Best Poker Sites for Tournament Play

Poker tournaments are equally as important as cash games when it comes to playing poker online. Every poker site hosts tournaments and in some cases, enough so, that the tournaments will run within minutes of each other. Not all tournament poker sites are alike when it comes to what they have to offer. Some sites are able to provide players with million dollar events, while others may choose to give away qualifiers and satellites. Since there are so many tournament sites available, we've ranked only the top five below. These sites provide a variety of online tournaments in multiple formats and offer at least a weekly $50,000 guarantee if not more. The poker rooms below provide benefits beyond their standard tournament schedule, including weekly VIP freerolls, WSOP qualifiers and satellites as well as regular bonuses and tournament leader boards with weekly cash prizes.

Ranking the Best Tournament Poker Sites

Our tournament poker sites list was created based on a few different requirements. The tournament poker sites had to have daily guarantees exceeding $10,000 per event, plenty of WSOP qualifiers, frequent overlays, multiple satellite tournamnets and a variety of formats and buy-ins. By far the top three poker sites for tournaments is easily Party Poker, Pokerstars, of course 888 Poker, however sites like Bet Online Poker, and even Bodog have a few hidden treasures. The smaller sites made our list because of the ease of competition and the frequent tournament overlays.

Tournament overlays give back added value. While the smaller networks like Merge and Cake don't give you the same million dollar prize pools like Stars or Tilt, they do have plenty of tournament overlays to take advantage of. If your interested in learning more about tournament overlays, you can check this page which also lists the best poker sites with overlay tournaments.

Tournament Strategy

Tournaments can net players a lot of money in one day, but they are hardly easy to win. There are a lot of landmines and traps that players must avoid if they hope to one day win a major tournament. One of the most interesting aspects of tournament poker is that the same general strategies can be applied to almost any limit. A small or micro stakes player could relatively easily win the Sunday Million, just as a Sunday Million winner could bust out in the first five minutes of a micro stakes tournament.

This is the beautiful (and ugly) side of tournament play. No matter how good or bad you are, your chances of winning are never that remote. Think about some of the big World Series of Poker Main Event winners over the past 10 or so years. Does anyone really think that Jerry Yang or Jamie Gold were better than the majority of the field, let alone all of it? Of course not, they may have played marginally well, but the key to their success was running hotter than the sun when it mattered the most. While it is still a mystery exactly how you are supposed to run like these guys did, there is still fundamental tournament skills that will give you a defined edge in almost any event that you play.

Early Stage Tournament Strategy

The early stages of a tournament are generally quite boring and uneventful. As a result of this boredom, a lot of players will try and create some action on their own. Players who are impatient action junkies will seldom find success in tournament poker. While the beginning of a tournament is not filled with heart pumping action, you should not try to force the issue. When a tournament is just starting, wait around and look for some strong hands and great spots to accumulate easy chips. This is not the time to be taking risks or putting a large portion of your stack in harm’s way. Nevertheless, there are going to be a lot of players who seem like they are looking for way to donate their stacks. Look for these players to help you work your way to a deep run, but don’t ever try to mimic their style. Reckless tournament players typically go broke right away or get monster stacks and blow them later. Neither of these are outcomes that are advantageous in the short or long run.

Mid-Late Stage Tournament Strategy

As a tournament progresses, your stack will be going one of two ways: up or down. If you are slowly losing life, you should look for some clear spots to either steal the blinds or double up (and hopefully both). Sometimes you need to go all in even without a superior hand. Eventually the blinds will be enough to last you another round. Don’t play with fear, but play as smart as you possibly can. Good players will pick up moderate pots on a consistent basis, while weaker players tend to rely on the occasional monster pot. Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, but don’t ever play like you are going for broke. This strategy might net you some quick wins, but it will inevitably send you to the rail.