Plug These 5 Poker Tournament Leaks NOW (and Start Winning!)

If you’re getting ready for the WSOP 2024, this poker tournament top 5 is for you! Let a poker pro walk you through the top 5 poker tournament struggles and how to fix them.

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Failing to run deep is one of those poker problems that can have multiple causes. Even if you are a great player, it can take a really long time playing poker tournaments to experience the ‘long run’ and have variance even out to a point where you go on decent runs, build up a big chip stack, and make a final table.

Try not to put too much weight into short term results, but if you experience this issue over the long term, it’s usually because you are playing too tight.

A big part of playing late in a tournament or playing near the bubble is usually playing a short stack poker strategy, or vs a short poker stack, and if you’ve studied shortstack play, you’ll know that a huge part of it is aggression and being willing to risk your chips.

In live poker or online poker, you want to be putting people in tough spots instead of being put in a tought position yourself.

Energy Management is the second important poker concept explored in today's video. If you’re playing a multi-day tournament or playing a multi-tournament schedule you will have to deal with playing more hours of poker than you can likely stay fresh for.

You will experience fatigue and, if you are caffeinated, potentially a crash. If you don’t manage your expectations and your sleep, your poker play will likely suffer for it.

Adjusting to the Structure is another key problem that many poker players struggle with. Phil might play tight poker one level knowing the next level has large antes where his new tight image can be taken advantage of with more loose and aggressive play.

Adapting to new circumstances might seem like a simple enough poker concept but it’s one that you need to be especially wary of later in the tournaments or when you’ve been playing for a while.

We all learn early on that stack size dictates our options but when you’ve been playing a poker tournament for 12 hours and you drop from the biggest stack at the table to being average-stacked it can be difficult to adjust your play.

Learning to observe each hand and the information involved as it happens rather than auto-piloting is difficult but key to outplaying massive tournament fields.

Your short-handed poker experience will be a major factor in whether you are able to consistently win poker tournaments. If you’re playing poker tournaments you’re mostly going to be playing a full table or close to it, it’s only when you get down to the bubble or the final table that short-handed play is a factor.

Remember, if you improve how well you play heads-up poker, 3-handed, 4-handed, and so on you improve how well you play in 6-max and full-ring games when you take those principals over.


Are you a new poker player or a poker beginner? Do you just need the best poker strategy and best poker tips or do you have a high stakes poker related question you’d like a poker professional’s advice on? Leave a comment and your question might end up in the next one of Phil’s quick poker tips videos!

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Editor: Matti Harju
Creative Specialist: Miikka Anttonen
Brand Design: Dan Deming-Henes
Soundtrack: Epidemic Sound

00:00 Intro
00:27 Failing to run deep
03:31 Energy management
05:30 Adjusting to the structure
07:07 Adapting to new circumstances
09:24 Lack of short-handed experience
09:55 Bonus tip