Poker Tournaments Explained

Poker tournaments are the most common way Texas Holdem is played these days. Sure, cash games are still prevalent, but poker tournaments offer the best prizes and are scheduled in every live poker room, as well as online poker rooms.

Poker tournaments allow players to post a standard buy-in amount. Each player receives the same amount of starting chips, so no one has any kind of advantage over another player when the tournament begins.

There are three main classes of poker tournaments. You’ll find all three varieties in live poker rooms as well as online poker rooms.

-Multi-Table Tournaments
-Sit-N-Go Tournaments
-Satellites Tournaments

Multi-Table Poker Tournaments

A multi-table poker tournament, or MTT for short, is one that is open to hundreds or thousands of players. There may or may not be a limit to the number of seats available. The World Series of Poker, for instance, does not have a limit on how many players can enter a WSOP tournament. Accommodations will be made for however many players post the buy-in.

Online poker tournaments are the same. They may restrict a multi-table poker tournament to several thousand players, or have no cap at all.

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These poker tournaments are scheduled to start at a specific time. Registration will open awhile before the tournament begins, sometimes months in advance. All players will be seated shortly before the start time of the poker tournament.

Multi-table tournaments can be played in an assortment of prize pool structures. The standard tournament will base the prize pool on the buy-ins. If the buy-in is $100, and 3,500 players enter, the overall prize pool is $350,000.

A guaranteed tournament, on the other hand, will have a pre-set prize pool. For example, a $500,000 guaranteed (GTD) with a $100 buy-in will still pay $500,000 overall, even if only 2,000 players enter. It would take 5,000 players to reach the guaranteed prize pool. When the prize pool does not reach guarantee, this is called an overlay. If 6,000 players enter, the guaranteed prize pool will increase to $600,000 to meet the buy-ins collected.

Sit-N-Go Poker Tournaments

Sit-N-Gos, or SNG’s for short, does not have a scheduled start time. It will restrict the players to so many tables, such as 9 players (one table), 27 players (three tables) or 81 players (9 tables). An SNG prize pool is always based on the number of entries, and the poker tournament begins as soon as enough players are registered to fill the seats. SNGs are extremely popular in online poker tournaments.

Satellite Poker Tournaments

Satellites are favored by many serious poker players because they have a totally different prize structure. Payouts are based on the number of entries and buy-in, but the 1st place finisher (sometimes more) is rewarded with a seat in a bigger event. WSOP Satellite poker tournaments, for instance, would award a seat in the WSOP. A player can save a lot of money by entering and winning a WSOP Satellite, rather than posting the $10,000 main event buy-in.

Satellites often run in a series of poker tournaments. Winning the first step of the satellite awards a seat in the next step, and so on until reach the Qualifier, where the top player(s) receives a seat in the major event.

Advantage of Online Poker Tournaments

Many players find online poker tournaments to be much more convenient than live poker room tournaments. Online poker rooms have new tournaments scheduled to start every half hour, if not sooner, as well as a plethora of SNG options. Satellites are a constant as well, offering prize packages to all major live poker events and online events.

Best of all, online poker tournaments do not require travel expenses. You can play from home with the same prize opportunities, and a whole lot more.

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