I've been playing tournaments on CoinPoker for a few months now and I have some tips to try and help you cash or maybe even win one of these tournaments. They run these every 2 hours and generally the tournaments are over before the next one even starts. They are very quick tournaments with blind levels that are only 3 minutes long. Once the blinds get above a certain level, just about everyone is considered "short stacked" and it can quickly become go all in or fold on every hand.
Strategies For Cashing
Your number 1 goal should be to make the money. Every tournament has a different amount of players who cash. It can be as low as 27, or as high as 99 depending on the total number of entries. Late registration lasts for 45 minutes on every tournament, you also can't make the money until after the break that happens at the 48 minute mark. At the break you can buy an add-on for 10 CHP which will add 30k chips to your stack. Unless you're already among the top 10 chip leaders in the tournament, I would always advise taking the add-on. It gives you a big cushion as far as simply making the money and possibly could put you in a position to win or finish in the top 10 with a little luck.
When To Enter The Tournament
This is totally up to you but I've found that I prefer to enter the tournament between the 15-20 minute mark if I have the time to play the tournament and want to devote time to trying to build a stack. If I only feel like playing for a little bit I will enter as close to the late registration cut-off as possible. This does 2 things, it puts you close to the money right away, and also allows you to not waste too much time playing. The problem that comes with it is that the blinds are so high it's all-in or fold right away, and if you sit down in the blinds you might get only 1 or 2 hands to choose from. If you do enter late you can try and stall until the break to get to the add-on, then try to play it out from there.
Going For The Deep Run
As I discussed above these tournaments are really tough because the blinds go up so quickly. Often times it comes down to simple luck to determine how far you get. When you catch a hand, it's probably best to go all in and hope for the best as opposed to raising or calling. The blinds will eat you alive and without a big stack, you won't survive them very long. If are able to build a big stack you can mix up your play and wait for the short stacks to push on you, and they will, because they'll have to. When I do get in a good position for a deep run with a large stack I monitor the tournament lobby very closely to see when tables will merge and when pay jumps will occur. Once you're in a higher pay level you can push a few times hoping for a good result, if you win it, keep grinding for a higher place, if you bust out, at least you made a little more than you otherwise would have. You have to look at the big picture and realize that in any tournament with 400+ entrants, your chances of winning it are 1/400 which is about 0.25%, and you're only 2.5% to make the top 10, which is the equivalent of catching a 1 outer on the river in a given hand. The point is, you can't be afraid to bust out and you have to take chances with some bad hands at times if you're going to run deep in these. If the blinds were slower to rise, you'd be correct to play tighter, but often times you just don't have that option in these particular tournaments.
Going For The Win
Assuming you've made it down to the final 2 tables with a healthy stack you can start focusing your efforts on winning the tournament. At this point you will have to be very selective pre-flop and oftentimes other players are still in the all-in or fold mode. This will usually create big clashes where a lot of chips are in the middle. If enough of these happen you'll find yourself at the final table in short order. You can also assess your opponents style and ranges and start making calculated pushes and raises on them in attempts to steal some blinds(you should do this throughout the tournament as well, but it can be hard when you're switching tables all the time and facing different players). Once again you can't be afraid to bust, if you have a big hand and someone has a better one or gets lucky on you, there's not much you can do. With some luck though you can be the one in the dominating position with the higher pair in a pair over pair situation or dominate the other players Ace high. If a few of your hands hold up you'll be fighting for a win and a big CHP prize. I hope these tips help you strategize these tournaments to realize your best results. Good luck and see you at the tables.
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