MPL Poker

Guaranteed online poker tournaments

by Steve Larson

Guaranteed tournaments are the ones that the host poker room actually guarantees the prize-pool for. Regular MTTs have prize-pools which depend on the number of players: the more contributing players, the bigger the prize pool. These kind of regular MTTs carry no risks for the organizer. The prize-pool is paid out of player contributions. Guaranteed tournaments on the other hand are a different breed. When a poker rooms says it guarantees a prize pool of $1 million, it means that’s going to be the minimum prize-pool. If fewer players show up for it, it’s bad news for the room because it’ll have to cover the guarantee from its own pockets. If more people show up though, the room will have covered its guarantee, and it’ll make good money on the tournament fees. The prize pool would then actually exceed the guarantee.

Do not expect to find many $50 guarantees though. Guaranteed tournaments tend to be high prize-pool high buy-in events. Guarantees are where the real money is in online poker. If you play in one of these guaranteed events, don’t be surprised to find yourself rubbing elbows with some of poker’s greats: some of the best quoted professionals attend these online events.

Every poker room has a flagship weekly/monthly guaranteed tourney running. The bigger the poker room in question, the bigger the prize pool. $1 million guaranteed events are not rare, and since online poker is always about quantity above quality, thousands of players are expected to take part. What that means is that individual buy-ins will be kept reasonably low, and thus the buy-in/potential return ratio will be extremely good.

This means Guarantees offer excellent value in that respect, although the odds of any individual making it deep into the money take a hit with every new registration.

High buy-in GTDs are often attended by scores of railbirds, many of whom are webmasters and bloggers looking for news for their sites. If you want to make it to the big money, and to make a name for yourself online, the GTDs are definitely what you should aim for. If you play in many GTDs do sign up for a rakeback deal. You’ll be turning around significant money in tournament fees, and a good RB deal will offer you a rebate on that.

Strategy-wise, you have to know that GTDs are some of the toughest MTTs out there. If you reckon you’re a good massive freeroll player, that may not be of much help here. You see, all those who registered have relatively big sums of money riding on the tourney, and they nurture equally daring dreams about cutting themselves a share of the goodness at the end.

This is going to be tough, but that doesn’t mean reasonable tournament pay should be tossed out the window. Play tight and defensive in the beginning. Not only do you want to protect your stack, early on the size of the blinds relative to the pot does not justify daredevil actions either. Keep Harrington’s tournament recommendations in sight when it comes to the relation between the size of your stack and that of the cumulated blinds. In a high prize-pool guarantee it’s always more rewarding to be a fox than a farmer. Under such circumstances your goal is not merely to make it to the money, and avoid busting out on the bubble, it’s rather to finish as high in the tournament as possible. Once the bubble bursts, every position that you gain means that significantly more money will go into your account when you do bust out. Take full advantage of the bubble-scare. We all know there’s nothing more frustrating than to bust out on the bubble. People always tighten up as the bubble approaches hoping to survive and make it into the money. They do tend to loosen up afterwards. This approach restricts their ability to play optimally for a brief period of time. As a fox, you should be out there taking full advantage of all the scared farmers in order to boost your stack for post-bubble play.

Mind you however, once the bubble’s burst, the brief lull is going to vanish and survivors will once again be on their A-play.

You have to be aware that in a tournament with thousands of participants, the odds of your making it to the final table are rather slim. Professional players are well aware of this fact, and they gauge their strategy accordingly. The one time they make it deep into the money, they need to make up for all the buy-ins they lost in about 30 such previous tourneys. This is exactly why you cannot settle for being a mere farmer.