Surely many of you did not get the real meaning of the title and consequently find it confusing.

According to Harrington, Gordon, Hellmuth, Duke, and even Vorhaus there are three poker tournament stages. This may be true, but in my personal opinion they are holding back the goods. I will tell you some of the goods right here and now. To think that there are only three poker tournament stages is a far too simplistic approach. The truth of the matter is that not even the authors presented above played according to that belief.

Below I have listed the five stages for online poker tournaments. Why don’t you try to recognize them and judge for yourself if they should be thought of as segments on their own?

- Early Stage

This is a no-brainer as the title is self explanatory. In most online poker tournaments it refers to the first hour of play. That’s about four blind levels in the poker tournament I enter. You are going to get to look at about 70, maybe even 100 hands in that first hour. About half the field will be eliminated in that hour. Don’t worry about it, they were just lousy players or players that did not survive the all-ins. The show must go on, as they say.

- The Middle Stage

It is called this way because you have reached and surpassed the middle of the field. This is when the real chip-up or get out stage begins. Your online poker strategy for the rest of the tournament greatly depends on how you emerge from this stage into the next. The field is now down to 25% to 40%.

- Near The Money Stage or NTM

You may not have heard of this stage before, but you must know that it is actually a critical stage of the poker tournament. This is because many players have a lot of things on their mind in this stage, mostly regarding money. When real money is on the line people tend to change the way they think. Since numerous poker players are seriously concerned about their bankrolls, the playing environment changes considerably. Numerous poker players will play tighter, others will play looser, and other will become prone to error and over betting. This is the most stressful part of the poker tournament for a lot of fresh players.

- In The Money or ITM

During this stage there is a lot of anxiety even though bankroll considerations are less of a burden now. The truth of the matter is that ITM really isn’t that great, especially if you paid full pop to get in, rather than a satellite. The anxiety comes from decisions about advancing deeper into the money. ITM can be a drawn out segment involving many difficult decisions. This is when poker players fear bad beats. The reason for that is the fact that a double may assure you of a final table appearance and possibly serious cash. The bad beats that take place during this stage of the poker tournament are greatly talked about.

- Final Table

This is when you have to take into consideration the prize structure. It is in fact the main factor to keep in mind when deciding to play a hand or not. As many more hands are likely to be determined way before the river, the value of your hole cards becomes stronger here and how you play pre-flop may win this tournament for you. The top three will get the bulk of the cash most of the times. On the other hand other short stacks may just be happy to have made the final table and could very well be playing relaxed and win some hands with sub-par holding. In this stage there will not be any weak players and thus the final table will turn into a game of cunning and will.

So the next time you participate into a poker tournament make sure to divide it into five stages.