Online poker offers some very diverse tournaments. The Sit N Go is one type that should not be overlooked. Early on, you don't want to give away too many chips on speculative hands. An example would be a medium pocket pair like 88. If you miss the flop, you have to be prepare to fold. Betting this type of hand from early positions can be a recipe for disaster.

In a multi table tournament, it is often a good play to raise with mid to small pairs. This helps disguise your hand and allows you to go for big pots. In an SNG, you are better off limping these hands and only calling small, affordable raises. This ebnables you to get away cheap if you miss your set.

With the blinds are getting big you need to get your share of steals. Taking down the blinds is essential. It becomes a battle of nerves as you play weaker hands to keep winning the blinds. If you just keep folding, your stack will dwindle down to a few useless chips.

As the blinds get large, or are are big relative to your own stack, you need to consider going all in. If you think it might work out better to raise, that is fine providing you are going to push all in post flop. You have to be willing to risk it all to give yourself a chance to win.

When players are folding, you can go all in with more hands expecting to get no callers. How many chips you're up against is important also. The big (has enough chips to risk) and small (desperate and looking for a spot) stacks will call more often. The middle sized stack folds more, protecting their chips.

With four players left and three cashing, a lot of play is controlled by stack size. A case in point; You might go all in with 55 versus a player without too many chips, and fold this hand to a big chip leader.

In this situation, you're usually looking to push all in, but you cards aren't the only factor. Often you will want to go all in with any hand, if your stack threatens everyone enough. If someone your betting at has a lot of chips, he will call you more often, so you need better cards.

When you have a big stack late in the tournament, you should be stealing the blinds often. This is best done against the medium stacks. They will feel it's too expensive to play against you and risk getting knocked out.

The problem here is you want to get to the money before losing your stack. The monster stack will knock you out, while the shorties will gamble with anything to survive. This is not an easy place to be in.

There is a mathematical formula to tell you if going all in or folding is the better choice. But, one factor in determining equity value (EV) is which hands will call you. After you "guess" at that, then you know to push or fold.

Equity value (EV) is the value of your hand when you push all of your chips in. EV helps determine which hands to play. Once you decide what that range is, then it is either better to put all your chips in or fold.