One of most important terms in almost all of today's poker tournaments is 'deal making.' Deal making is important because it allows players who reach the final table to negotiate their share of the top prize. The fact that tournament prize pools are typically highly top-heavy, with the first two place usually collecting 60% of the jackpot, often forces final table participants to turn to deal making. Although the moral aspect of such agreements is rather dubious, since the deal-making phenomenon does exist, we would like to discuss the ways of making an advantage of it.

Finishing first in a poker tournament is not the only way to make money. Players can obtain a certain share of the first place prize by making a final table deal with their opponents. Seasoned poker lovers know that a player's goal must always be to be there when the fate of the first prize money is discussed, either through applying pure poker skills or by negotiating deals.

If you happen to play poker in order to profit, like many poker players among us, it is only logical that you seek to get the best of it. Deal-making helps you achieve your goal through many ways. The most effective deal-making strategy is to let everybody else at the table believe that you are simply not interested in deal-making at all. The player who is less interested in deal-making will very often be offered the sweetest deal from the player most eager to make a deal. As you can see for yourself, bluffing is very helpful in deal-making. The better bluffer you are, the more profitable the deal you'll get will be.

The most common method of splitting prize pools between several final table players typically favors the big stacks. If you do not understand what the reason behind this preference is, just imagine a four player deal, and give one of the players 80% of the chips. If you have a big stack and this method is offered, we believe you should agree. If you have a small stack, it is usually better to decline and convince your opponents to go for another method to split the tournament prize pool.

Interestingly enough, some players prefer to stay away from deal-making. This in itself can become an advantage. If a player knows that he will never agree to make a deal, he simply keeps playing poker and tries his best to win. This while his opponents may be wasting their time on negotiating deals or investing efforts to eliminate him so they can eventually strike a deal. While it is a relatively small edge, any edge, no matter how small it is, may help.

In any case, many traditional and online poker players consider deal-making a poker skill much like any other gaming skill. There are many players who become really good at it. As is the case with other skills, this one requires persistence as well as patience. Remember, in poker, success normally comes along with experience!