We're not huge fans of multi-table limit tournaments. We'll admit it. We personally think that there's too much luck involved. Nevertheless, the Party Poker Million and Empire Poker Crown Tournament have increased the popularity of these tournaments. To succeed at these tournaments requires a slight change in strategy from your usual limit game.

The most fundamental change to your game play involves the "gap" concept. Midway and later through limit tournaments, you must change your style of play from simply trying to get the best of it (winning money in the long run) to just winning pots. Instead of pot odds being your guiding force, you simply need to try to win the pots you play. Since the blinds are so high, you don't want much competition, as a simple blind steal will help your position tremendously.

You should begin playing hands that are likely to win. Flush draws and straight draws lose a tremendous amount in value and high and mid-pocket pairs soar. A-K and A-Q also go up in value because they have most other hands dominated (e.g. A-K vs. A-10 or A-Q vs. K-Q). Late in limit tournaments, you want to avoid heavy conflicts with dominated hands (i.e. you don't want to have A-J against his A-K even though he will pay off nicely if A-J is on board).

In order to conform to this strategy, you'll have to do two things. First, if the mood is tight, you should be more willing to go in on marginal hands just in order to steal the blinds. Always, always raise pre-flop with these hands. If you are two off the button with A-9, you should consider raising to steal the blinds. However, the second change you should make is to avoid conflict. If someone has already raised, you certainly should chunk that A-9 if you're one off the button. The underlying concept here again is dominating hands-you want your opponents to fold because they are afraid they are dominated and you want to fold if you may be dominated. If you raise with A-9, someone with A-10 certainly will consider folding because they're afraid you have A-J, A-Q, or A-K, and thus have them dominated.

Now, what if you are dealt a premium hand like K-K and someone has raised? There's no way you can chunk this hand pre-flop; what are the chances your opponent has A-A? In this situation, you should re-raise to knock people out. Raising and lots of re-raising is the key; you want to send your opponent a message that you are challenging him for all of his chips if he plays against you in this hand. When you are dealt a big gun like K-K, you want to make your stand.

Obviously, throughout all of this, you should take into consideration the strength of your opponents. Good players understand the "gap" concept and will fold if they have borderline hands like A-10. However, bad players will simply call. Bad players play their hand; good players play their hand relative to other people's hands. If you see the flop with a bad player, he will most likely fold if you bet and he hasn't hit and will call you to the river if he has. A good player knows that if he has A-10 and there's an ace on the flop, he may be finished because of a kicker. A bad player is just happy he's got top pair.

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