Poker Tournaments
Matthew Winnington


Poker Tournaments are poker competitions where all of the players play
at the same time and continue to play until only one player is left.

Poker Tournaments are fun to play in, have a low entry fees and
offer a large prize pool to be won. For these reasons they are a
very popular. They are inexpensive way for novice poker players
to learn how to play the game, as well as a providing a place for
more experienced players gain experience.

While there are many different types of poker games played at
casinos and online rooms, poker tournament play is usually reserved for
Texas Hold'em, Omaha, and 7-card Stud, because these games have a
large following.


Poker tournaments can have as few as 6 players (single table
tournaments) to thousands of players for larger events. Large
tournaments consist of many tables, each table having 8 to 10
players. The tables are slowly removed from the tourney as
players are eliminated, and players are balanced from table to
table as needed. (These are known as multi-table tournaments).
Finally all but the last table will be removed and these last 8
to 10 players play until only one of them remains.


Poker Tournament Basics

To play in a tournament players have to pay two fees. They have
to pay an entry fee to the poker room hosting the tournament to
cover the expenses involved. This gives the player an assigned
seat and a set quantity of tournament chips with which to play
(these chips have no cash value). Players also pay a buy-in fee.
The buy-in fee is held and paid out as prizes. The prize payout
differs from tournament to tournament but typically it all goes
to the few players fortunate enough to make the final table.

The object of a tournament is to win all of the chips. All
tournament players start out with the same quantity of chips to
play with and all start playing at the same time. Players play
until they lose all of their chips and are then removed from the
tournament. A tournament continues non-stop, often for several
hours, until only one person remains. As playing progresses the
stakes rise (Blinds are doubled on a timed interval), making it
more and more difficult for players with short stacks to remain
in the game.

Players are awarded prize money based on their finishing position
in the tournament. The top finishers earn the most money with the
1st place winner usually receiving about 30% of the total prize
money, the 2nd place winner about 20% and so on. The number of
winners and the size of the payouts depend upon the rules for the
tournament being played and the number of people playing.


Re-buys and Add-ons

Some poker tournaments allow players a re-buy option. This re-buy
option allows players to purchase more chips if they run out of
them at the start of the tournament. A player can purchase the
same number of chips that he/she started the tournament with.
Some poker tournaments allow unlimited re-buys during the first
hour of play, while other tournaments allow only a single re-buy.

An add-on option is similar to the re-buy option. Add-ons differ
in that they are usually only offered once at the end of the
re-buy period and can be purchased regardless of how many chips
you have. As the name implies these chips are added on to your
stack of chips.

All proceeds from re-buys and add-ons are added to the prize pool
less house fees (if applicable).


Betting

Poker tournament betting is structured with the betting limit
increasing regularly. The changes in betting limits occur
differently depending on the tournament; some are timed while
some increase the limit after a set number of rounds are played.


Balancing and Collapsing Tables

Larger poker tournaments start out with more than one table, each
having 8 to 10 players. As the tournament progresses players will
be eliminated and the number of players at each table will not
remain the same. For the tournament to be fair the number of
players at each table should be the same, so the organizers move
players from table to table in an attempt to keep all the tables
equally populated.

Balancing is the practice of moving players from full tables to
less full tables when the difference is 3 or more players.

Collapsing tables is the practice of removing tables once there
are enough empty spaces among the rest of the tables to do so.
Thus with 10 player tables when there are 10 empty spaces the
players from one table are moved to empty spaces and that table
is taken out of play.

Matthew is a frequent player who offers reviews and shares his
experiences playing poker online at http://www.playrealpokeronline.com


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