Tips for Online Poker Tournaments

July 1, 2010 by lesley
Filed under Poker Strategy in Oz poker

Online poker tournaments are accessible to all levels of players, and are a great way to start your poker career. The move from online poker tournaments to live poker tournaments can be a tough one if you’re not used to playing poker face to face with your opponents, but most of the other poker skills – such as calculating hand values and hand rankings, pot odds, and implied odds – can be practiced online.

These tournament tips will help you to improve your poker game.

1. Play only one table at a time – especially when you’re just getting used to playing tournament poker.

2. Don’t play when you’re distracted – you’re more likely to make mistakes when distracted, and those mistakes will cost you.

3. Scooping cheap pots early on is a good way to build up some chips for when the blinds get bigger.

4. Watch the other people at the table – figure them out early on, so that you can make educated guesses as to their motives later in the game.

5. If you don’t mind the risk, consider trying to double up by going all-in early in the tournament.

The above tips may seem basic, but they’re things that many people overlook. Playing too conservative early on can lead to you being crippled by the ever increasing blinds, and being bullied out of the tournament later on.

Playing while distracted – or playing too many tables at once – is a common mistake. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that playing more tournaments makes you more likelt to win, but it’s better to play your best at one table, than to play badly at several tables.