The big tournament circuit goes quiet: it's the gap between the end of the World Series and the start of the EPT.

The card room at the casino is quieter, which makes me wonder whether the regulars are off on holiday with wives and children they NEVER MENTION the rest of the time.
Online, we're in that waity-waity phase before the WCOOP in September, like the run-up to Christmas Eve.

Well, I'm not planning to scale down just because it's summer time. I don't want to be outside "enjoying the good weather"; I'm in the UK, where it always rains in August. I know it does, August is my birthday month. I've racked up enough damp birthday picnics and sodden games of baseball in the park to know that August is as wet as November, plus added disappointment because you always forget to expect it.

So, hurray for "VIP Club Mega Month" on Stars, where the VPP earning requirements are being slashed so you can leap up the status ladder to silver, gold or platinum for loads fewer points than usual.

Fellow gamblers can feel free to show me their holiday snaps when they get back from disappointing, over-priced trips to the seaside. Meanwhile, ha! I'll have shored up enough VPPs to buy a Ferrari.

Follow Vicky Coren on Twitter: @VictoriaCoren

Historically, recreational players always played tighter than pros in chunky live events. They have paid proper money - or won a great opportunity to make proper money - and don't want to go out too early. People used to say this made them soft targets, but not necessarily. It's absolutely fine to play tournaments tight at the beginning, while the blinds are too small to be worth stealing, then gradually loosen up as the field reduces and the pre-deal pots get bigger.

Recently, players of all kinds have got in the habit of playing super-aggressive right from the off, even in the biggest events. They make oversized raises, they re-raise with suited connectors, they bluff hard when they miss the flop. It's an excellent way to play in the later stages of a tournament, but dangerous and often pointless at the beginning. You'd be amazed how fast some players knock themselves out of the $10,000 PCA tournament in the Bahamas.

If your table features super-aggressive players like this, you need to be even more disciplined and determined to get their chips. It's too easy to start calling raises with anything, just because you're bored of passing while everyone else has fun. I favour keeping it solid. But what you can do is upgrade hands like 99 or AJ: if others are playing rubbish, medium hands become stronger.

When you find a strong starting hand, re-raise heavily to isolate one maniac, rather than risk seeing a flop with five of them. Conversely, with little pairs and suited connectors, you WANT several runners to give you good odds on hitting, so (if you want to play these hands early), limp in to keep the pot small. When you hit the flop, trap-check to use the maniacs' own strength against them. Be prepared to make big, difficult calls on the river. Let them hang themselves.

In other words, I don't mind tight play in the early stages of a tournament at all (assuming you're doing it for strategic reasons, rather than because you're scared of getting knocked out) but it must be focussed and committed as well as tight. Be disciplined, but don't miss valuable opportunities to increase aggression and mop up the loose chips. It's absolutely fine to wait for a hand, as long as you make sure to get paid when it comes.

The new UKIPT (UK and Irish poker tour) was announced the same week I made a very grown-up decision. I wanted to go and play the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam, but I decided not to because the buy-in was too big.

I'm moving house soon, I've had builders in the new place for ages - OBVIOUSLY they took months longer and cost far more than the original plan - and it just seemed crazy to spend €6000 plus expenses on a poker tournament. Besides, I should be here packing boxes, not running off to Europe without a care in the world.

I was pleased with myself for making the sensible decision; most unlike me. And the universe offered an immediate reward with news of this UKIPT tournament series: British and Irish events that I can get to with minimum hassle, at very reasonable prices starting from £500.

In modern poker, it's easy to forget the value of money. All these juicy giant tournaments, people winning millions wherever you look. When I started playing, the main events in live festivals were £500. Recently, these have come to be considered as the "small" opening events. It's crazy. £500 is a lot of money in the real world. The UKIPT is giving back some perspective to British poker: creating serious title events, treating a £500 or £1000 buy-in with the respect it deserves.

As a sponsored player, of course there is less pressure on me with the tournament expenses. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the first rule of poker is bankroll management. That applies to me as much as anyone I give advice to. You should never invest more than 5% of your bankroll in any single game. You should never play for amounts that would seriously hurt. Once the game is underway, you must be able to stop thinking of the chips as money - thinking of them purely as ammunition, to be guarded where necessary and fired out where necessary, based purely on the cards and the situation. It is impossible to do this properly if it's money you are scared to lose.

The best way to play a €5,000 EPT event is to win your seat on Stars for small money. If you miss out on the seat but can comfortably afford the buy-in anyway, great: these are wonderful tournaments in amazing locations. If not, don't start thinking you HAVE to play them. Play smaller local tournaments. Play online for whatever is comfortable.

I've been giving this advice for years, but last week I proved to myself that I can also follow it. And hey, winning at poker is an end in itself, regardless of the money. Whether I'm playing a $50 tournament on Stars, a £500 British event or a €5000 European event, I want to win it: I'm delighted if I do and furious if I don't, just the same.

by Victoria Coren

There you are: immediate punishment.

For my opening WCOOP events, my stats were: played 4, cashed 3. And you know what I did? I COMPLAINED.

I complained because in Europe, cashing in the WCOOPs means being awake overnight. I was up til 7 in the morning playing the $530 NLH, the $215 4-max NLH and the Badugi, cashing for about $800 each time. And I moaned about it on Twitter.They weren't so much tweets as whines. I moaned about not getting deeper in the tournament, about being tired, about it being not enough money for a whole night without sleep.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

There is literally nothing better in this world than staying up all night playing Badugi. Never mind "eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets", my personal heaven is Badugi til dawn. It's all I ever wanted. I have carefully constructed my entire life around creating space to play poker all night. All I want to do is play poker all night. I have AVOIDED HAVING CHILDREN because it might stop me playing poker all night.

So what's to complain? And $800 is not to be sneezed at. $800 is a lot of money in the real world. It's a lot of nice dinners, it's a weekend in the country, it's redecorating the bathroom.

But I was punished for my ingratitude, don't worry about that. Two nights ago, I was in the $1050 NLH until 7 in the morning for no money at all. 608th out of 3268, when 495 get paid.

Boy, that was a long night. It's the fourth one that hurts. While playing, I watched three films, read an entire book and drank approximately 840 cups of tea. Anything to stay awake. And you know what? When I went out, bang, for no money, I soon realized the joy of winning $800 on previous occasions.

But this is not a moan. I have decided to be honest with myself and accept what makes me tick. The best thing in the world is playing poker all night and winning some money, any money at all. But the second best thing is playing poker all night and not winning.

Sleep?

Pah, that's just a waste of time.

Vicky Coren is a member of Team PokerStars, not to mention a writer, presenter, and all-around nice person.

by Vicky Coren

The art of multi-table tournament poker lies in the pace. There are two big general mistakes that beginners can make: either they play too slowly, waiting so long for good hands that they are blinded away by the relentless clock - or they play too quickly, pushing unnecessary hands and knocking themselves out as if they had a train to catch.

The balance is difficult to find. It's all about a mathematical equation: you are playing according to the size of your stack, the size of your opponents' stacks, the size of the blinds and the speed of the clock. But all these factors are changing all the time. It can be discombobulating. Playing a tournament is like climbing a long staircase, in which the size and shape of the steps is altered every few minutes, and (every so often) a tub of oil is tipped down them. If you stop concentrating, you'll tumble backwards and break a leg.

Generally speaking, the best principle is to let your pace gather speed with the blinds. That is the safest strategy: to play tight at the beginning (not overplaying marginal hands when the blinds and pots are too small to be worth stealing), and gradually broaden the range of hands you raise with, in direct proportion to the blinds going up and the field getting smaller. If people want to push you around at the beginning, let them. But when the blinds get serious, flex your muscles and take a stand.

By "playing tight", I don't mean waiting for aces. In a deep-stack tournament, where you can afford to see a lot of flops in the early levels, you can play pre-flop almost like a cash game: creeping in, or making unexpected raises, with those interesting hands like 8-10 suited or J9 suited, trying to catch a monster. It's more a case of (when you fail to hit) not throwing good money after bad. If you can afford to give up, don't get stubborn.

In a big opening field, such as the PokerStars Sunday Million, there can be a strangely hurried feel. Players want to jostle ahead of the crowd so they play aggressively, pushing marginal hands and even moving all in, from the earliest levels. Some of them want to build a big stack fast, or get out early. If this is the mood at your table, don't get sucked into the panicky betting frenzy: sit patiently and bet only when you want action. Pre-flop raises won't clear opponents away. Bluffs will fail more often than they succeed. But value bets should pay off nicely. Don't bother trapping with sets, straights or flushes: bet them openly. It's worth seeing a few cheap flops in late position with a wide range of hands, but play on only if you hit because you will get paid.

Remember, in a multi-table tournament you have two sets of opponents: those on your table (whose chips you are trying to take directly) and those on other tables who you may meet later. So you should always have an idea of what the average chip stack is for the whole field. On PokerStars, it's easy - the lobby will always tell you. In a live tournament like an EPT, there should be a wall clock with that information.

You are there to play poker and win the tournament, not count your way nervously towards the payout spots. But the chip average should be in your mind as a constant backdrop, to gauge the general health of your stack.

In the middle stages, you cannot afford to waste chips. At this point, it's all about selective aggression: picking your spots to play, and then playing like you mean it. In the early stages you can make speculative calls, in the middle stages you can't. Beware the mediocre hands like A-9 or small pairs; you're better off playing a 6-7 suited. Why? Because you'll know where you stand. You should be raising or re-raising your way into pots with hands where you know you want action, or know that you don't. The same applies after the flop. With every bet you make, be certain what response you want.

Around the bubble is a great time to increase your aggression. Many players will be loitering, trying to make the money. You must find the bravery not to be one of these people. But pick your targets with care. The small stacks are forced to gamble and the big stacks can afford to. Put pressure on the middle stacks, who may be trying to safeguard their chips for the payout spots.

What about the size of your own stack? You must make sure it never goes below ten big blinds. If you find you have 15-20 big blinds, it's time to start re-raising all-in while you can still make the original raiser pass. If you get to 10 big blinds or fewer, it's all-in or fold. You must not raise and then pass; it's like burning money. And you mustn't flat call, because timidity is tournament death. With ten big blinds or below, if nobody else has raised before the action is on you, you must be ready to move in with any hand at all. Anything. Even if you have 7-2 and somebody wakes up with A-A, you still have a 12% chance to win the pot - whereas, if you let yourself get blinded away, you have 0% chance of winning the tournament. And if you can find the nerve to start moving in with any hand in the late stages (or when you're on ten big blinds) you have a much higher than 12% chance that nobody finds anything to call you with, and you can boost your stack with those valuable blinds and antes.

Two important notes: what applies to you applies to everyone else as well. If you have good chips and someone else moves in with less than ten big blinds, you must widen your calling range to reflect their need to move with anything.

Second note: in any form of poker - cash game or tournament, Holdem or Omaha, multi-table or heads-up - you must always be counter-intuitive. Whatever your basic strategy (and the above, to increase aggression as the tournament goes on, remains the best) you must mix it up at least once per level. Never let your opponents get complacent. Do what's right but, every so often, just do what's unexpected.

The WCOOP $25,000 Heads-Up Championship turned out to be the most nerve-wracking tournament I've ever played. It wasn't the size of the buy-in (I've played for this crazy price twice before, once making a profit of $17,000 and once for nada) but the structure. There was something incredibly intense about being just three heads-up matches away from $100,000 - and six matches away from $560,000.

My first match turned out to be a relatively easy victory, although I was told that my opponent (named BBJ) is considered to be a very good player. When we sat down, I knew nothing about this BBJ except what I could glean from the information in front of me. Our opening conversation went like this:

Vicky Coren: Hi. GL.
BBJ: U'll need it.

From this I knew that my opponent was definitely male. It also told me that he was probably American, very likely under 30 years old, and - most usefully - that he was bound to play very aggressively. Nobody would make that opening remark if they were planning to play a wily, trappy game. Good; this was in my comfort zone. As a female player, I have plenty of experience (live and online) of opponents who think a battering ram will simply scare me off the table.

BBJ did indeed set off by raising every time he had the button, and continuation betting every street if I called. Experience told me my best strategy was to try and turn his aggression against him - ie. to let him pick up a series of pots without much contest, believing that he was running me over, and to play passively even when I had a big hand. This seemed like a player who would keep betting to make me pass, so all I had to do (if I hit anything) was not pass. Sure enough, our match burned itself out pretty quickly, with most of the field still in action, which left me time to make a nice cheese sandwich, mmm.

My second opponent, with the field of 64 down to 32, was named gunning4you. When I greeted him at the start, he replied in a much more relaxed and friendly manner - which was immediately more worrying. The cleverer the player, in general, the nicer they behave. Have you ever heard the old saying that you have nothing to fear from a roaring lion? It's the ones who slink about quietly that represent the most danger.

There isn't much to report from my second match, because I don't think I was in front at any stage. Gunning4you played a much slyer, more cunning and dangerous form of poker. He didn't inflate the pots too
much to begin with, recognizing this as unnecessary for a good player in a deep-stack tournament. His timing was strong, and his instincts sharp. He made excellent value bets on the river, which I was usually obliged to call when I was just a pip behind.

In my defence, I was on horrible form for that second match. I had only two decent starting hands (KK, which lost to A9, and AA which won a tiny pot since we both checked it down after four diamonds came) and missed the flop with everything else. If I tried a bluff, Gunning had something to call with. It was the kind of match where, every time you see a flop, you feel like you're being punished for something.

But this is not to detract from Gunning's play: I was really impressed. He seemed like a nice guy and a very strong heads-up player, I hope he goes a long way in the tournament. But I won't find out until it's all over, since it's time for me to go to bed and dream about what I would have done with $560,000.

Note: Once Vicky went to bed, her opponent busted out in the next round and stevesbets went on to win the bracelet. Read about that in the WCOOP Event #19 wrap up. Vicky is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

by Victoria Coren

When I'm playing on PokerStars, people often stop by to chat. I'm happy to do it - it's nice to 'meet' my fellow players - though sometimes it can be hard to answer lots of questions at once. This is especially true when I'm multi-taking in traditionally female style: simultaneously playing a sit & go, making a salad dressing and talking
to my mother on the phone. (Thank God for the sit & go, or I'd think I had accidentally turned into a sitcom housewife from 1973). In that situation, when the questions 'FANCY A $20 HU?','WILL U MARRY ME?', and 'Y R U SUCH A DONKEY?' come scrolling onto the screen in quick succession, I usually miss a couple of answers.

Generally, though, I enjoy the chat function. But it's been very depressing for the last couple of weeks, and I'd like to plead with my PokerStars compadres to stop coming into the chat box and asking 'R U AT THE WSOP?' Because the answer is no! And that's an answer that fills me with gloom every time I type it! I will be making it out to Vegas for the main event, and a couple of other tournaments just before, but it's a flying visit for me this year. I've got too much work in London to allow myself the luxury of six weeks in the sunshine. Six weeks of live poker. Six weeks of glittery bracelet-chasing. Six weeks of eating lobster buffets at midnight, laughing at Celine Dion impersonators, and shopping for gold Buddha money-boxes.

Hurray for the internet, I think to myself as I click onto PokerStars. At least, in 2008, I can find 24-hour poker without leaving home. It is my little respite from working, paying bills and putting the bins out. In the rain. But every time someone asks 'ARE YOU AT THE WSOP?' it reminds me that I'm not. It reminds me that as soon as this particular sit & go finishes (usually, for me, when there are four of us left), I will be returning to the work and the rain and the bins.

So ask me anything else, please. Ask me the capital of Paraguay. Ask me how to make a good salad dressing. Ask how my mother is. But please don't ask if I'm in Vegas, or I might start sobbing into the keyboard and fuse the machine while there are still five of us left.