The world of online poker is booming rapidly, and India is no exception. In an extremely short span of time, our country has witnessed a massive rise in numbers, both in terms of players and in the kind of guarantees offered. Today’s generation has seen these changes first hand and we now live in a time where 10L GTD online poker tournaments are a daily affair.
Few years ago, PokerBaazi announced an online poker tournament with a guarantee of INR 1 CRORE, The MoneyMaker. Back then, a tournament of such magnitude was unheard of and no one (including us) expected the event to attract the kind of numbers that it did. Fast forward to today, 8 Editions of the event have been hosted, with the guarantee being smashed every single time.
As if this wasn’t enough, the ante was upped earlier this year with the introduction of Multi-Day tournament. The Game Changer promising a guarantee of 2 CRORE. The result was a massive field of 3788 players and an unreal prize pool of INR 3.78 CRORE!
Multi-day poker tournaments of this kind are no doubt the latest trend in Indian online poker. Many operators have introduced these events in the past few months. Massive events and humungous prize pools as all at an extremely reasonable buy-in. What’s not to love! The concept is a huge success, attracting anyone who knows anything about poker to come give it a shot. As far as value for money is concerned in poker cash game, it’s a no brainer!
While these online poker tournaments are much like any other, there are a few aspects of this format that vary. poker strategy implemented in these events depend on multiple factors, and these are best summed up by some of the biggest pros and previous winners from the Indian poker fraternity:
Prashanth Sekar (iveyleague) -GameChanger Champion 2019
Multiday events will always have massive guarantees which is very good for ROI and for the ecosystem. It is important to approach each day as a separate card game of poker tournament. Think of it as a series of online poker tournaments. Given this, it is important to budget in terms of bullets for the entire series while also factoring in your bankroll.
Day 1 Strategy
Classic conundrum of Survival vs Chip Accumulation.
Compared to a single day online poker tournament, Chip Accumulation takes precedence over survival since you have more flights/chances. The goal is to get into Day 2 with as big stack poker as possible as that maximizes your EV of winning more chips in future situations. Do not hesitate to take spots that you would normally pass up on. A classic situation would be the bubble scenario of the last level of Day1.
Let’s say you are a mid-stack and you could comfortably make Day 2 by tightening up. Here is where you need to show courage and take spots. Taking marginal spots would result in you busting out or making a massive stack. Go for the spot. All the money is up top.
See Also:- Online Poker Tournaments – Early Stage Guide
The last flight of Day1 is where people tend to get more aggressive as everyone wants to make it to Day2 and others who already made Day 2 want to make it with a bigger stack. This is one of those situations where you adjust and wait for your spots. However, don’t shy away from a good spot yourselves.
Hammer the Day1 Bubble
If you find yourself in a good stack at the last few levels of Day 1, it is in your best interest to bring your Thor’s Hammer and win chips as it maximizes your future EV.
Day2 Strategy
Be well rested. Multiday online poker tournaments give you that luxury. Utilize that and come out well prepared. In single day events, when you run deep you won’t have the luxury of taking a long rest and thinking out your game plan. Scout out your field. Treat it like a new tournament. Forget all the baggage of Day1 be it the beats or the coolers. You need to come out fresh. The game is going to be shallower and stacks are going to be swingy.
Also Read: How to Play Poker
Accepting this fact will make your life easier. You could bust out 100 BBs in a matter of 10 minutes. You could also run up a 10BB stack into the Chip Lead in the same time frame. Overall emphasize on patience and pick your spots wisely.
Ujjwal Narwal (MrRobot) Serial Crusher
I’d say that players should fire bullets wisely. If it’s a 1 Day event then you can/should (depending on your roll) fire bullets till last min of late reg when it’s a high value tourney say 1Cr gtd. However, in a multiday online poker tournaments, there’s no need to rebuy at 15bb in 1A if there’s going to be a 1B! Also worth noting – none of the players on FT of GameChanger were in top 10 stacks going to Day2. So, you’re wrong if you think you can’t make it even if you’re a shortie!
Shravan Chhabria (FishStars) Serial Crusher
Well, I think you got to keep it simple and treat it as any other poker tournament, because your decision about a poker hand cannot change depending on what time of the day it is! Having said that, you need to keep in mind that you cannot win the tournament that day or the next day – so it’s very important to set small goals and take each session as it comes!
Rubin Labroo (kornkid) Serial Crusher
The new kind of online poker tournaments you get to see these days are the multi day tourneys. Big guarantees spread over multiple days. These are further divided into two kinds- Freezeout (generally with more number of flights) and Re-entries (less flights but can rebuy multiple flights the same day). In my opinion, there are different poker tips to approach them:
For Freezouts, I prefer registering early, when I get 100-150 bigs. This is because it’s important to get that early double up and then pressurize people. You see people tightening up. Even maniacs will get super tight and play mostly the top of their ranges. Because here the ROI is on the time invested. You don’t want to play for 5 hours and then make loose jams in the last hour unless you still are at the starting stack in online poker tournaments.
For free-entry online poker tournaments multi day events , it’s okay to register comparatively late 70-80 bigs. You don’t mind gambling because other people will be gambling too. In the last hour of the game you’ll see a lot of shorties jamming equity hands against you. How often are you good with ace king in a multi-way pot over and over again? My strategy would be to make a stack and gamble less in the last few levels.
Abhinav Iyer (griezzman) – Serial Crusher
Multi-day poker tournaments have become quite popular, after the format’s success at the first ever GameChanger and almost all best poker sites following and hosting multi-day events. My strategy has been to try accumulating poker chips and bag big. Chances of you running deep are higher in Day 2, with a lot of short stacks qualifying to Day 2.
Trying to bag big may lead to firing a few bullets which brings me to my second point which is to outline a fixed amount of entries for the tournament. Poker Bankroll Management is super essential as the up-top prize can carry you away to fire additional bullets when you’re getting say 15-20bb. Try not to tilt if you’re not doing good, focus on other tables and re- enter the next day! Well now that the strategies been covered, here’s where you can use it!
National Poker Series (13th-27th June, 2021)
The month of June is going to be a kickass one with India’s biggest ever online poker series taking off from the 13th all the way stretching to an extravaganza of 15 days. Poker players of all poker skill level are going to compete at India’s top poker landscape and battle it out to take home the title of India’s first poker gold medalist.
With a 15 crore stupendous guarantee, the bets are high and the top three medalists will get to showcase their skills on the global stage at the world’s biggest poker event ever! So, what are you waiting for? Start grooming yourself and play for prestige and fame this 2021 only on PokerBaazi
