A lot of the larger US online poker rooms offer guaranteed prize pool tournaments and the best poker room for this is Poker Stars. Every single day they have tons of guaranteed prize pool tournaments running and they range from $1 – $100K+ depending on the day. A guaranteed prize pool tournament is when the poker room guarantees that a given tournament is going to have a minimum prize pool. If the prize pool doesn’t reach the minimum that the poker room guaranteed then they will need to cover the rest.

In a $10+$1 guaranteed prize pool tournament where the prize pool is guaranteed to be $20K then there would need to be 2000 players to join the event. If there weren’t 2000 players who joined the event then the poker room would need to cover the rest of the prize pool. This means that you also have a better shot at winning the money because the tournament doesn’t have the typical minimum amount of players.

If only 1000 players sign-up in the event then it’s like you’re playing in $20+$2 event when you’re really only playing in a $10+$1 event. If you can find guaranteed prize pool tournaments like this then these are the ones you ideally want to play in because you have the best shot at winning a big amount of money. You will need to get extremely lucky in order to win one of these tournaments, but you could potentially finish in the top 10% pretty consistently and typically that’s how many players get paid.

You will need to play poker tight and wait for your chances early on in these tournaments so that you can have a shot at increasing your stack in a few nice hands. Doubling up a few times early on is important so that you can stay above the average chip count. Don’t worry about being in the top ten positions early on, but always try to make sure you’re keeping up with the average chip stack.

Once you get down to the bubble of the tournament and you’re about to win money you should start playing extremely tight poker until you move up in the rankings. You want to make as much money as you can before you need to risk your stack in an all-in hand so keep that in mind and don’t be overanxious for going all-in.

I find that these tournaments are only good when the guaranteed prize pool isn’t met by the amount of players who bought into the event. When the poker room needs to put in their own money to complete the prize pool though, these events are excellent because you’re getting a shot at winning money that wouldn’t be there in a regular tournament.

You’re going to notice that most tournaments with guaranteed prize pools with fill up, but if you find some late at night then you might have a better shot at finding some tournaments worth playing. Don’t fall in love with these tournaments though, unless of course you’re consistently winning money in them.