Hey, Poker Playas!
How have you been doing, Manila is still in MECQ hence there are still no words if casinos/poker rooms/poker houses are open.
With the vaccine still not available and the number of infected still on the rise. Many players have shifted online but are having a hard time.
Here are some tips for players playing online!
- Understand the field.
This is one basic thing that a lot of players are overlooking.
An international field and a local field can spell a huge difference. An example is a buy-in and the field is correlated.
A field filled with local players and a field filled with international can spell huge differences due to the buy-in. If you are living in Southeast Asia while most of your opponent is living in the states. A buy-in for 100 USD could be considered as a small buy-in by the western counterpart while it can be considered a medium buy-in.
As with many small local tournaments, recreational players will be a part of the field.
Recreational players who play poker at the lowest limits don’t have a real plan for what they are trying to accomplish at the poker tables.
Hence, the field can be erratic.
An online field, whether local or international, will have those players. However, an international field can have so much more. that is because what southeast Asian players consider and mid stake tournament can be considered micro to a western counterpart.
Having more recreational players in a field would mean players calling with medium hands more hence adjustment to your gameplay is a must.
2. Be prepared for huge swings.
The variance in small stakes poker tournaments is huge because of the sheer number of opponents you have to get through and the fact many of these opponents can be nearly impossible to put on a hand.
Also of significance when playing against a large field full of recreational players is the possibility of players calling your raises — even your all-in ones — with some ridiculous holdings, adding further to the unpredictability of outcomes.
While this situation is very favorable in the long run, over the short term you can often find yourself running worse than you ever thought possible.
3. Keep it simple at the early stage and maximize your winning hands.
DO NOT try to run an elaborate bluff at any stage of the tournament because it will only lead to tears of sorrow.
A lot of your opponents only care what cards they have in their hand and won’t realize from your actions that you’re representing a specific hand — they just want to get to showdown and hopefully win.
More often than not in these events you will want to keep matters simple, playing “ABC poker” and letting the cards fall how they will.
Along the same lines, make sure you get the maximum value from your made hands
4, Listen to the Betting / Prepare to Lay Down Some Big Hands
How often have you heard poker players bemoan their luck and come out with some rubbish such as “I can’t beat these donkeys, they always hit the nuts on the river.”
What they don’t tell you is that ‘these donkeys‘ often play their hands in a manner that allows you to get away from pots should you need to.
For example, if a weak player has limp-called preflop, called the flop, called on the turn, and then leads into you on the river.
This is actually one of the biggest mistakes when playing against a recreational player.
Most of the time, weak players do not really build the pot. hence by the river. the pot is not that huge. Most of the time they actually allow the experienced players to build the pot for them.
This is where the mistake happens.
Weak players/recreational will call you whether the bet is 2x,3x,4x of the bet, especially on the flop.
Does it mean you should check? No! it means you have to understand what type of player he is and at what stage of the tournament you are.
It not the size of your bet sometimes that is why he would call. Sometimes a big bet to a weak player is more enticing for a call.
But sometimes, a lot of that information was available before the current hand. Pay attention to his pattern and it may be the sign whether to lay down your hand or not.
5, You do not get more bad beats online, you just get more hands.
A lot of times players would doubt the Random number generators of sites. The truth is that since you are dealt with more hands online than live. (considering you get 4x more hands in an hour online than live. the chance of a bad beat of course increases).
You will get a bad beat. that is undeniably true. but most of the time the hands you have played before you get busted out were not that great either.
Poker tournaments are a marathon, blaming one hand hence you were busted most of the time is false.
There were definitely other hands you could have played better. Other hands you could have not played.
A lot of times, the reason you lost was not because of a hand. it was because of how you play during the game.
Obviously, the five tips above are not all you need to be successful in small stakes online tourneys, but they should at least help you in your quest to turn a little into a lot!
Stay safe poker playas!
