With the COVID shutdown of live tournament poker, since I live in Nevada I’ve been fortunate to be able to play online on WSOP.com.  I wish this platform was open to all US and worldwide players so that we all had an equal opportunity to play safely together.  At the moment it is only open to players located in NV and NJ.  

After live tournament poker shut down, I noticed a HUGE difference in the online tournament play with what I call “playing for stacks.”  I usually play small buy-in online tournaments, between $10-$100 entries. My favorite is the $15 nightly knockout that has no rebuys and you get a $5 knockout bounty for every player you knock out.  I think the big change online came from the influx of players who were normally grinding the live tables.  These people are used to sitting down at a live table with a $300-$1,000 cash buy-in and now they are playing $100 tournaments online.  I characterize their play as “playing for stacks” because they play every hand like it’s a cash hand, and they have no problem going all-in time after time and rebuying for $100. 

I played a $100 tournament one night where I counted 24 hands in a row of someone at my table going all-in — “Playing for Stacks.”   It took me a few busts and frustrated nights to adjust my game for the new field, and I wanted to share with you some tips and tricks for playing WSOP.com.

Let’s start at the beginning.

GET COMFORTABLE — Online tournaments can be a long grind, and I often get a little sleepy with the lack of stimulation from live play.  Prep for a few hours of play with a comfortable seat, good laptop, good connection, water and snacks. There are only 5-minute breaks and no extended “dinner break.” If you go into meal time,  be prepared to be able to make something quick or have a friend serve you a nice meal while you play on your laptop at the dinner table. 

TABLE ETIQUETTE — You can reposition your seat by selecting a seat and right clicking and choosing Sit Here. I prefer the upper Seat 1 or seat 9 which are also my favorite seats at a live table. Next look carefully at player names and avatars.  Quite often men have a female avatar and women have a male avatar.  Silly in my opinion if your name is SassySusan and you have a big red-headed bearded guy as your avatar. 

There have been many complaints of late about not being able to identify the real name of your opponent, especially as we approach bigger buy-ins. 

There is a great system for writing notes on the other players at your table.  I don’t use this as often as I should, but the icons and color coding are cool and for a longer event you want to take advantage of this.  You can write your own note, or add a “shark” icon or color code the player for “calling station” or aggro.  See below photo for how the opponent notes look. 

BETTING — In live poker there are so many more observation points for you to take into consideration for betting, but online there are very few.  It is important to observe your opponents and watch hands go to showdown.  Note how much he raised pre-flop, from what position did he raise, did he C bet, how much did he raise, how much did he bet at each street?  Pay attention. 

For yourself, there are two important things to consider when betting:  Timing and bet sizing.  I think the time it takes you to bet or call a bet in online poker  is your most valuable tool. While others may think it’s a tell, you can use this to your advantage as a false tell.  The other day I said to Lena in the zoom room, “Why do you check so fast?”   A fast check tells the table you missed that flop so completely you checked in one second.  If I’m going to check,  I always wait a few seconds as if I’m calculating a bet size. Then my check seems like a scary trap and not a “shit, I missed the flop.”  If I’m going to bet, like a Continuation bet or a late-position bluff, I try to bet fast. Especially with my female avatar,  if I bet fast they assume I have the nuts and fold.  Other than checks and bets, I try to time my calls by waiting a few seconds to act.  This makes the opponents think I am a careful, contemplative player who is thinking about pots I am involved in.  I want to keep them guessing what my strategy is when I’ve chosen to be in a pot.

WSOP does not have the 3BB raise button like PokerStars has. The quick betting options are ½ Pot, ¾ Pot, Pot and Max (all in).  The Raise button will minimum raise the BB, and I think that’s not effective in online play except for heads up.  When you are raising preflop, make sure to see how many people and how much money is in the pot.  If I’m first to raise, I’ll usually go ¾ pot, unless we are in the later stages and higher blinds. But if there are several limpers or a smaller raise behind, I may select ½ pot raise.  After the flop, I let the size of the pot, and number of players determine which button I select.  Do I want callers or do I want to isolate? 

About half of the time, I purposefully don’t use the betting buttons and calculate a bet that will indicate this is not a button bet.  I do this for two reasons, pot control, calculating about a 1/3 pot bet so that when deep pocket villain decides to go all in for the 7^th time, I can get away from the hand without losing too much if needed. And I do a calculated bet for opponents to wonder why I would bet that and not a button bet.  I want them to be a little scared of my calculated bet, and this allows me to mix up my bet sizing and keep them guessing.  

PLAYING FOR STACKS  — As I said early on, this has been the biggest change to the online tournament scene.  I don’t have the bank roll or desire to do multiple rebuys.  I usually budget one entry, one rebuy, one add-on, and I’m happy if I can cash with one entry and one add on. I was happy to see yesterday that for WSOP Online in July, most of the events have limited rebuys, from 2-4 times.  This season, I have had players to my left going all in almost every hand.  They are playing every hand for their whole stack and the whole tournament buy in. Often, they are bluffing, but occasionally they have a hand.  So how do you play against this?  Hand selection is critical.  Don’t get involved in a hand unless you are willing to play for your whole stack, or unless you are willing to let it go along with your chips to an all-in.  Maybe you like playing KJ from middle position, but are you willing to play for your whole stack with KJ off?  Probably not.  If you have one or more of these maniacs at your table, you must tighten your range.  If you pot raise with QQ be prepared to go all in against maniac A5, or KT, or 9T or 56. Their range can be any two cards.  You have to always be prepared for an all-in behind you and know how you are going to answer that.  

So after making some of these adjustments, I was finally able to cash enough in my smaller tournaments to build a little bankroll for the upcoming WSOP Online. Part of me thinks the higher buy-ins and the limited re-entries should cool playing for stacks a bit.  But then I remember one live WSOP event that had around a $500 buy-in and there were six all-ins in the first level with guys trying to double up early in the big field.

A lot of seasoned players are seeing the upcoming tournaments as an “easy bracelet” so they are going to push and risk it all to take your chips. I think you have to play it a little like the tortoise and the hare: Smart and tight early on to evaluate your table, then once you have a nice tight image and have built some chips, pounce like a cheetah and leave them all wondering how their chips ended up at your seat.

Good Luck (that always helps), and I hope you get to hear that nice little chime when you make it to the brightly lit final table!   

— LADY IN THE GAME Author and Ambassador Jacqueline Britton (JacqMinx)