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