Meta Poker Bug

Before you can learn how to beat double up tournaments on a consistent basis you’re going to need to understand what type of tournament this is. Not many online poker rooms offer double up tournaments yet, but there are several including Poker Stars that currently have this tournament structure. Generally you’re only going to find this type of tournament played online with 10 players at the table with the top 5 making money.

Since the goal of the tournament is to double your buy-in the top 5 out of 10 players win money. You almost double your money in these tournaments and the only reason you don’t is because of the tournament fee. If you have a poker rakeback deal in place though then you can lower the amount you’re losing on fees which will help your bottom line when you’re playing this type of tournament.

These tournaments are known to be very tight and the further you go up the buy-in level the tighter the tournament usually gets. If you make one mistake in these tournaments it can cost you your entire tournament so you need to be careful. You should really only play your premium hands early on. If you manage to double up on someone early on then you’ll be in great shape to make the money. If you don’t have that many chips after the early stages of the game then you might need to open up your range a little bit.

You will need to start trying to be the aggressor at the table a bit so that you can take down some blinds and antes from the other players. If you aren’t winning any chips in these tournaments then the blinds will eventually eat you up and you’ll wish that you would have made a stand earlier on. If you’ve been playing tight during the early stages of the tournament then you should be able to get away with stealing the blinds a couple times once they go up. Make sure you play your position and try to steal the blinds when you’re in a good position too.

In this type of poker tournament you don’t need to play a lot of hands nor do you need to win many hands. You can get away with winning one big hand in this type of tournament format. If you can double up in the early rounds of the tournament then most players will be scared to play against you unless they have a monster. You can use this to your advantage because you’ll be able to steal a lot of blinds. If anyone re-raises the pot then you can determine at that point whether you should just fold or whether you should put the other player all-in.

Once you get the hand of playing double-up tournaments you’ll be able to start trying to multi-table them so you can increase your earnings. You don’t need to play 10 at a time, but if you can learn to play 3-4 games at a time then you will see a huge increase in the amount of money you’re making for the time you’re committing.