Beginners do many mistakes in poker and you can learn from the experience of others by reading strategy guides. Many such strategy guides will teach you what to do in cash games and even give you some advanced tournament strategies , but leave out the basics of playing in poker tourneys.

Tournaments are more difficult to play than in cash games because the consequences can be great: one such mistake and you are out of the tournament. Some tournaments have thousands of players and most of these will lose up their chips very fast at the beginning. These are the rookies, or at least those who didn’t focus and did a rookie mistake.

First of all, a major mistake is not being able to read the board. An ability to read the board is essential in any Texas Hold’em poker game and doubly so in poker tournaments, where the mistakes cost far more than in cash games.

You need to look at the poker star board after the flop and see that those three cards of the same suit might be the reason why some opponent will rise a lot the pot. Your opponent could have a flush and your pocket aces will certainly not beat a flush, so before risking your chips in a betting war, think about what hand your opponent might have. Constant focus is required for this, so that you wouldn’t notice that a flush was possible only after you lost a lot of your chips in such an incident.

Many players such as Phil Ivey, and especially among those who leave early the tournaments, will go all-in with bad hands. If you don’t have a good hand, don’t bluff and call all-in. Let some other beginner to call this and save your money for a time you have a great hand. One of the two players who go in a bidding war will go out and that might be in your favor, too, it’s one less player to fight against.

Gambling is also wrong. Skill counts more than luck in poker, so if you base yourself on luck, it’s more likely you’ll lose than you’ll win. That’s why you shouldn’t gamble, and I define gambling as making a bet without knowing what will happen. Of course, poker players do have a risk, but you can reduce this risk by using reason to make conscious decisions. There are players who will raise when they have a low pair, hoping for a quad in the flop. It might happen, but it’s more probable it won’t and you’ll lose your money.