After all the likes of Harrington, Gordon, Hellmuth, Duke, and even Vorhaus have reinforced through numerous writings the idea that there are three stages to a tournament. Maybe they believe that, but I really think they may be holding back the goods. I will tell you some of the goods right here and now. Three stages to a tournament is far too simplistic and none of these writers really play by that belief either, whether they believe it or not.
Here are the stages for online poker. See if you can recognize them and judge for yourself if they should be thought of as segments on their own.
Early stage. This is a no-brainer, but with most online tournaments it can usually be defined as the first hour of play. In the tournament I enter that’s about four blind levels. In that first hour you are going to get to look at about 70, maybe even 100 hands played. It’s also the level that will see about half the field eliminated. Most of them will be monkeys and the ones who didn’t survive the all-ins against monkeys. So sad. Oh well.
The Middle Stage is called just that, because you have reached and surpassed the middle of the field and the real chip-up or get out stage begins here. How you emerge from this stage into the next will determine a lot about your strategy for the rest of the tournament. Now we get down to about 25% to 40% of the field.
Near The Money Stage or NTM. Oh, Dan and Phil didn’t mention this stage did they? No bother, it didn’t really matter did it? Of course I am poking fun at them. It is actually a critical stage because many players have a lot of things on their mind in this stage - most of them having to do with money. There is quite a shift in thinking when real money is on the line. Many players’ bankrolls are going to be their mind as well, and this creates a different playing environment. Some will tighten, some will loosen, and some will become prone to error and over betting. For a lot of fresh players, this is the most stressful part of the tournament.
In The Money or ITM. Ok now a lot of stress has been alleviated but oddly a new “anxiety” has entered the game as bankroll considerations are less of a burden now. The thing is, just inside the money, really isn’t that great, especially if you paid full pop to get in, rather than a satellite. This anxiety emanates from decisions about advancing deeper into the money. ITM can be a drawn out segment involving many difficult decisions. It is here where bad beats are feared most because a double may assure you of a final table appearance and possibly serious cash. These are often the bad beats that are most talked about too. On the other hand if you are orange or red mzoned in this stage, a go for it attitude against certain players may take a lot of limp-money pots which by this time are substantial.
Final Table. The prize structure is really important here and is one of the main factors in deciding to play a hand or not. In other words, the value of your hole cards becomes stronger here and how you play preflop may win this tournament for you, as many more hands are likely to be determined way before the river. The top three usually get the bulk of the cash so players really have chops set on that, but other short stacks may just be happy to have made the final table and could very well be playing relaxed and win some hands with sub-par holding. There aren’t going to be many (any) weak players at this stage no matter what your buy-in, so the final table often turns into a game of cunning and will.
For those of us intertwined in this competitive world of online poker we breach the boundaries every day of the game being just a fun hobby, outright competition, a risky business, or even a merciless illness. What exactly it means to any of one us could be a combination of these or many other schemes we self manifest if only to justify playing at 3:38am on a Monday night/morning.
Having a healthy psychology for playing online poker is reliant on your overall attitude of the game and yourself. There is no avoiding being proficient at one or the other, at least long term. There is also no check and balance system. You will only have yourself to deal with the inevitable trials this game will force upon your inner character in a way that will test your true dark depths of hatred, anger, jealousy and revenge. Until such point that you have faced those haunting, ugly facets of your character and learned to deal with them advantageously, they will be slithering like undetectable blood suckers leeching onto your bankroll.
You will probably never eliminate such character sets, but you can manage them via physical real world practices that are easily adaptable to any type of game you play. So aspiring to that next level may simply involve better structural management and due diligence consisting of your bankroll, skill set, and psychological stability.
There is a lot of help online for bankroll management and as part of your game you should be reviewing your bankroll position every day. Now by utilizing proper bankroll techniques, you are basically assured of never playing higher than your limit, keeping your training costs as low as possible, and limiting your exposure to mistakes, bad beats, and losing streaks. One of the best features though of keeping yourself inside your bankroll is that it can help curtail everyone’s biggest weakness – greed.
As a poker player you also need to keep learning. You learn everyday by watching other players – good and bad, by monitoring your mistakes, and by practicing your reading skills. We all pretty much learned that certain hands are strong and certain hands are weak in our first couple hours of playing, but everyone else knows that too. It’s our skill set beyond that, and how you build on that - each hand, every game, every day, and every tournament. Think of extending your skill set here as raising the bar not only on your opponents but on yourself too, by way of introducing new challenges, new poker books to read, and new games to master. Extending your skill set is your real job here and a cornerstone to managing your game into constant profitability.
As you can now ascertain, poker in my view is so very much more than a game. Poker, among other things, is an intellectual challenge that introduces potentially profound influences on your very character. A lot of struggle you may be familiar with might very well be as a result of incongruence between your game and your ability to manage your emotions and mental stability. Seriously. If you find you spend most of your time at the table angry, anxious, impatient, vengeful, or otherwise irritated, then you simply haven’t faced your demons yet. Your only recourse here may very well be to drop your game down to a level where you are actually having fun while you are playing and can appreciate the game without the dark spirits in your mind ripping the joy right out of it.
If you can get control of these three facets of your game, then nothing will stop you from being a winning online poker player.
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