Finding the best value is just one of many bankroll management methods when it comes to playing poker and realizing a profit on your play. Picking the right cash game, isolating and exploiting weaker players, knowing when to back off a pot and when to put in a big bet. The strategies in bankroll management is vast, many books and articles have been written on proper bankroll management.

One of the topics often overlooked is buying into guaranteed tournaments, ones with large overlays can often be one of the best values when playing poker online. Online poker rooms run multi table tournaments (MTT) that have a guaranteed prize pool. When they don’t register enough players to cover the prizepool posted, you have what is called "Overlay".

A guaranteed prizepool is just what it sounds like. They will make up the difference in the prizepool from what the players buy in is and a pre-determined amount. So if they promote a $1,000 guaranteed with a 2.00 buy in, and only 400 players sign up… there would be a $200 overlay (2.00 x 400= $800, $1000 is guaranteed, so $1,000 – 800 = $200 overlay). The realized value to the online poker player is that there are less players competing for the prizepool, this raises the odds on you winning the tournament or at least making it to the money. Think about this… Would you rather battle 800 players to cash in a $1,000 prizepool tournament, or would you rather play against 1,000 players for the same slice of the cash? Most players would rather have the smaller field and the same prize value. I am sure you would too.

Knowing now what overlay is, and how it adds value to your game, lets take a look at a few tournaments that have guaranteed prizepools and are known for large overlays.

Carbon Poker runs what they call the $1 Dollar Dazzler twice daily, this is a low buy in of only $1.00 + .20 and the prize pool is $1,250 guaranteed for the 12:15 eastern game, the second game plays at 6:15 pm eastern and is guaranteed a $1,750 prizepool. Both of these games have very large overlays, usually between 250 and 300 players! Let’s do the math again, 300 players times 1.00 = $300… $1750 guaranteed less $300 paid = $1,450 overlay! To not have overlay, Carbon Poker would have to register 1,750 players for the game. What tournament would you rather play? One against 1750 players or one against 300? Easy question huh?

Carbon Poker is US friendly too, so most anyone can join in these games. To add to your bankroll, use bonus code (they call it coupon code) PPUS200 and you will get our exclusive 200% poker bonus up to $500 FREE when you make your first deposit! Click here to get started at Carbon Poker.