Top Ten Tools to Learn No Limit Hold ‘Em Tournament Poker

If you’re looking to get started in poker, whether live or online, no limit hold ’em tournaments are a great diving off point. They are exciting, easier to learn than many other forms of poker, and less demanding of skill. For just a few dollars, you can potentially play for several hours and even be in a position to win many times your initial investment!

I got my start in tournament poker, and though I mostly play cash games these days, I still have a soft spot (some might say self-destructive addition) to tournament play. I’ve collected these tools to help you on your way to the final table:

1. 2+2 Forums

The Small-Stakes and High-Stakes multi-table tournament forums sponsored by 2+2 Publishing are nothing short of amazing. Where else can you find winners of WSOP, WPT, and EPT events offering free poker advice to aspiring pros currently playing $5 and $10 tournaments? The best players you’ve never heard of, and some you have, are all posting on 2+2. These forums have made me literally tens of thousands of dollars, and there’s no better way to learn than to read and post hands there.

Runner Up: None. There are plenty of other forums, but none comes close enough to the quality of 2+2 to be considered a runner up. Accept no substitutions.

2. Attacking and Defending Dead Money in Tournament Poker

I’ve written a lot of articles about tournament strategy for 2+2 Internet Magazine, but this one offers my best introduction to the game.

Runner Up: My Other Poker Articles– Once you understand the fundamentals, a lot of my other articles will help you to improve particular aspects of your games. You might also want to look at my blog posts about tournament play.

3. Harrington on Hold ’em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments

This three-volume series revolutionized tournament play and introduced novice players to what were then advanced techniques like the continuation bet and the squeeze play. Though they aren’t without their critics, they are widely considered among the best tournament books on the market. I haven’t written reviews of these myself yet, but at the very least they are worth reading to know what will be in your opponents’ playbooks.

4. Poker Stove

This free utility calculates your equity against either specific hands or a range of hands that you assign to one or more opponents. It is particularly useful for tournaments because of how often you’ll be considering making or calling an all in bet. One of the best ways of to master late-game tournament situations is to play around with this handy gadget and see how your different hands fare against various ranges. The results may surprise you!

5. The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition



This excellent anthology discusses tournament play in the context of a great many poker games, but the emphasis is on NLHE. It includes an extensive discussion of NLHE topics not found elsewhere in print, including Howard Lederer on leverage and Chris Ferguson on post-flop play. Check out my reviews of select chapters!

6. Poker Tracker

The only reason Poker Tracker isn’t ranked higher than this is that it is somewhat more useful for ring game than for tournament play. Tournament hands are harder to analyze in the aggregate, since so much depends on factors like stack sizes and stage of the tournament that Poker Tracker doesn’t capture. Still, it is a fantastic and inexpensive way to track your results, record and replay hands for future study, and begin to analyze your play.

Runner Up: Tourney Trax– Truthfully, I haven’t had a chance to check this out yet, but it’s created by well-known tournament pro Justin “Jurollo” Rollo, so I’m assuming it’s good. It’s a tool for tracking tournament results specifically.

7. Poker Ace HUD

HUD stands for “heads up display”. I’m not sure why it’s called that, but this handy tool overlays the statistics that Poker Tracker has collected about an opponent directly onto your screen. You have to be careful during tournament play, however, since so many decisions are situational. A player who is tight with a 15 BB stack may be very loose and aggressive with a 40 BB stack, but his stats won’t reflect this distinction. Still, it’s helpful to know how often your opponents attempt to steal blinds, defend their own blinds, etc.

Runner Up: Poker Tracker Version 3– It’s still in Beta at the moment, but eventually the much anticipated new version of Poker Tracker will include an integrated HUD. As a result of PT3’s much superior data collection capacity, crucial stats like 3-bet frequency will be available as an overlay. Look for this to replace Poker Ace as the HUD of choice when it goes live.

8. Card Runners

Although I’m a guest pro at Poker Savvy Plus, I must admit that Card Runners offers a better selection of tournament videos. With top-notch pros like JSchnett, Adanthar, ActionJeff, and RandallFlowers, you’ll be able to watch a variety of strong players with different styles tackle tournament play at all stakes.

Runner Up: Poker Savvy Plus– Poker Savvy Plus is a great poker training site in general and is rapidly improving its tournament offerings. Although he mostly makes (excellent) cash game videos, Ansky does have a strong tournament background. Justin Rollo is the main tournament guy, but ShaunDeeb and Tony “Bond18” Dunst are prominent guests. I may even be working on a little something tournament-related myself…. Plus it’s currently free to sign up AND you get a 7-day free trial, so there’s really nothing to lose by checking it out.

9. Tournament Poker for Advanced Players: Expanded Edition


The expanded edition makes David Sklansky’s canonical tournament book much more useful to the NLHE player. It includes new material on to play, and defend against, a short stack, how to adjust the payout structure and aggressive play in modern tournaments, and more! It’s a much more theoretical book than the Harrington and FTP books, which makes it somewhat less useful for those who are just learning. But if you’re an experienced player looking to improve, it’s a great resource.

10. Professional No Limit Hold’Em

Though not explicitly a tournament book, PNL is a great introduction to NLHE play in general, and its emphasis on playing stacks of various sizes makes it more applicable to tournaments than many cash game books. Authors Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, and Ed Miller do an admirable job of breaking complex NLHE situations into discrete elements that beginners can digest and use.

Runner Up: No Limit Hold ‘Em Theory and Practice– Theory and Practice is ultimately a better book than Professional No Limit, but it’s less useful for those starting out in NLHE tournament poker. For one thing, it’s a more advanced and theoretical book, and for another, there’s less focus on how stack sizes affect decision making. It’s still an excellent book, required reading for any serious NLHE player.