With the World Series of Poker upon us, many of you reading this may be looking to play your fi rst (or one of your fi rst) WSOP events. I thought I’d give a little primer on strategy adjustments you can make and what you should be prepared for.

1) Play Tight Early On

I can’t stress this enough. Specifi cally in the lower buy-in No Limit events, you will not have many chips to start with. In the $1500 NL events, you will have only 4500 starting chips. Before you know it, blinds will be at 100/200.

Capitalize on pre-fl op edges. Raise when you have the best hand, fold when you don’t. You know how you can call a raise with 2-2 to hit your set in a deep-stacked cash game? Well you can’t really do this when you only have twenty big blinds.

Furthermore, the number one biggest mistake BY FAR that your opponents will be making is that they will be playing too loose, especially by playing too many hands pre-fl op. This means that if you want to play a hand, you should wait until you have one strong enough that you are willing to put a lot of chips in with.

2) Start to “Play Poker” Later On

Many of these events will have shortstacked structures in the early stages, but will actually have better structures later on. There will be more room to get tricky during the later levels. For example, stealing the blinds becomes a lot more valuable when the antes kick in. Also, bluffi ng becomes a much more viable strategy after the super-loose players have busted out and the remaining players are more poker savvy.

3) Don’t Get Abused on the Bubble

In many of the tournaments, players will become so dead-set on cashing that they will let themselves nearly blind out of the tournament. If you are playing a $2000 tournament, $3000 might seem like a lot of money to you, but if you have an average stack with ten percent of the fi eld remaining, you should be thinking a lot bigger than profi ting only fi fty percent of the buy-in.

There are a few specifi c things to keep in mind. If you have aggressive players after you, do not put yourself in a position where you put a lot of chips in the pot only to fold on a later street. This is a huge disaster against someone that knows what’s going on, especially when you end up folding the best hand. A good rule of thumb on the bubble is, if you aren’t willing to put all your chips in on a hand, don’t invest anything other than a very small portion of your stack.

4) Don’t Get Intimidated by “The Pros”

The worst plays I see in the World Series almost always occur against TV pros. I think the reason for this is that the amateurs get intimidated or trick themselves into overthinking situations. The absolute best way to play against a pro that you may be afraid of is tight and aggressive. Don’t bet small enough or play passively enough that you can give him a chance to suck out. Don’t go out of your way to bluff him in a situation where you wouldn’t otherwise bluff. Play your standard game. If you do this, there really won’t be much the pro can do to take advantage of you no matter who he is.

Don’t play too many hands against the pros, but when you do play a hand, play it aggressively! Don’t give the pro a chance to outplay you.

5) Don’t Talk

DON’T TALK. I can’t tell you how common it is to see amateurs giving away the strength of their hand by talking. Use some common sense. If you’re sitting across from Daniel Negreanu and he asks you if you have a big hand, don’t answer him! He will use that information as a weapon. If he so much as asks you what your favorite color is while you’re in a hand, do not answer him! He’s talking to you for a reason. He wants you to give up the strength of your hand, and he’s damn good at it. So, stay silent, regardless of whether or not you have a huge hand, or are bluffi ng.

Hopefully with this advice you can avoid making a huge mistake in the World Series of Poker. Anyone can win a bracelet, so with a little luck and a little skill, maybe this year will be your year!