Winning strategy for big online poker tournaments

Any player hoping to win big in a major online poker tournament event must have basic online poker skills. Knowledge about outs and odds and the ability of reading the opponents hand are essential. But it's also very important to understand the dynamics of a tournament situation.

One very successful poker strategy for the early phases of a tournament is called lowballing. The basic thought behind this strategy is trying to control the size of the pot before and after the flop. By avoiding to invest too many chips in a pot, the player puts himself in a position where it is easy for him to give up a hand when necessary. At the same time, if he hits the flop and makes a hand that is likely to be winning, the player then start building a pot that he can finally take down.

In a situation where you are competing against hundreds of opponents in a poker tournament, this strategy will keep you in the game very often. Of course, that means that you are playing very tight. In practical terms, you would simply call unraised pots with low and middle pocket pairs from any position, and with suited connectors in late position.

You would only raise or re-raise with the best of hands like AA, KK and QQ and AKs, AKo and AQs, or just call even with those hands, depending on the situation, if there is the possibility for a hand to escalate and before the flop. Let's suppose you have AKs and you have to assume that one or even two opponents limp with pocket pairs. In this case, you might want to make sure that you hit the flop before investing many chips.

This strategy will probably not put you in a position where you would be chipleader early on, but you will also end up in the money more often than not. In any case, you have to understand that taking many risks at the beginning is the trademark of a weak player - those guys would be better off gambling at an internet casino. This player knows deep in his heart, that his poker skills are not good enough to be patient, so he tries to amass as many chips as early in the tournament, so that he is able to dominate the field by sheer number of chips later.

While that poker strategy may work eventually, most of the time this type of player gets himself eliminated rather early. An experienced player tries to avoid building up or entering big pots in the early stages. You would rather take down small and medium-sized pots and build up his stack slowly. Taking risks too early is like playing lotto - you may win eventually, but the odds are against you. 

Strategy for the later online poker tournament phases

Whatever strategy you use to survive in the online poker tournament, there comes a decisive phase in the tournament, and that is when the number of players in the tournament melts down close to the point where everybody simply tries to survive and get in the money, while the small stacks get eliminated.

This is the time when the big redistribution of chips is taking place, because the big stacks put pressure on those players at their table who are trying to avoid being eliminated before one of the small stacks still in the tournament go down. In this situation, players with small and medium stacks tend to tighten up, which enables the bigger stacks to steal chips from them, thus putting them in a very good position for the very late phases of the tournament.

So generally, keeping the pots small and minimising your own risk in the early phases, slowly building up a medium-sized stack of chips, aiming at being among the top 30% of players in the later phases and using the bubble phase to add to your own chip stack is a very sound strategy for big online poker tournaments. It takes a lot of discipline and self-control, but have to remind yourself constantly that such a big poker tournament event is a marathon and not a sprint.

Once the bubble phase is over, many of the players with the lower stacks are now willing to take higher risks with potential drawing hands, and you should choose your hands carefully, but when you have a good hand, play it aggressively. In this phase, you are likely to see less showdowns. Especially when first in with a strong hand, content yourself to take down the blinds. Your play will now depend very much on your position and on the actions of the players before you.

One word of caution: in the middle and late stages of online poker tournament, hole cards that typically make for drawing hands (like suited connectors or small pairs) are very dangerous. Because of the higher blinds you're much more likely to be drawn into an expensive hand that has the potential of ruining you. In general, drawing hands are not as good in a tournament as they are in a cash game, so you should not play them unless the odds are very good and as long as you do not have to invest too many of your chips to go to the river with your draw.

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