Winning a freezeout tournament means that you must double up your stack several times or more to win. You have to be prepared to gamble to win and you won't make the final table just by taking the blinds occasionally.

In order to double up you have to get all your chips in the middle with a set or AA or KK. Many players will stick it all in with AK and that is an option in the early stages when you are up against poorer players but later in the tournament it's not such a good idea.

Many players like to try and minimise their risk by taking flops as often as possible and playing the board but this is fraught with difficulty.

For example you have KK and you call a raise. It doesn't matter who you called it from because these are pretty much all fish at the table. Unless you have been playing on the same site for a number of months you won't get to know who the good players are. I personally find taking notes a futile exercise for online poker. I pretty much remember who I played against on a final table and these are generally the better players.

They have to be - it stands to reason!

So you've called the raise wanting to see a flop and hope an Ace doesn't come. What are you going to do if it does - fold?

The problem here is that the original raiser - who has 66 can now bet at the flop and represent the Ace. You are in position and can re raise but if you are going to do this why not just stick it all in pre flop?

Folding is the right play to make. You have KK but the Ace on the board means you have to fold - this is why you played it this way.

My preference is to stick it all in. That's pretty much my playing style. I have no need to bluff because when I play a hand you can be sure it's a good one and if I'm moving all in pre flop then you can be sure I'm showing KK or AA at the showdown.

This leads to frequent bust outs. In one of my blog posts I recount that I busted out four times in a row with AA. This is unlucky but it happens.

Shoving means that often you will get called by non believers with 66 and double up. Sometimes they will hit a set and bust you and that's tournament poker.

The only busts I really dislike are the ones where you get rivered by a flush with your villain making it with the one 9 from their pocket pair. Man that hurts.

When I get a hand I like to play for all of my chips. The only hands I don't do this with are smaller pocket pairs where I'm hoping to hit a set and I'll fold if I miss. These hands are easy to get away from.

Poker is a cruel game. It's the cruellest. It's a nasty game where you can have the best hand every time and still bust out decimating a huge stack in the course of a couple of hands. From hero to zero in two hands has happened often.

But this is the way I like to play and it works for me.

What's interesting about this is that the shover has a psychological advantage over everybody else.