There are a few significant points that you should be aware of and make adjustments for when playing in a Texas Hold’em tournament. The main points are as follows:

1. When you are broke, you are out of the game; when someone else is broke, he is out of the game.

2. The pay-off structure- your placement is very important if/when you go broke.

3. The stakes are raised constantly.

4. Hands played between other players affect you as well.

Taking the above points into consideration, you must:

1. Play tighter, especially if you are not the first player entering the pot. If a tight player raised from an early position, and your pocket cards are:

     .
you should usually fold.

2. Create a tight image in the early stages of the tournament by not seeing so many Flops. You can use this image later.

3. Pay attention to your stack size and to your opponent’s stack size in every hand you play. Be careful of the bigger stack players and the tight short stacked players. If you are not experienced with tournaments, try to play more against the average stacks.

4. Be aggressive when you are the first one to enter the pot. For example: you are in

sixth position in a 10-player table, you have    , and no one has entered the pot. Raise about 4 times the big blind.

5. Consider your position. In any No Limit game, and especially in a tournament, the importance of your position increases. Play only great hands from an early position.
 
6. Be careful of the multi-player pot, even when you have a good hand. For

example: you raise 3 bets from seat 5 with  ,   
Player from seat 7 raises to 10 bets, seat 1 calls. In this situation you should fold because even if an ace comes along, you will probably not have the best hand.

7. Slow-play less. Unless you have the Nuts or very close to it, slow-playing is probably a bad idea. You can get yourself into a situation where a player hits a miracle card and you would have to pay him your entire stack. For example: if your hand is:

   
and the Flop is:

you should bet rather then slow-play.

8. When the pot is relatively big and you think you have the best hand, consider taking the pot immediately rather than making more money.