During the early stages of the tournament, when blinds are low, try to see as many cheap flops as possible. Bluffing does not hold a lot of value because you stand to lose more than you win. For example, if you have 2,000 in chips and you bluff 500 chips at a 500-chip pot where you have a 60% chance of winning. If you win the pot, you are up to 2,500 in chips, but losing puts you down to 1,500 in chips, so the negative outweighs the positive. There is no money value in having chips. The only money comes from making it to the top 10% of all players, and preferably the final table. You need to win some pots early so that the blinds do not wipe out your stack over time. Aim for cheap flops, and take out weak players when you have strong cards.

When you are in the middle stages of the tournament, try to see flops when they are cheap. Focus on stealing blinds; raise when you are first to enter the pot. A good raise is three to four times the big blind. The gap is more prevalent during this stage, so raising to steal the pot is a good strategy. When someone raises ahead of you, they are more likely to have a good hand, so be more selective of the hand you choose to call with. Build your stack in phases by taking down small pots, and avoid confrontations where your hand is not strong. Survival is important. If you have a good stack, raise often and make others think about calling because they want to survive. Pick your spots, or players will call you when all you have is middle pair. Watch for weak players because they will call everything, which can work against you when they hit flushes and straights on the river.

During the later stage of the tournament, blinds are high and players tend to go all-in before the flop when they have short stacks. Short stacks have to move quickly before being wiped out by the blinds and antes. Going all-in is a good strategy when you have an Ace high with a good kicker or a pocket pair. This tends to put you at an advantage over most other hands. Pocket pairs against another set of pocket pairs is either a very large advantage or very large disadvantage (depending on which player has the higher pair). When you are in a good stack position, you can bluff other players and be more aggressive in your play.

Multi-table No-Limit tournaments tend to take a long time to play, so you have the opportunity to watch your opponents play a lot of hands. Learn as much as you can about players – how they played their strong cards, how often they bluff, what are their betting tendencies, etc. Knowledge is power in poker.