Poker phenomenon Annette Obrestad – Better known as Annette_15 recently made the transition from online tournament poker pro to live game star after winning the inaugural World Series Europe. This article follows an analysis of many of Annette_15’s online poker tournament achievements. We look at how she plays and break these down into bite-sized poker strategy pieces that can be used to improve our games at the tables.

This is part #1 of a 2 part series – the second part will look in detail at Annette Obrestad’s final table play.

Note: This article is kindly reproduced from a series of blog posts originally published at Online Poker Blog: Plan3t Gong.

Annette_15 Poker Strategy #1 – Early Game Tournament Play

Disciplined – Early poker tournament strategy involved very few fancy plays, just solid ABC poker taking advantage of the cards on offer.
Ace Hands – Folded! Annette never plays aces with small kickers in the early game, even folding Ace-Queen to a small pre-flop raise with several opponent’s still to act.
Raising Not Calling – Annette very rarely calls any raise. Either the hand is good enough for a re-raise or it is not played at all.
Open Raises – Most pairs and any suited connectors are raised from any position with a ‘standard’ 3 times the big blind bet.
Continuation Bets – Annette 15’s Poker tournament play involved a very high percentage of continuation bets where she raised pre-flop. These were a good size, around 2/3rds to 3/4s of the pot size.
No Slow-Playing! – Strong hands were always played in a straightforward manner with raises and re-raises, no tricky play or slow-playing in the early stages.

Annette_15 Poker Strategy #2 – Mid-Game Tournament Play

Disciplined Short-Stack Play – After losing a big-pot and getting down to a micro-stack Annette 15 folded several hands waiting for something with showdown value, discipline that many players would not have shown!
Implied Odds – At 15 times the big blind suited connectors and small pairs are folded, showing an awareness of the lack of correct odds to play these hands.
Stealing Stack Size – Tight play with open-raising with 15 times the blind was countered by a loosening up of re-stealing strength. All-in re-steals being most common when an opponent raised from either the button or the cut-off seats.
Gap Concept – Annette_15 consistently shows not only awareness of the gap concept but play very much based on this – a large gap between hands used to open raise and those used to call a raise (or re-raise) throughout the middle stages, even when holding a large stack of chips.
UTG Steals – Well they say that ‘UTG is the new button’ and Annette Obrestad seems more than aware of this. More than once stealing a ‘vulnerable blind’ by raising a medium strength hand from under the gun.
Raise Sizes – As the blinds got higher Annette’s raises go smaller, shifting from 3 times the big blind in the early stages to 2.5 times in the mid stages of the tournament.
Showing Hands – Finally, many opponents showed hands through the middle stages of the tournament we analyzed. Annette 15 was a notable exception, never showing any hand to give opponents a clue as to her preferred betting patterns.

Annette_15 can be found playing the higher buy-in tournaments at both Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. Make sure you take the time to watch her in action today – insights from the pro’s can give a significant boost to your own poker tournament play.