For amateur poker players, the idea of playing in a major televised tournament used to be nothing more than a pipe dream. After all, how was one to afford the $10,000 tournament buy-in on top of flying to the event destination and paying for a hotel room? And what’s worse, what if you paid all of this money and came away empty-handed like 80% of players in major tournaments do?

Luckily, today there is a solution for the poker player who dreams big on a modest bankroll – the prize package! Simply put, a prize package covers a player’s buy-in at a major tournament along with the traveling and hotel expenses. In some cases, a poker site might even throw a VIP party for players who win prize packages through their room. 

And what’s great about prize packages is that there are many cheap satellites and qualifiers offering players the chance to win one of these prizes. So if you’re interested in winning a prize packages for a fraction of what you’d pay to play in major tournaments, the following advice will be very helpful.

Before talking about the strategy involved with winning a prize package, let’s take a quick look at your options for getting to the big prize. Prize packages are always given away through the main qualifier, which is also the most expensive way to win a prize package. Fortunately for players working with smaller bankrolls, there are also cheaper tournaments where people can move their way up to the main qualifiers. Players can buy in for an inexpensive amount, and win a ticket to the next step.

To illustrate how this step-by-step model works, let’s take a look at the satellites and qualifiers 888Poker runs for the $14,500 Aussie Millions prize packages they offer:

Aussie Millions Step 1: $5 + $0.50 buy-in and 1 in 5 players advance to Step 2.

Aussie Millions Step 3: $105 + $10 buy-in and 1 in 5 players advance to Main Qualifier.

Aussie Millions Main Qualifier: $500 + $25 buy-in and one $14,500 prize package is guaranteed.

Seeing as how you don’t need to win the whole tournament to advance in this step-by-step format, a different strategy applies to winning prize packages.

If you are playing in multi-table tournaments such as the aforementioned Aussie Millions qualifiers, you will obviously employ MTT strategy. However, you should note that the lower the step you play, the more maniacs there will be. 

For example, the Step 1 portion of this event only costs $5 + $0.50 to play in so players won’t value their buy-in as much. People will be going all-in more frequently with rags so you are putting yourself in danger by betting with them. So a good tournament strategy for the lower steps is to play conservatively, concentrate on table position, and stick to premium and near-premium hands. This is not the time to be limping in with 6-7 unsuited from early-middle position in hopes that you hit a straight. 

Once the maniac players clear out of the way by the middle stages, you should be betting out more and trying to build a chip stack to survive the bubble. The aforementioned 888Poker format allows 1 in 5 players to move on so it’s just like cashing in a normal tourney. Only this time there is no higher reward for first place so it’s alright to tighten up near the bubble provided you have a decent chip stack.

Moving on, there aren’t so many maniac players in Step 2, Step 3, and the Main Qualifier because the buy-ins make these satellites more valuable. With $25, $115, or $525 on the line, people are less likely to be going all-in frequently so you have the freedom to get more aggressive here. The more small pots and blinds you can steal in these qualifiers, the better. The key is to watch for opportunities when opponents are likely to fold chips to you instead of risking their tournament life.

Just by playing situations right, you can keep adding chips to your stack. For instance, if you’re a bigger stack as the bubble draws near and two short-stacks are sitting at your table, you can steal a lot of pots off of these players simply because they can’t afford to risk busting just to see what you have. Being aggressive at the right time is the key to eventually winning a poker prize package.

Obviously the ideal situation when going for a poker prize package is to satellite in at one of the lower steps and work your way up to the big prize. Unfortunately, the ideal situation isn’t reality, and it normally takes players several tries before they experience success at any step. 

No matter how skilled of a player you are, there will be times when you’re forced to go all-in – especially if you plan on starting at one of the lower steps! And statistics dictate that you’ll lose some of these all-in situations. But the key is to stay within your bankroll and take shots at prize packages whenever you get the chance. 

Also, never risk more than 5% of your bankroll on any one step (unless your only goal in online poker is to win prize packages). The obvious reason why is because you need enough cash to keep building your bankroll in regular tournament so you have chances in the future to win prize packages.