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Strategies for Late Entering Online Poker Tournaments

If you play online poker tournaments, you are very familiar with late entry. The majority of multi-table poker tournaments allow for late entry with some allowing late entry for over an hour. While some people like playing a tournament from the start, others prefer to come in later in hopes of not having to play as long to turn a profit.

Today, we will take a look at late entry in poker tournaments and some strategies that you can use to try and win more money.

Enter Late and Play Your Normal “A Game”

If you late enter an online poker tournament with a slow structure, you may still have enough of a stack to play your typical A-game. This is particularly true with slower structure games that give you a healthy starting stack or tournaments with very low starting blinds.

For example, if your starting stack is 1,500 and you don’t reach 100-200 until the end of the late registration period, you can late enter and play your general A-game. Check out the structure of your event to see how many blinds you’ll start with and go from there.

Enter Late and Shove With Big Hands Only

A strategy that I like to use often is late entering a poker tournament and try to pick up a big hand to shove with. If you’re lucky enough to run across a mid to high pocket pair or big ace, go ahead and shove, especially if you’re around the 10 big blind range.

Most players will assume that you’re simply just trying to get lucky and will opt to call you light. You might also see larger stacks try and call you light because you can’t do much to hurt them. This is a great way to get an early double to get enough chips to battle with.

Enter Late and Show Any Reasonable Hand

Another decent late entry strategy is to try and get your chips in with any form of reasonable hand soon after getting to the table. Most any suited aces A-7 and up, any two face cards, and all pairs are good candidates for this type of shove.

Again, you’re going to find players that will call you light because they think you’re shoving with junk. Of course, if someone calls you with a better hand, you will often have live cards to try and get lucky.

Enter Late and Rock Up

A strategy you will see some late entrants use is late registering for a tournament and then rocking up in hopes of making the money. This is often used in tournaments where the late entry period ends really close to the bubble.

For example, I’ve recently been playing in a lot of online freerolls on a site where the late entry period will end anywhere from 2 to 10 players from the money. It’s not uncommon to see someone come in at the last minute with a stack of around 8 big blinds and just HODL in hopes of cashing. Often, other short stacks or sitters get knocked out and the late entrant makes the money and a profit.

Which Strategy is Best?

The strategy that works best depends on the structure of the event. If the structure is slow and you have enough chips to make some moves, playing your A game will be the best bet. Otherwise, you should probably stick with something closer to playing fast with reasonable hands.

Coming in and rocking up or waiting for a big hand to try and double can be problematic when you don’t get cards. By playing fast with reasonable holdings, you give yourself a good chance to get lucky and get some chips to try and make a deep run.

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