Online Tournament Tips

This post is mostly about what I have experienced in alot of recent playing in online poker tournaments. These tips have worked for me in not just Texas Holdem, but 7 card stud, Omaha, and Five Card Draw as well.

On To The Poker Tips
When you are playing online poker tournaments, especially multi-table tournaments, I find that it is better to play your cards and your position than it is to try and figure the players out. There is usually too much going on too fast with too many players changing out to be able to focus enough on how the people are playing their cards. I still post notes on the players that are being very obviously such as making big bets almost every hand, we all know they aren't getting a killer hand every time. I also post notes for those who do get good hands more frequently. These guys are pretty easy to keep track of without much effort. All you have to do is pay attention to how he's playing the good hands that he's getting, this way you can tell if he's trapping or fishing.

Playing your position is an extremely important thing to do whether or not your paying attention to the players or not. Knowing position strategy will help you know when it may be a good time to bluff or maybe just slow play your hand.

Play your cards. Don't play crap cards. I know that some of you see plenty of people calling all-ins with the worst hands possible and end up winning, sometimes more than once or twice. This is a terrible strategy and should not be practiced. Those people won't last long and they are never the ones who win the tournaments.

To sum it all up.  Play your cards right, know how to play your positions, and don't play too much attention to the other players.

Making More Money Through Multi-Tabling

- Learning to play at Multiple Tables -

The first thing you need to do before being able to multi-table is proper setup. This means setting your resolution to 1920x1200 or the highest setting your monitor will handle, however, some sites offer a minimized view instead of the full table view. Alternatively, you can use 2 or 3 monitors with a video card that has dual or tripple monitor support. Make sure that you are playing with a four color deck (this will help you notice flush possibilities alot faster and easier) and with the sound on to hear if it is your turn.

If you are playing up to 2 tables simultaneously, you can still play both the players and the cards. Try starting with 2 low-limit tables to get a feel of the speed of play and the level of attention you need to give each table.

Although you can remember player types with 2 tables, once you start to play 3 or more tables simultaneously, you will find it more difficult to track the players, and will be forced into solely playing the cards and position. The more tables you play simultaneously, the tighter you should play, since you can see about 50 hands per hour per table. Once you feel comfortable, you can multi-table at higher limits.

- More Hands = More Stronger Hands = $ More Money $ -

Why play multiple tables? Easy; more tables means more hands; more hands means you see stronger starting hands more often; stronger hands means more money. Sure, you will still encounter some bad beats. But over the long term, strong starting hands will maximize your earnings. Since the goal of multi-tabling is to play strong starting hands and play tight, you should only play full ring games when playing 3 or more tables.

- Speeding up the Learning Process -

Playing at multiple tables also works as an excellent teaching model for learning poker play as quickly as possible. There is no better teacher than experience, and it stands to reason that the more hands you play, the more experience and knowledge you gain. For example, you could play a cash game while simultaneously playing at a couple of play money tables where you might want to try different strategies out before implementing then into your cash game. You can play in a tournament while simultaneously playing in a cash game so as to take a stab at larger tournament rewards, while still allowing yourself the backup of earning through a cash game and covering or exceeding your tournament entry fee.

Good Luck At The Tables!!!