty with enough chips to just sit back and cruise your way into the money. Some people are fine with this, but not us! That's the same type of poor metallity I discussed in the mental preperation section. All those loose players from earlier are now short stacked. The blinds have gone up with antes added on to each hand now. We need to start putting pressure on the short stacks. Start raising in late position with any 2 reasonable starting hands. This doesn't mean play 9 2 or 7 3. You should never play hands that weak unless you are in the big blind and everyone limps to you. I would say poker hands like 5 6 or even 7 9 are ok to raise with now though. The short stacks are going to fold 80 percent of the time anyway. The whole time you are still accumulating chips by stealing their blinds and antes. You are collecting protection money for the other 20 percent of the time when they call your raise or push allin. If they do come over the top of you keep in mind the pot odds. If you bet and they raise you your hand is not that weak. If you are getting better than 2 to 1 odds on your money you should make the call! You want to play smart, but eliminate a player every chance you get. My final table advice varies depending on chip stacks and the types of players who I'm playing against. Chances are you will have at least a little knowledge of these players just from being bounced to different tables throughout the poker tournament. Generally I like to play mostly strong starting hands with a few opportunistic bluffs mixed in.It doesn't matter if you prefer to play poker online or in a brick and mortar casino. This strategy will make you a better tournament poker player. So get out there and build your bankrolls!

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