The majority of online poker sites have realised that many of their customers do not want to travel half way across the world in order to play in a large poker festival such as a European Tour event or the World Series of Poker so instead they have launched their own online poker events to rival those of their land-based competitors.
Whilst events such as the World Series of Poker only occur annually, some of the online poker events take place every three to six months meaning players can get the feel of taking part in a major event all year round, each with a chance of winning a life-changing amount of money for very little outlay.
Most of the online events have several smaller tournaments to begin with, often spread over a number of disciplines and then finish with a high buy-in Main Event. Some even offer huge buy-in events such as the $10,300 WCOOP Main Event or the $25,000 Heads-up Challenge. These hefty buy-ins are most probably out of the bankrolls of most people but sites usually offer hundreds of satellites for each event, meaning you can get the chance to play in a prestigious tournament for literally pennies.
One of the great things about these online poker events is that the fields are generally quite soft, with exception to the extremely high buy-in events, as recreational players around the world decide to take their shot at the chance of a significant sum of money. Event the high buy-in events will have a lot of satellite players in them meaning the first few levels of the tournament can be great for accumulating chips.
If you decide to play in any of these events the first thing you should do is to check the numerous online poker tournament rankings and make a note of the top 50 or so. This way you will recognise who the best players are at the table and you can literally stay out of their way unless you have the goods! Trying to take on the best at their own game is a recipe for disaster and will more often than not see you heading for the rail.
Most of these events are deep stacked, often over 200 big blinds deep so the early stages are brilliant for trying to see cheap flops with small and medium pairs, along with suited connectors, hoping to hit the flop extremely hard and taking a large pot or even an entire stack from someone who over values their top pair or over pair.
Due to the deep stacked nature of many of these events, the actually running time can last over 15 hours so ensure you have enough supplies around you such as drinks and food and that if you are going t play one you do not have any other plans for the following day such as work! Saying that, if you take down one of these tournaments for several hundred thousand dollars then the last thing on your mind will be work!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Does this mean that Gary will stake us both into these bad boys?
lol I highly doubt it. He would want a return on his staking for a start!!