Online Poker Tournament Tips to Boost Your Win Rates
If you’ve decided to participate in an online poker tournament – great! Whether you’re up against beginners, top-level players or people somewhere in between, it’s worth learning some tips to help you get the most out of it.
Why Tips and Strategies Are Important for Online Poker Tournaments
Playing in online poker tournaments can be thrilling, enjoyable and even rewarding sometimes. Whether you win or lose, you can have a great time taking on other players and hopefully improving your gameplay.
The thing is online poker shouldn’t be underestimated. The game has a lot of complexity and depth to it, so if you’re going to play online poker tournaments, it’s always best to be prepared.
If you take part in an online poker tournament and don’t know what you’re doing or how you’re going to play, chances are you’ll struggle. Yes, being impulsive can sometimes work out, but not always.
When it comes to a game with depth like poker, tips are a great help and shouldn’t be ignored. Even the simplest ones can improve the way you play poker online and may even help you win.
If you’ve joined one of the best poker sites in the UK and want to play in a tournament, read this blog post first. We’ll share some useful tips and advice to help advance your poker tournament strategy.
General Pieces of Advice
Before going over some tips related to poker itself, we’ll share some more general ones that can still be useful. You should know exactly what’s involved when you opt into a tournament.
Make sure you look at all the information about the tournament so you’re aware of what’s going to happen. You should also read the terms and conditions as these include the rules you have to follow.
It goes without saying that to develop a reliable online poker tournament strategy, you have to know the game of poker inside out. Even though the computer does a lot for you, the key decisions are ultimately yours.
You should make sure the tournament suits your level of experience and skill. Many of the top poker sites have tournaments for beginners, for example, that include tutorials and have a more beginner-friendly environment.
Then there’s the matter of money. Whenever you gamble on the internet, you should decide on a budget and stick to it, no matter what. This applies to online poker tournaments too.
Many beginner tournaments have low stakes so you can play and build up your confidence at poker without investing and risking too much money. Don’t choose a tournament if the minimum stake is too high for your budget.
The takeaway is that you should learn about the tournaments a site offers and join whichever is most suitable for your experience level and budget. By doing this, you’ll have a more enjoyable time overall.
Specific Tips for Online Poker Tournaments
Now, we’ll look at some tips that are specifically for online poker tournaments. If you’re going to participate in such an event, using any or all of these tips can improve your gameplay.
No piece of advice can guarantee you a win, but it can boost your chances of doing well. It can also get you thinking about how you play and respond to what others are doing.
Don’t Be the First to Limp
Limping is where you enter the pot pre-flop by betting the big blind, which is the absolute minimum bet allowed in the current round. In any online poker game, you should never be the first player to limp.
Doing this could encourage more players to enter the pot, decreasing the odds you’ll have of winning the pot. Also, limping might indicate to other players that you have a weak hand.
They could then decide to play aggressively against you, which won’t necessarily work out well for you. Lastly, if you limp with a strong hand, you’re not getting the most value out of it.
Ideally, you should raise your bet when your hand is strong. You want to encourage others to bet big so that you have a decent amount of winnings if your hand wins.
If you limp on a strong hand instead of raising, you could end up winning a smaller amount of money than what you could win, in theory. It’s only ever worth limping if someone else has limped before you.
Try to Observe Betting Patterns
In real-life poker games, you can observe other players’ body language and look out for tells, i.e. subtle things people do that may indicate what their hand is like. These don’t exist in online poker.
However, what you can do instead is study the betting patterns of your competitors. This isn’t an exact science, and it may take time, but it can indicate what someone’s hand is like.
There’s no guarantee this technique will work, but it sometimes does. The thing is many players don’t realise that others will realise what their betting patterns are like.
Sometimes, a poker player might not even realise they have a particular way of betting or playing the game. Some players have a rather rigid way of betting in poker games; others are more flexible and impulsive.
When playing online poker, try to keep track of how the other players act and what bets they place. If you notice a pattern or general gameplay style, you should be able to spot when a player deviates from that.
Whenever someone goes against their usual style of play, this could indicate they have a particularly strong hand. Likewise, it could also mean their hand is weak. There’s simply no way of telling which is the case.
Again, determining betting patterns isn’t a guaranteed way to suss out what other players’ hands are like; nothing is. However, it can sometimes give you a general idea of how other people are faring.
Play Aggressively but Not Always
Another tip you might want to put into practice is playing aggressively. This simply means frequently betting and raising your bets. It can be risky if you don’t have a good hand, but it also has its advantages.
When playing aggressively, you could encourage your opponents to fold or cause them to make mistakes. Opponents may even rethink their strategy and change their gameplay if you play in a particularly aggressive way.
Having said that, you shouldn’t adopt this way of playing and stick to it for an entire game, regardless of what’s going on. By all means, use it as your main strategy, but prepare to deviate from it if necessary.
Linking back to the previous tip about betting patterns, other players might pick up on this if you stick to a single style of playing and betting. Therefore, it’s best to adjust things every once in a while.
Avoid Tilting
Tilting is when a player becomes frustrated or angry during a poker game. This heightened emotional state then affects their gameplay. For example, they might make erratic decisions or adopt poorer strategies.
If you let this happen, other players could pick up on it and use your emotional state to your advantage. This is why it’s important that you stay calm no matter what happens in a poker tournament.
Try your best to make sensible, rational decisions that aren’t affected by your emotional state. You should have a level head and a clear mind for your online poker tournament strategy to be as effective as possible.
Understand Deck Composition
Online poker games are played with a single standard deck of 52 cards. It’s a good idea that you understand the composition of a standard deck and keep an eye on what cards come up when playing.
Let’s say you’re playing Texas hold’em, and two of the community cards are hearts. You also have two hearts in your hand. You would like to get a flush, which would require just one more heart.
You know where four of the 13 hearts cards are; there are nine remaining. There’s no telling how many of them are in other players’ hands and how many are in the deck.
Since you can see how many cards the other players have drawn and can determine how many cards are in the deck, you can work out roughly how likely it is you’ll get that final heart.
Have No Distractions
Unlike other online casino games, poker requires a lot of mental aptitude and concentration. It’s not a game you should play lightly, even if you’re taking part in beginner tournaments.
To help you stay focused and master your tournament poker strategy, you should play in a space that’s free from distractions. If possible, set up your computer or laptop in a quiet room.
Make sure there’s nothing in this room that could distract you. Arrange the desk so you’re facing away from the window, and if there’s a TV, switch it off before you start playing.
Some people do things such as exercise, meditation or brain training exercises before taking part in online poker tournaments. They do this to clear their minds and give themselves the best possible chance of performing well.
Learn to Reflect on Your Gameplay
No two poker games indeed are the same. However, it’s always worth thinking about how a game went and trying to learn from it as best you can.
Look back and make notes on your gameplay. Were any of your actions particularly good or bad? Did any of them help you win the pot? Did any of them end up encouraging you to fold?
There are lots of poker tools and pieces of software you can use to analyse your performance, track your hands and suggest the best move to make. However, these aren’t allowed in online poker tournaments.
These tools can be useful, so do use them if you want to, but only where they’re allowed. The reason they’re not allowed during tournaments is so that all players are on a level playing field.
In between tournaments, feel free to use tools to gain perspective on your gameplay. Using such software can help you identify weak moves you should avoid and strong moves you should try to keep making.
