Hey all sorry if this question has been asked 1000 times but is there any good training material/books out there for daily casino tournaments? I'm talking about the $30- $150 buy in events that usually start with 50 bb but have 15-20 minute levels with blinds either doubling or increasing substantially. I find most stuff out there is geared toward the higher buy in events with longer levels and more time to maneuver.

I do have Harrington on holdem as well as kill phil and kill everyone but haven't read yet (they just came a few days ago) thanks yall!

Those tournaments are incredibly high variance. General rules of thumb

1. In the early stages, stacks will be deep and player pool will have tons of poor players. Feel free to call or open wide, but play primarily for value postflop
2. In the middle stages, play tighter and more aggressively. Don't limp or flat into a lot of hands post flop, as you will end up bleeding out on a lot of missed draws.
3. Unless you are lucky, you will likely be short stacked when you start getting deeper into the tournament. This is because the blinds increase so fast (every 7 to 12 hands) that you don't have time to wait for a good hand,, but you are going to be reluctant to invest a lot of your stack with suited connectors or broadway cards. Wait until you are between 5 and 10 bb left, and start shoving wide. Avoid shoving over an open raise unless you have a strong hand, and always be aware of the short stacks behind you (especially in the blinds). The last thing you want to do is open shove Q5 from the cutoff, and then remember that the BB only has 2.5 bb total.

If you can cash in 1 in 4 of these dailies, you are doing OK. if you can cash in 1 in 3 of these, you are doing very well.

Thanks bud that's sound advice. I'm a truck driver and try to make it to casinos to play when I can but find most of the time all that's available is 1/2 cash or a "7pm $50 re-entry bounty" lol

Not directly related to the daily tournaments, but as a truck driver you could probably find all those books on audiobook and podcasts to listen to while you’re driving and help improve your game that way.


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The casino 'dailies' are there to attract players in the hopes that they will play cash before or after. Although there is some skill that you can apply, as noted above, you really need to run good in order to cash in them consistently. They are good practice for situations that come up in larger tournaments as far as playing short-stacked or short-handed which you don't really experience until the very late stages of larger tournaments and rarely at a cash table. The biggest issue is your competition certainly will not be playing like 'good' tournament player when you are in those spots, so even though you are learning and playing 'correctly' you will still run into 'gotta go' or 'birthday' hands from your opponents.

Dailies are a good way to limit your losses and still get in 2-3 hours of poker, even if you sit on your hands. Typically if you don't get into Level 6 with chips you are toast! GL

The mind set of the opponents is both one of the most lucrative and frustrating aspects of playing these dailies. Countless times, you will have bet pre to narrow villains range, bet the flop to give draws a bad price, bet the turn, and then still lose when villain calls all three streets and rivers trips to go with his bottom pair. Yes, it can be very profitable when players make -EV calls, but in turbo dailies, almost every single hand (past level 3) has the potential to be for stacks, so it only takes one ridiculous calling station to ruin your day.

Is the original Harrington on Holdem series still recommended, especially if you’re newer to tournament play? Or does anyone have thoughts on his most recent tournament book? Very curious to hear people’s thoughts.

"The Poker Tournament Formula" by Arnold Snyder has an interesting approach to these "fast" tournaments. Might be worth checking out.

Most tournament books apply more to normal "slow" structure tournaments.