This free online poker article is a follow on from the last in which we examined the differences between poker tournaments and ring cash games. To follow on now we’ll get into the nitty gritty and discuss some key things you need to know or adapt your game to in order to choose what game type to play.
The first, most obvious thing to do is to make sure we can actually play the tournaments we sign up for!
An online large field regular speed or deep stack tournament can easily take 6 hours to complete, if not more! Reaching the money typically happens somewhere around the 2 or 2 and a half hour mark.
Generally you can only expect to make the money 10 or 15% of the time, and make the final table a tiny fraction of a percent of the time in large, multi-thousand player games or a few percent in multi-hundred player games.
So it’s not like this will be an everyday occurrence if we’re just playing one or two tables at a time, but late in tournaments is where all the money is.
So if you’ve just put in a hard 5 hours and have got a big stack going how will you feel if you have to drop out due to plans with friends or family? Or your wife/gf expects you to do something, or anything of that nature?
Naturally unexpected events can turn up that can’t be avoided or planned for. But not assuring that you have enough time to play to the end if you happen to run deep can cost you hundreds of dollars in equity from a single tournament, even something as low as a $3 or $5 buyin!
Micro and lowstakes tournaments (on Pokerstars, the biggest real money poker site worldwide) almost always have thousands of dollars in the prize pool, so you can really cost yourself a lot if you have to leave late in a tourney.
Due to this a lot of players prefer to play ring game sit n goes. For example, an 18 man turbo SNG on Pokerstars, takes only an hour or so from start to finish.
So if you’ve got 2 hours free to play you can plan a session of 18 mans, load new games for the first hour then stop loading new games and play out the 2 hours before stopping and not risk losing money or goodwill from friends and family!
The time commitment for a SNG is much less than for a large field tournament, where you must be prepared to commit many hours after the last game you register for starts.
While on a site like NoPayPOKER with small fields (so tourneys wrap up quicker) and less money on the line (sure, you might lose a few hundred FreeDs in equity, but that only equates to a couple bucks), this is much less of a problem.
In general you should always understand how long the games you start could take to finish, whether or not it’s 10 minutes for a hyperturbo, 45 minutes for a SNG, or 8 hours for a large field MTT (multi-table tournament). If you can’t block off the time, don’t start the game. Consider playing something shorter or sitting cash, where you can cut your session at any time.
To play poker for fun or to improve your poker skills before graduating on to micro and mini money tables, the free online poker at NoPayPOKER are where you need to go.
The poker is free, there is no risk of loss at all but you can win a bit of real money and later, if you want, you can cash it in at cash table partner poker sites.
There is also a big free poker online tournament education blog library that’s open to all and has free poker lessons ranging from complete beginner level to expert.
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