Micro and low-stakes online poker can be a major source of frustration for those who frequent them on a regular basis, but at the same time they can often be the most profitable form of poker that one can play. Both of these facts are true, mainly because of the large fields of a low buy-in online poker tournament.
Mainly in the PokerStars, the fields are often huge, sometimes numbering in the thousands. To be successful in a tournament with a field of this size, you need a lot of luck. In fact, if the lady luck isn't shining on you, your chances of survival are like an ice cube in hell!
That said, you can’t just hope to get lucky if you want to navigate your way to victory through the large fields of online poker tournaments. You need to act in such a way that you maximize your chances of (1) surviving in the field and (2) progressing toward the top spots.
Four of my best results in PokerStars originated in low-stakes rebuy tournaments that had large fields. These four results made me feel like Moorman, at least for a few hours!
- Third in $ 3.30 rebuy with 2,994 players
- Room in $ 3.30 rebuy with 2,662 players
- Room in $ 5.50 rebuy with 1,002 players
- Sixth in $ 3.30 rebuy with 2,663 players
Here are four guidelines I followed at these events that helped me get this far in tournaments.
Be there for the first leg
One thing you can do to help maximize your chances of going deep in a crowded tournament is to register for it as early as possible. While I will take advantage of late registration in some tournaments, I will try to ensure that I am already in my seat when the first hand is dealt. Why do I do this? Because the early stages are when you and your opponents have the deepest stacks and the weakest, least experienced players make the most costly mistakes.
If you feel you have a skill advantage over a large percentage of the field, why would you register late when the average stack may only be 20 big blinds and a large number of the “fish” have already been “caught” and knocked out of the event? You certainly want to play with these bad players – if you don’t, you’re giving up easy, high-value chips.
Be patient
You also absolutely have to be able to exercise patience when playing in a tournament with a very large field. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen players go broke with strange ways or crazy hands in these types of tournaments, presumably because they didn't have the patience to sit through a series of bad hands or some other excuse. I've done it myself - I'm not perfect. There are many times when you will fold for long periods of time or have a stack hovering around 15 big blinds and often these stretches are what define your tournament.
Be Focused
In addition to a lot of patience, you need to develop the ability to focus for long periods of time to survive these events. The tournament in which I finished third out of 2,994 participants started at 7:00 AM and took over 11 hours before we decided to make a deal for the rest of the prize pool. I admit I wasn’t focused for all 11 hours – I even slept for 35 minutes! – so I must have been very lucky to make up for that. But by staying focused on the task at hand you have a better chance of progressing through the field.
Be able to shift gears
So registering early and from the start helps, patience and focus – two qualities that should become the foundations of your poker game:: are very useful, too, in these events. Also, in tournaments with large fields, where you need to be able to change gears (speed) quickly – that is, to be able to change your playing style quickly in an attempt to outwit your opponents, as well as to be ready to play hands aggressively and be completely fearless when it comes to your playing strategy.
This last point certainly comes into play when you are close to the money bubble or approaching the big payouts in the later stages of these tournaments. No one wants to play poker for hours and not win anything, so many players start playing tight and play extremely passively near the bubble. I used to be super-tight near the bubble until I read Ari Engel's advice, who said that you should always try to burst the bubble yourself (by playing aggressively and intimidating those around you), because you will usually find that those around you will not let you be the bubble, because they will play too tight.
The same goes for the end of the tournament, a phase where I’ve been weak in the past and which I continue to struggle with. Instead of trying to climb to the top prize pools by hoping that other people will be eliminated from the tournament, play aggressively and be in control of your own destiny. While it’s true that you may find yourself defeated during the early payout levels with this approach, the times you accumulate a lot of chips and progress to the final table where the real money is, will more than make up for those earlier eliminations.
Conclusion
These are some of the fundamental elements of a successful strategy for succeeding in low buy-in, large field tournaments, a potentially profitable format to approach intelligently.
Translated and adapted from: Four tips for navigating large online poker tournaments
English 
Português do Brasil 
Español 