Eight Tips For Mastering Online Poker Tournaments

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Thriving in online poker tournaments requires a blend of skill, strategy, and patience, distinct from traditional live play. These eight tips provide crucial insights into navigating the digital felt, enhancing your odds of outlasting the competition and securing a spot at the final table.

1. Know How Much Time You Have

This sounds like a basic bullet point, but it’s anything but.

At the end of any tournament session, you’ll see countless players punt their stacks off late at night. Why? They’re frustrated their bigger tournaments didn’t go well. Now this smaller tournament feels pointless. They want to go big or go home. Alternatively, they could also want to go to bed. They have work in the morning, and they didn’t realize how late this tournament would go.

If you only have a few hours to play, play sit-n-go’s, satellites, or cash. Don’t enter a tournament when you don’t know when it will end. Don’t enter a longer tournament if you’re not likely to be able to focus on it.

2. Play Less Tables

Everyone wants to play more tables than is optimal. Why? Playing more tables is fun. Sitting around waiting for a hand is boring. It’s much more fun to always have a hand or two you’re working on.

The problem is that once you have too many tables, it becomes impossible to give your full attention to any hand. Because you’re not applying yourself ever it becomes difficult to get better.

I’ve played for entire years of my poker career without getting better. Why? I was playing too many tables. The action was too fast. I had to play on autopilot. It’s easy to fall behind other pros when you’re not challenging yourself.

Take however many tables you’re comfortable with and subtract by two. That’s likely where you should be. If you can focus on one or two hands at a time through the vast majority of the session, that will be helpful. Only add more tables when you’re feeling comfortable with 99% of the situations.

3. Take Notes

Do you not have an above-average memory for player tendencies? No worries. If you write something down, you’ll remember it forever.

If you’re playing online and you’re deep in a tournament, it’s likely you have busted your other tournaments. Instead of getting bored with the lack of tables, you can replay each hand back and see what you learn. Who opens too much? Three-bet them. Who always bluffs with their missed draws? Call them down more. Who can’t fold post-flop with any remedial pair? Value bet them more thinly. And the list goes on…

4. Analyze The Statistics Of Your Opponents

If you can track the statistics of your opponents at the table, then do so. There’s a number of sites that will allow you to do this.

Past behavior predicts future behavior in this game. If you see someone is uncreative and passive post-flop according to their numbers, then they suddenly triple barrel versus you, then they likely have something. Using the numbers has helped you avoid a costly river call down. Conversely, if their aggression frequencies are off the charts on every street, then put on your helmet, pick a hand, and call down.

The exploits you can do based on statistics are endless. Spend some time learning what each number means. Start formulating strategies on how to abuse them.

5. Analyze Your Own Statistics

To get even better, analyze your own statistics. Look at your numbers and find out where you’re weak. Find out what numbers are normal. How do your numbers compare to those numbers? What do your numbers say about you? Do you continuation bet the flop 100% of the time regardless of what comes out there? Is your fold to continuation bet on the river absurdly low?

Another practice you can do is filtering for specific situations. Watch every hand where you flatted a three-bet out of position. Watch every river call you make.

Sometimes, the replays will speak for themselves. You won’t need any numbers. You’ll see yourself making the same mistake repeatedly. The painful memory will help you play better in the future.

6. Go For Thin Value Early

At the beginning of the tournament, there are many players gambling. They’re willing to rebuy if they bust out. They’re trying to get a big stack and have a fun time or quit early. They want to see every flop. For whatever reason, there’s plenty of people who are looking to play big pots early and aren’t going to be folding to you.

Take advantage of this. Isolation raise big in position when you have the goods. Three-bet all the loose openers and take them post-flop. If you flop something solid, go for thin value.

These players are going to go broke to someone. That person should be you.

7. Abuse Shorter Stacks

If you play tough poker from hand one, you’ll be able to build a bunch of stacks. This gives you a huge edge as you get deeper in a tournament. If you have 70 big blinds while everyone else has 25 to 40 then you’re in a powerful position. If you three-bet, check-raise, or double barrel, you’ll be threatening all of their chips. However, if you go from 70 big blinds to 58, your chances of winning the tournament didn’t change that much.

You’re allowed to apply pressure on others. They have to be careful about what hand they call off their chips with. Execute when they are at a disadvantage.

8. Abuse The Bubble

If you chip up in the early stages and use that leverage against the shorter to medium stacks in the middle stages, you’ll frequently have a ton of chips on the bubble.

People want to lock up a cash when they’ve invested hours into a tournament. Even if the buy-in wasn’t that large, no one wants to tell their friends or spouse they played multiple hours without getting anything. People feel like they did their job if they at least wrap up some money.

Take advantage of this. Use your big stack to bet against them and move them all-in. Semi-bluff harder. Bluff when their ranges are capped. Move all-in on short stacks more.

If you lose some pots, you’ll be back to a normal stack. No big deal.

If you win some all-ins and get some bluffs through? You’ll have a huge stack when the bubble bursts. You’re ready to call down all the short stack all-ins from the players who were limping to the money. You’re ready for the variance. You’re setting yourself up for a deep run. ♠

Learn how to play A-K when it misses the flop!

Alexander Fitzgerald is a professional poker player and bestselling author who currently lives in Denver, Colorado. He is a WPT and EPT final tablist, and has WCOOP and SCOOP wins online. His most recent win was the $250,000 Guaranteed on ACR Poker. He currently enjoys blasting bums away in Ignition tournaments while he listens to death metal. Free training packages of his are provided to new newsletter subscribers who sign up at PokerHeadRush.com