How To Choose The Best Online Poker Tournaments

With So Many Choices And So Many Poker Sites We Take A Different Approach To Finding The Best Online Poker Tournaments – Starting With The Individual.

While many would like to think of themselves as the next Phil Ivey or be casually playing with $1000’s at stake to relieve the boredom of their day-job – making profitable choices is rarely this easy. With hundreds of Online Poker Sites and many thousands of Poker Tournaments to choose from it can be difficult to locate the games which are at the right times, stakes and field-sizes for you.

This article acts as a jump-off point for these questions and more – aiming to ask the important questions which identify each players real priorities, and then point to the best online poker tournaments based on these – including links to some detailed articles and reviews here at SNG Planet.

Choosing Online Poker Tournaments #1 - What Is Your Poker Experience Level??

This is a big one, are you already a tournament poker expert – or a natural talent at the start of the learning curve?

For beginners we have identified the 10 Best Beginners Online Poker Tournaments in this detailed article.
Fine-tuning those final table skills can be easy to achieve at the 180 (20 table) SNGs. These fill up fastest at Poker Stars and range from $4 to $36 + fees. Check out our 3-part guide to the Poker Stars 180 Player SNGs here.
As you become more experienced the bigger buy-in tournaments are your regular stomping-ground. While the Poker Stars Sunday Million is the biggest of all, there are plenty of alternatives – 5 great examples are covered in our special look at 5 Great Alternatives To The Sunday Million.

Choosing Online Poker Tournaments #2 – How Much Time Can You Dedicate?

Full time online poker players can be flexible with their tournament schedule – those of us who need to get up for work would rather not be still waiting for that final table bubble to burst at 5am. It follows that part-time (leisure + profits) players should avoid the giant weekday evening fields such as the Poker Stars $3, $5 or $10 + re-buys and focus on the more manageable field sizes at some of the smaller poker sites. The additional advantage here is that you will often find that your opponents are less experienced, increasing your profits.

We recommend Carbon Poker for those seeking smaller fields, they have many ‘overlay’ tournaments (where the prizes are greater than the sum of entry fees) and a generous 200% to $600 sign-up bonus too. Check out our detailed Carbon Poker Review for more.
Non-US Players have a wider choice at the present time and can not go far wrong with Titan Poker – this is the leading site on the iPoker Network, currently vying for 3rd place in the overall traffic rankings. The fields are fishy and many tournaments are on offer with more manageable field sizes – for more info and details of our exclusive double-sized bonus offer check out our Titan Poker Review.
Those with time to spare but not necessarily vast amounts of money can choose from a wide range of profitable tournaments which may take many hours to complete. We have put together a detailed article dedicated to the Best Rebuy Poker Tournaments which gives all of the information you need.

Choosing Online Poker Tournaments #3 – Your Poker Bankroll

Bankroll management is employed by poker professionals to ensure that they can withstand the natural variance (chance elements) in the game. Recreational players also need to be aware of poker tournament bankroll management concepts – at least in so far as not to put too large a percentage of your ‘roll at risk in any one tournament. While a pro might ensure 100 buy-ins for MTT play, we recommend 30 to 50 for recreational players, with some more flexibility if you can easily reload.

For those players with modest bankrolls we again point you to our detailed look at the best online poker tournaments for beginners. Which lists 10 MTTs in which you might get your first big-break.
In the middle ($300 to $600) bankroll range you are in a great position to take advantage of some of the poker bonus offers out there. This article is based on clearing bonuses with SNG Tournaments and compares the different clearance rates – SNG Bonuses Compared also relates to Multi-table tournaments.
Those with higher bankrolls have a much better problem to overcome, how to get the higher buy-in tournaments in enough volume to grow their bankrolls further. Here the largest poker sites are the natural destination and one site stands head-and-shoulders above the rest – Poker Stars is actually twice as large as its nearest rivals and for good reasons, check out our Detailed Poker Stars Review for more info.

There are many more resources here at SNG Planet than we managed to mention in one short article – make sure you bookmark us today. In the meantime why not check out our patented Fish-O-Meter for a lighthearted, yet serious look at where to find the Loosest Online Poker Games.

The SNG Planet Verdict: There is one site which stands out from the crowd for poker tournaments, both in terms of the range of games on offer at all buy-in levels and the great way they look after their players. It is no surprise that Pokerstars is the world's most popular poker site by a long way. You can claim your 100% to $600 bonus over up to 3 separate deposits with Marketing Code PSP3108 (when you register) and Bonus Code STARS600 (when you deposit)... find out for yourself what makes Pokerstars the best now!

Marketing Code PSP3108 / Bonus Code STARS600