Tips To Win Online Poker Tournaments

We’ve all seen those magical moments on TV when a lucky player watches the final card fall in their favor to clinch a poker tournament win, from the iconic image of Phil Hellmuth pumping his fists to the heavens after winning the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event to Antonio Esfandiari bagging the largest prize in poker history of $18 million at the 2012 WSOP Big One for One Drop.

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Scroll through enough poker tournament coverage on YouTube, and you’ll see the same sort of scene play out time and time again.

Two exhausted opponents squaring off from across the green felted table. A pile of chips in the middle of the pot, surrounded by stacks and stacks of cash. And soon enough, one player celebrating in ecstasy when the river card delivers a hard-earned victory.

But for all the gold and glory that triumph in the tournament arena can offer, the real reward comes from knowing exactly how hard accomplishing this feat truly is. Simply put, winning a poker tournament outright — or even chopping the prize pool up through a final table deal — represents one of the most difficult tasks in competitive gaming.

As the game of No Limit Texas Hold’em becomes increasingly close to “solved” status thanks to math genius whiz kids aided by computer algorithms and innate talent, the gap between us “Regular Joes” and the top pros grows wider by the day.

Throw in the proliferation of reentry or rebuy tournaments, which allow those with a bigger bankroll to fire multiple buy-in “bullets” in hopes of spinning up a big stack, and scoring a win as a recreational player has never been harder than it is today.

Nonetheless, tens of thousands of hopefuls still show up at the WSOP in Las Vegas each and every summer, all of them looking to buck the odds and bring a gold bracelet home.

Then there’s the World Poker Tour (WPT), the WSOP Circuit, the Mid-Stakes Poker Tour (MSPT), the Heartland Poker Tour (HPT), and countless other “mid-major” tournament circuits currently crisscrossing the nation.

When daily and nightly tournaments hosted by local casinos and card clubs are added into the mix, poker players have a seemingly endless lineup of opportunities awaiting them.

But an opportunity is far from an actual triumph, a rude awakening most poker enthusiasts come to discover soon after hitting the tourney trail. While the more experienced and skilled players make trips to the winner’s circle look routine, the rest of us are forced to settle for minimum cashes if we’re lucky and busting out before the money bubble when we’re not.

It doesn’t have to be that way forever, though, as tournament poker — for all of its innate difficulty when it comes to sustaining success — is still a purely egalitarian game. Top pros like Hellmuth and Esfandiari may be stars today, but they had to start at the bottom of the ladder like everyone else.

Steadily expanding their knowledge and experience until finally achieving that fateful breakthrough in a big moment.

That effort entails:

• Diligent study
• Patience
• Practice
• Commitment to put the work in.

To help you climb your own personal poker ladder, check out the list below to find 101 hours every aspiring poker player should put in if winning a tournament is the top priority.

Hours 0-20: Enroll in a Few of the Best Poker Training Courses

Over the last decade or so, many of the game’s elite talents have transitioned from full-time play on the felt to the poker instruction industry.

And that’s been quite the boon for recreational players looking to take their game to the next level.

By enrolling in a few of the leading poker tournament instructional programs on the market, you can gain direct access to cutting-edge game theory provided by top pros turned coaches.

Take the Run It Once course as the perfect example. Launched in 2012 by high-stakes online legend and three-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Phil Galfond, the Run It Once concept is deceptively simple. Based on the pricing tier you decide on, you’ll be able to view any of the 2,400 video tutorials created by the Run It Once coaching stable.

That stable isn’t filled with slouches, either, so along with Galfond’s wisdom, Run It Once students can learn directly from tournament legends like Fedor Holz, Brian Rast, and Jason Koon.

That trio alone has pocketed more than $80 million in live tournament earnings between them, which should give you a sense of the skills they impart as Run It Once instructors.

Another great tournament course to consider is Upswing Poker, a product of three-time WSOP winner Doug Polk and fellow pro Ryan Fee. Shortly after launching Upswing Poker, Polk and Fee proved their bona fides on the felt by capturing the crown in the 2016 WSOP’s first-ever Tag Team tournament — so their students are in good hands.

Upswing Poker focuses more on tournament play, developing intricate “Push/Fold” charts to help players pinpoint exactly when to go for it on a short stack.

Let’s say you have exactly nine big blinds and a hand like K-7 suited in late position. Your instincts might be crying out to fold and live to fight another day, but according to the complex statistical analysis that went into Upswing Poker’s Push/Fold charts, this situation represents a clear shoving spot.

You’ll find plenty of variety out there when it comes to tournament instruction, including programs like Advanced Poker Training, Tournament Poker Edge, and Red Chip Poker, but they all share one goal in common — incremental improvement.

In exchange for a small monthly subscription fee, usually priced between $30 and $100 depending on the tier, anybody can learn directly from a group of poker’s most accomplished pros.

Get yourself enrolled in one or more of these courses today before devoting at least 20 hours to studying the ins and outs of advanced tournament theory.

Hours 20-50: Practice Makes Perfect, So Hit the Virtual Felt

Once you’ve wrapped up an instructional course like Run It Once or Upswing Poker, you’ll find yourself brimming with new knowledge.

Crucial concepts pertaining to every aspect of the game have just penetrated your consciousness, but until you put those ideas into practice, the information doesn’t do you much good.

To solve that dilemma, fire up your favorite online poker platform and begin a training regimen designed to test your newfound skills. Your personal bankroll limitations may vary, but it’s best to roll with a small buy-in stake for the sake of this exercise, as volume will be the name of the game.

Perhaps you prefer $11 multitable tournaments on Bovada. In this case, your goal should be to play as many of these games as you can find on the schedule during a given day. From there, enter as many events as you can and set to work applying the lessons you just spent 20 hours learning.

Now, the goal of poker is always to win, but for these 30 hours or so, focus more on exploring how the pro’s teachings really work in the real world.

If you’ve been studying Push/Fold charts on Upswing Poker, have those handy while you play and identify spots where the short-stack theories can be put into action. And don’t hold back, either. Trust the instruction and make the proper plays as you’ve been taught — even if they don’t feel proper in the moment.

You might be attached to a particular tourney after putting in a few hours behind the mouse, but the aim here isn’t to go deep in a single event; it’s to put yourself in position to make deep runs routinely.

Such as shoving an average stack from the button holding a marginal hand.

As you progress through this 30-hour practice challenge, keep detailed records of your progress both on the micro and macro levels. Data like hours played, buy-ins made, and cash won is always useful, but be mindful to track things like how often certain advanced plays worked out (and why they did or didn’t).

In the end, you might find your bankroll has swung up or down by a few bucks, but that isn’t really the point. What you’re really looking for here is to acclimate yourself to a new style of play, integrating the lessons learned in your training course until they become a seamless aspect of your playing style.

Hours 50-75: Watch and Learn From the Best

Poker instruction courses are all the rage lately, but there’s another way to observe and learn from better players — live streaming sites.

These days, a site like Twitch, which allows gamers to stream their progress to worldwide audiences in real-time, is an essential resource for aspiring tournament players. Just fire up Twitch and search for poker streamers to get an up close and personal glimpse into how winning players really approach each and every hand that comes their way.

A good example is Lex Veldhuis. Known as one of the original high-stakes beasts, Lex Veldhuis has been a member of Team PokerStars for several years running.

After turning to live streaming in recent years, Veldhuis has emerged as one of the industry’s most popular figures, with his Twitch channel attracting more than 100,000 loyal subscribers and counting.

And while this clip was from a larger buy-in event like the $215 Sunday Million, Veldhuis is happy to grind it out playing at all stakes.

By observing how a top pro like Veldhuis solves the various poker puzzles that a long tournament run brings his way, you can absorb all of that knowledge straight from the source.

And there will be plenty of knowledge to digest, as the loquacious Veldhuis isn’t shy about explaining every facet of a close decision to his rabid fan base.

Other top tournament streamers out there include the following star-studded list:

• Randy Lew — “nanonoko”
• Parker Talbot — “TonkaaaaP”
• Jamie Staples — “PokerStaples”
• Jason Somerville — “JCarver”
• Courtney Gee — “courtiebee”

Get yourself on Twitch and subscribe to some, or all, of the live streaming celebrities listed above, and you won’t be sorry.

Hours 75-101: Get in the Game and Go for the Win

You’ve devoured hours of instruction from acclaimed pros. You’ve grinded through a seemingly endless lineup of practice tournaments designed to test your mettle. And you’ve sat back as a spectator while somebody like Veldhuis lets you in on his every last secret.

To make that dream a reality, you’ll need to get in the game, which means identifying the best live tournaments hosted in your local area. Hopefully you have access to a nearby commercial or tribal casino where daily and nightly tournaments can be found on the regular.

If so, head there early and often, playing as many events as your bankroll will allow until securing your first-ever first-place finish.

But even if you’re stuck in the proverbial poker desert, with no casinos or card rooms in the vicinity, you can still hunt down that most elusive of play.

Tournament circuits like the ones listed in the introduction are constantly traveling from coast to coast and all points in between. Sort through the tours’ current schedule and find a stop within manageable driving or flying distance, then save up a little dough to make the trip happen.

The best part about attending a poker tournament circuit stop is that you won’t be in danger of a “one and done” experience. While daily and nightly tourneys are great to have around, as their name implies, you’ll only get one chance to win on any given day.

But if you hit something like the WSOP Circuit or Mid-Stakes Poker Tour, their respective schedules offer a long lineup of events to choose from over the course of 1-2 weeks. You’ll find everything from low-level $250 buy-in tournaments to the $1,700 Main Event, along with satellite qualifiers to help you get into the bigger events on the cheap.

However you choose to approach this final piece of the puzzle, be sure to take a page out of every poker pro’s book and really go all-in.

Focus on every hand you play from preflop action to the final call or fold. Evaluate your opponents’ play and target the weak while avoiding damage from the strong.

Apply every last lesson learned over the last 100 hours, and in the end, you’ll be spending Hour #101 posing for a winner’s photo and happily counting your cash.

Conclusion

The 101-hour path to poker tournament success isn’t set in stone, so by all means, feel free to adjust the schedule as you see fit. The real objective here is to show you exactly how much work really goes into those winning moments captured on TV coverage over the years.

Sure, a “luckbox” will stumble their way into an occasional win here and there — that’s just how poker works in the short-term.

But if you want to make winner photos and trophies a consistent part of your poker life, devoting a few hours every day to achieving your goals presents the most effective path.

Tournament poker remains one of the most popular formats of the game, mainly because it is through the heavily televised World Series of Poker (WSOP) that many new players are introduced to it.

When Chris Moneymaker – considered an “outsider” at the time due to his qualifying for the WSOP by winning his entry on an online poker site – won the prestigious competition’s main event in 2003, tournament poker was thrust into the global community’s consciousness, and it immediately became the most visible format of poker.

While the fundamental principles of No Limit Hold’em are shared between cash/ring games and tournament poker, there are certain strategies that are more effective in one than the other.

In this article, we take an in-depth look at tactics that are important to understand and implement if you want to achieve success in tournament poker. While our focus will be on tournaments, we’ll also be touching on certain principles that apply to both formats.

Before we begin, let’s quickly list the major differences between cash and tournament poker.

A note before we begin, this piece focuses on freezeout No Limit Texas Hold’em tournaments.

(Source: Beatthefish.com)

Tournament vs Cash – the Main Differences

• A player can enter and exit a cash game whenever they want while a tournament has a fixed start and end.
• In a cash game, the blinds remain fixed, while the blind levels in a tournament increase at a predefined frequency (typically 15 – 25 minutes).
• The purpose of a tournament is not to run out of chips. When you do, you are eliminated from the game and cannot re-enter, although some tournaments do allow players to buy back in.
• When a predetermined number of players are eliminated from the tournament, the remaining players all share the prize pool. Making it to this part of the tournament is called being “in the money.”
• The tournament ends when all but one player has been eliminated. That player is the tournament winner and receives the bulk of the prize pool.
• In cash games, chips are an exact representation of their monetary value, while tournament players “buy” their chip stack with a fixed buy-in amount. For instance, a tournament buy-in of $5.00 can see you start the tournament with a stack of $1500 in chips.

Tip #1: Start Conservatively

Tips To Win Online Poker Tournaments 2020

One of the most important principles to success at tournament poker is in monitoring the ratio between how much it will cost to play a hand (blinds + antes) and your chip stack. This is referred to as the M ratio, and we’ll be referencing it throughout the piece.

At the start of the tournament when you have a healthy M Ratio (over 25), getting involved in a hand with medium-strength cards is not a good strategy. When you’re still sitting comfortably, only play a hand when you have exceptionally strong cards or have position on your opponents.

Don’t be tempted to steal or protect blinds. These are tactics that should only be employed later in the tournament when the blinds represent a large portion of your stack size.

Survival is everything in the early stages. Building a healthy chip-stack should also be an objective, but not at the cost of your place in the tournament.

Tip #2: Be Aware of Opponent Stack Sizes

Once you’ve emerged from the early stages of the tournament and the table is seeing some more action, it’s important to bear your opponents’ stack sizes in relation to yours in mind before getting involved in very specific scenarios – specifically when it comes to going all-in.

• A player that has you comfortably covered (has a significantly larger stack size than you) is going to call your all-in with a wide range of cards since you don’t represent a big risk to his chip stack. Don’t bluff against such a player.
• A short-stacked player (especially one with an M Ratio below 10) will typically play extremely aggressively post-flop. While pushing these players around and bullying them pre-flop is an essential strategy, when the flop comes you can expect extreme aggression from them since they will regularly be pot-committed. Don’t expect them to fold to your light c-bet. Expect a shove in this scenario and unless you’ve hit the flop, you don’t want to be calling it and doubling them up.
• In the latter stages of a tournament, a player that has a chip stack roughly similar to yours is not going to get involved in a hand with you unless they want to protect their blinds or if they have an excellent hand. Be cautious when faced with aggression from a similarly-stacked opponent.

Tip #3: Employ the Push/Fold Strategy

In a nutshell, push/fold strategy is an “all or nothing” pre-flop approach that a player adopts when their chip-stack is depleted to the point where they can only see another ten hands, in other words, their M Ratio is less than 10.

When the blind levels are 75/150, and you only have $1,870 in chips, forget about limping, calling, or 3-betting preflop and consider each decision as either a fold or a shove.

The main reason for doing this is that you are maximizing your chances of picking up the blinds by getting all your opponents to fold to your extreme aggression and while your chip stack still represents a threat.

In the Poker Copilot blog, we recently published an in-depth look at how to employ this strategy to its maximum effect. Click here to read our the post titled: Essential No Limit Holdem Strategy: Push/Fold.

(Source: stock.adobe.com)

Tip #4: Steal and Protect Blinds

When the blinds get to a level where they represent a large portion of your chip stack, picking them up without seeing the flop is one of the most important strategies in tournament poker. In fact, there are certain conditions under which you needn’t even consider your cards when attempting this tactic.

If you are in late position, all the players have folded to you, and the two or three players who are going to act after you are all short-stacked, you can profitably raise with any two cards, provided you have the discipline to lay them down if you’re faced with a three-bet.

Tips To Win Online Poker Tournaments Real Money

Conversely, when you are in the small or big blinds and have a relatively healthy stack (your M ratio is above 20), don’t be afraid to three-bet when faced with a raise from the dealer. In many cases they are betting very wide simply to steal your blinds and will lay down their cards. In this scenario, when your M Ratio is below 10, and you have decent cards, don’t bother three-betting – simply go all-in.

Tip #5: Think of the Greater Good

This is a relatively complex meta-game concept that has little to do with cards and more about getting closer to the money.

Consider this scenario.

There are seven players left in the tournament and the top six get paid. This scenario is also referred to as being “on the bubble.”

You are in mid position with A9s and your M Ratio is very healthy (20+). Under the Gun is short-stacked and goes all in. You call. There is another call from the dealer, who is also deep-stacked. So the short-stacked player now has the possibility of being eliminated by two players rather than one.

The flop comes K49.

You’ve made mid pair, which, if you were only in the hand against the other deep-stacked player, would have been a good spot for a bet. But if you do bet in this scenario, you run the risk of having the dealer fold, meaning that you will be the only player who can eliminate the short-stack.

Let’s say you do make a bet and the dealer folds his pocket 8s. You and the short stack flip your cards over, and he shows KT.

The turn and river come 8 and 3, and you double up the short-stack and everyone at the table hates you since the dealer would have made his set and gotten you all into the money.

Tips To Win Online Poker Tournaments 2019

(Source: stock.adobe.com)

A much better play here would have been for you and the dealer to simply check all the way down to the river to ensure that there is an extra chance of the short-stacked player being eliminated.

Tip #6: Take Advantage of the Bubble

Closer to the bubble, most of your opponents, except for those that are deep and short-stacked, are going to tighten up. No one wants to go home empty-handed, and most players in this scenario will simply wait for the short and deep-stacks to duke it out.

This is where a smart player will start picking up blinds. By paying attention to your opponents’ stack sizes and their playing style, this could be a very profitable period of the tournament for you.

When you are in position, don’t be afraid to show pre and post-flop aggression, but be careful on the turn and heed the advice given in tip #2 above (“Be Aware of Opponent Stack Sizes”).

Your goal here is to take down pots by taking advantage of the fear that will dominate the table, not to outplay your opponents with your advanced moves. Take risks here but be disciplined about laying down your cards when faced with aggression. Good players are going to see through this tactic and protect their blinds. Respect them.

Tip #7: Dominate When You’re Leading

If you’re the chip leader, it’s essential to bully the short and medium-stacked players. While the temptation may be strong to sit back and watch them eliminate each other, you need to acknowledge the immensely important role you can play in bringing this about. This is doubly effective as you near the bubble.

Your goal is to take advantage of the fear that your opponents have of your stack and pick up as many blinds as you can. Medium stacked players will be extremely hesitant to get involved in a hand with you and will lay down medium strength hands regularly. They do not want to get in a hand unless they know they are ahead.

It is vital that you take advantage of this scenario so that when it comes to the heads-up part of the tournament (only two players left), you are comfortably ahead.

Tip #8: Don’t Get Complacent When Playing Heads-Up

So you’re one of the final two players in the tournament. Now it’s important to face your biggest enemy: your own complacency.

That’s right, your biggest challenge when playing heads-up is the sense of security that accompanies making it this far. Yes, you’re already winning a large sum of money, but if you stay focused and spend some time learning about the nuances of heads-up play, you can win so much more.

Tips To Win Online Poker Tournaments Tournament

In fact, simply by acknowledging this and remaining hungry to win it all, you are already in a better position than many of your heads-up opponents will be. You’ll be surprised how many of them simply “tune out” at this point and think of this stage of the tournament as a lottery.

It’s not. There is a lot of skill involved in playing heads up, and if you do the research necessary to improve this aspect of your game, the return on your investment will get a massive boost.

Read our recent post on training sites that will help you improve your poker and find the sections dealing with heads-up strategy.

In Closing

Tournament poker is accessible, fun and full of new players who aren’t as dedicated as you in improving their poker skills.

By applying these tips and doing further reading and training, you are sure to find them the ideal space to build your bankroll.

Keep training. Keep reading. Keep improving.

See you at the tables!