To win team poker events sometimes you have to sacrifice your own chips to give your team mates a chance at the pot. This can be really hard in the middle of a game in all the excitement. You must keep a close eye on your poker team mates at all times and think of the best ways you can all win. Remember if you win the event everyone will share the winnings so the risks to your own stack are worth it.
Team event playing is about trust. You need to make sure your team has practiced together as much as possible and knows each other’s play techniques well.
Top Tips
Playing in poker team tournaments is really exciting and you will have friends ready to support you at all times. Here are just a few tips for the best team poker play tactics:
- Protect Your Team – if you have managed to build up a good poker stack then you will need to look out for those less fortunate team mates. There are several key ways to donate to players that are in danger of falling out of the game. One key way is to ‘dump’ chips. To do this wait until you are the small blind and they are the big blind. Place the blind and then fold. Another way is also to call and then fold so that they get the benefit of the full blind. Agree these tactics beforehand so the short-stacked players know when to expect some help.
- Fold – look out for team members going all in. They are going to be risking a lot so you need to back them up. If the rest of the table folds you MUST fold too. Don’t hesitate just do it as if you stay in the game and have the winning hand you could knock them out of the whole game.
- Lose to Win – you may have the perfect poker winning hand. It could be almost too good to be true and you know you can’t lose. However sometimes you will need to fold that perfect hand. This is the sacrifice of playing for a team instead of yourself. You cannot let yourself think in terms of personal wins anymore. In team events playing for your own interests is very dangerous and could see you getting short sighted about how your team mates are faring. One of the main reasons why poker teams lose is because their own players defeat each other through thoughtless plays.