What you need to know about poker tournaments
The first thing to learn about poker tournaments is how they differ from ring games. Ring games are normal poker games that are continuously played on poker tables in casinos. Players enter the games as seats fall vacant and leave the game when they finish playing. Each player either wins money or loses money in the duration that he plays but there is no overall declared winner. In contrast poker tournaments are played in a structured manner over a fixed period and at the end of the tournament there is one declared winner.
Players who want to participate in a tournament usually have to pay an entry fee known as a buy-in. The collective buy-ins from all players forms the pool prize. A part of this pool is used to defray the tournament costs. In some tournaments the pool prize is kept intact but a separate charge is levied on the players to meet tournament costs.
The buy-in entitles players to a fixed quantity of tournament poker chips. These are valid only for playing in the tournament and cannot be converted to cash by the players. Once the player loses these chips on the poker table he is usually out of the tournament. However there are certain tournaments, known as re-buy tournaments, which allow players to buy additional tournament poker chips. The conditions under which the players are allowed to re-buy and how much they can re-buy are clearly stated in the poker tournament rules. In re-buy tournaments the player is eliminated when he or she has lost all the chips and has exhausted all the opportunities to re-buy.
In many poker tournaments as the field shrinks due to elimination of players, the players are continuously regrouped into fewer tables, till at last there is only one table and finally only one person standing. Other poker tournaments, known as shoot outs, are more structured. In this tables are not reordered in between. But a specified number of leaders from each table progress to the next round, in which there are fewer tables. In the final round there is only one table.
Usually the prize money comes from buy-ins, but not always so. There are invitational tournaments that have sponsored prizes. Sometimes gate receipts from spectators augment the prize money. Tournaments without buy-ins are referred to as freerolls. There is no standard method for dividing the prize money. However the method of allocating the prize money is decided before hand. It is a general practice that about 10 percent of the players will “cash” or earn prize money. It is also a general practice that the top player earns most of the prize money.
Some special types of tournaments need to be explained. One such type is satellite tournaments. The major tournaments have high buy-ins, which not everyone can afford. Hence major tournaments allocate a few seats to winners of satellite tournaments in order to give talented players who cannot afford the buy-ins a chance. The satellite tournaments have nominal buy-ins. Winners of satellite tournaments get free entry to the major tournaments. Satellite tournaments are held in various locations around the country and also on the Internet. Another special type of tournament is the Sit And Go tournament. Unlike other tournaments this is not scheduled in advance. It usually runs continuously on dedicated poker tables. People who want to participate buy-in a seat. As soon as the table is full the tournament starts. When only one player is left, he is declared the winner and the tournament ends. Fresh players then start buying seats.