Keeping your chip stack in online poker tournaments is even more important than building one, because you often NEVER get the chance in most tournaments to attain a big stack. The thing is, most internet players in the lower limits have no clue as to how to keep their stack, and often make huge errors that puts their status in jeopardy - costing them a big opportunity.

Don't confuse greed with aggression. When you have built a large stack of chips, you simply need to keep them. A lot of big stack players - especially online, will often burn away this glorious opportunity to make big money, by deluding themselves that they need an even bigger stack. There is definitely a greed and power factor involved here, and I've seen it so often online, that I have simply made a living of waiting for these players to start making mistakes.

Now, a big stack is a weapon to use against certain players and profitable odds situations, yes, absolutely. Stealing blinds, yes, too. However, one of the toughest things to do as a big stack is to fold your hand or relinquish a pot to a player who has raised or re-raised you. How often I see these inexperienced online players who have accumulated a big stack-usually by donking- that have no idea how to keep it. They are likely to make poor excuses for being in the hand, claiming they had the right odds, or are they had a read on their opponent, or playing overly expensive draws.

You can spot these players, not only because of their inexperience, but there jovial chattiness-no doubt enjoying their luck- and disregarding their own poor play until, they are no longer a stack. Then there mood either withers away, or becomes somewhat more cynical and spiteful. Soon they are gone, and if you play your game correctly, there's a good chance you will have some of his chips.

Once you do, or when you have a big stack, play smart. Preserve your stack, while using your profile and correct odds plays to be in pots that you should be in, not that you feel you must be in simply because you are the big stack. That makes no sense. Don't play with a goal in mind of having a certain size of chips stack at a stage of the tournament. You can only have as much as you have. Sometimes it will be plentiful, most times it will not, but keep in mind there is only one single player in this whole tournament that you will have to eliminate - and that is the player that finishes second.

Marty Smith has video reviews of all the online poker software so you can see them being used before you decide which one is right for you.