Low-Stakes Online Tournaments

When the stakes aren't huge, your opponents can become very unpredictable. Low-stakes online poker is a great example.

If you play in the smaller online tournaments, you're very familiar with the routine. In the first round, 2-4 people per table seem to go all-in. Sometims one of them will have a great hand, but often enough you see people with A6 or KJ risk their whole stack.

Is this a good strategy? The thinking seems to go "it's cheap anyhow, so I'll take a gamble and try to get ahead." In a game with 3000 or so players, risking everything to double- or triple-up really isn't wise. On average the final table players will have perhaps 300x their starting stack. An all-or-nothing ploy with so-so cards to get to 2x is just a bad bet.

So what is a good strategy?

First of all, realize that lots of players will take themselves out of the competition in the early-going at no risk to you. Then realize that an early chip lead doesn't matter very much, at least not if you take unnecessary chances to get it. Often the early leader gets to that point because he takes lots of risks and wins. Think about it, if you have 1500 players (half the field) taking lots of risks, SOME of them will have to win and end up with large stacks. What usually happens, though, is that the tight-aggressive players bide their time until they have a great hand, then they take monster-size bites out of the loose-aggressive players. Pretty soon many of the early leaders are gone.

What you should do:

Early On (2/3 or more of players still in)

• Almost never play a hand in the first few rounds of play (even your AA can get drawn out on, but I would still play that one, even all-in)
• Only play your very best cards from early position until 1/3 of the players have been eliminated. For me this means AA, KK, QQ and AKs.
• In later positions you can play a few more hands because the chance of someone going all-in behind you are smaller.
• Drawing hands like 87s or 66 will usually just cost you money early on because someone will overbet their hands and wreck the pot odds for you.
• Never bluff. Some fool will call you.

Mid Game (2/3 gone but not close to the money)

• Start to play more hands, especially drawing hands like 87s or 66 when you get the proper pot odds (lots of players in the hand without much raising).
• Bluff now and then.
• Try to steal the blinds now and then.

Late Game (close to the money)

• DON'T GET ELIMINATED. Nothing worse than making 102nd place in a tournament that pays the top 100.
• Play very tight poker. Play only your best hands, and only continue after the flop if you connect solidly.
• Use all time you are alotted to think about your hand - even if the decision is clear. Let some other guy get knocked out on another table while you "think".
• Some people will intentionally disconnect from the network because most sites will give some time to reconnect. I don't do this because I consider it cheating, but I want you to be aware so you'll know what's going on if it happens.

The Final Table

• If you have a large stack, try to push around the people with small stacks by betting at them and sealing their blinds.
• If you have a short stack, avoid going heads-up with a large stack. They will push you around.
• If you have lots of chips compared to the size of the blinds, wait for good cards.
• If you have few chips compared to the size of the blinds, you will have to take more chances.
• As the field gets smaller, you don't need as good of a hand to win. Heads-up, Ace-anything is favored to win.