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Online poker Tournaments

Online poker Tournaments

Tournaments vs. Cash Games

The biggest difference between a cash game and a online poker tournament is the way money is added to the game. In a cash game, you play with the money you brought to the table and you may add more money to your stack at any time (but not so that your stack exceeds the maximum buy-in) and reload if you lose all the money. To enter a online poker tournament, you pay a fixed price (called the buy-in) and you will receive a preset amount of chips. Everyone that enters the tournament will receive the same amount of chips.

Another thing that is different between tournaments and cash games is that the blind levels will increase over time so that players are forced to make moves and to narrow down the field as the tournament goes on.

The chips in a tournament are not connected to money and you can not trade the tournament chips for money at any time. As soon as you have entered a online poker tournament you can not leave it.

Buy-In (Fixed price)

Chips (Preset amount)

Prize Distribution

So, how do you get any money from poker tournaments?

From each buy-in (and eventual re-buys/add-ons) a small percentage will be deducted as a house fee and the rest will go to a large prize pool.

Each player is ranked as they get eliminated from the tournament until there is one sole winner left that has all the chips from all the players.

The prize pool will get distributed to the top 10-15 percent of the starting field depending on the size of the tournament. For example, in a tournament with 100 entrants, the 15 persons that are finishing last will receive prize money. Note that the prizes usually increase for each place the further up you get.

House Fee

Buy-In

Prize Pool

Freeze Out vs. Rebuy

In some poker tournaments, you can add chips to your stack if you have equal or less than the starting stack. This usually costs as much as the initial buy-in for the tournament and is done while playing. This type of tournament is called a �re-buy� tournament. A tournament in where you do not have the possibility to re-buy is called a �freeze out� tournament.

Scheduled poker Tournaments vs. Sit and Go

There are mainly two different types of tournament. First, there is the standard scheduled tournaments that starts at a fixed time no matter of how many players have entered. The other form of tournaments start when a preset amount of player have registered (most often 2,6,10 or 20 players) regardless of what time it is. These tournaments are generally called Sit and Go and are available in buy-ins from �1 to �200.