A new and growing trend that has emerged in recent years is online poker tournaments. Tournaments, as you may know, are single elimination games and are always heart to heart. They are generally no more than 6 to 10 players, though there are some multi-table tournaments with as many as 100 or even more. The basics are simple, you have until the end of the round to find out if you have better hands than anyone else in the game, and the last player left is the winner.
Online poker tournaments are just as intense and loved by the same old poker players as are home games, so-called free tournaments, “lets plays” and freerolls. The difference now, is that you do not have to well your way in to the big leagues in order to practice your skills, you can participate from the comfort of your home, and play just like the pros do.
Most of the bigger poker sites now offer all kinds of poker tournaments, and when you enter a tournament you are generally given a code to use when the tournament starts. All tournaments have a cash buy-in, and most of the time, the larger the buy-in, the larger the prize pool. These buy-in amounts change regularly, and you should make sure you investigate the fine print before you commit to a tournament of any kind. Some of the rules and nuances of tournaments, like SNGs, may be different, so you should play smart and familiarize yourself with the various tournament formats.
Historically, SNGs have been a fun game to play in person or on the net. The concept involves you playing one table (or Dewavegas) and being constantly vigilant of your opponents, looking for bits of information that will be instrumental to your own strategy. In person SNGs, you have the luxury of seeing your opponents to get an idea of what kind of strategies they may use and also to adapt a poker face of sorts, so to speak.
Online, you cannot see your opponents, and you in fact have to adapt a completely different kind of poker to compensate for this. I believe this is the greatest drawback of online poker tournaments, and the way that most players lose money, in addition to the lack of profitability. You have no idea what your opponents are holding and in many instances you may not even be able to see their cards, in what kind of hand they have. This drawbacks could literally cost you a lot of money over the course of the tournament, as you have to double up way more than you would in face to face competition.
As you may already know, the final table in a sit and go is the most important stage of the tournament. Most players play way too conservative during this stage, taking far too many chances that they would not have done had they moved earlier. Here is the largest edge in tournament poker, and capitalize on it. Yell out when you hit a huge hand, rake in the blinds and antes, and become a dominating force to be reckoned with. Periodically you will have a monster hand, and you want to abuse this. Periodically this is also when some players start to tighten up, because they know it will be more difficult for them to take losses if the blinds eventually go up. The final table is also known as the bubble or thearlene. The players who remain are basically evenly matched, so if you don’t accumulate enough chips by this time, you are going to be out-carded. The smaller stacks will practice more and more, constantly looking for ways to gain an edge. They are not in the same position as you are, so they are more likely to try and take you out. Use this to your advantage, it will allow you to steal more blinds and antes, as well as grow your stack. When you are looking to steal, pull out with a good hand!