No matter how many times you’ve run playing the late stages of a big online Texas Holdem tournament through your head, everything gets a lot fuzzier when you’re actually doing it.  And for good reason too as the pressure of walking the fine line between being one of the lucky people to make a big cash versus being one of the unfortunate few to bust out right before the money is huge.

In order to combat this pressure, you should drill a proper strategy in your head over and over again to ensure that you’ll know what to do when the time comes.  A good place to start is in recognizing what happens as a big online tournament gets towards the later stages.

During this time, everyone will be focused on how they can get into the money to make sure that all this tournament time hasn’t been a total waste.  Most people think the best way to do this is to sit back, fold, and let everyone else bust.  This is why the play gets so tight at this point and can be a great opportunity to bet out a little and increase your chip count.

Once the money placings have been decided, play starts to get looser and those with small stacks usually bow out quickly as they get careless.  If you happen to be one of these short stacked players, don’t fall into this trap and try to play somewhat tight in order to survive and get a better placing.

Play will continue like this until it becomes time for the final table to be decided.  Then things tighten up once again.  As previously stated, this is a good opportunity to steal some chips but be careful because your ultimate goal should be to get to this final table.

At the final table, the game becomes one of people rather than fundamentals.  Players will stay in hands they normally wouldn’t stay in based on what they think the other player has or what their chip count is.  If you can master reading other players online habits then there’s a good chance you could come out on top in a big online tournament if you make it this far.