Online poker rooms offer different types of tournament
play from one-on-one to large tournaments which could lead up to qualifying for a seat on the World Poker Tour.
There are free, cash and points tournaments.
Online tournaments are very popular and convenient. Because of the
popularity of online poker, several sites are offering Million Dollar
online games. You can qualify for some of these games with as little as
$1.00.
Most all poker rooms run tournaments for Texas Hold'em
while some also have tournaments for Omaha Hold'em, Omaha Hi/Low, Five
Card, and Seven Card Stud.
Types
Sit & Go - very popular single and
multi-table tournaments - always available and fairly quick. Good
starting place for players new to tournaments. They vary in buy-in
amounts from as low as from one or two dollars to a thousand
dollars. Normally seven to ten players at a table. There are also
"heads-up" games for just two players. Everyone starts
with the same amount of chips with the top 3 to 5 players winning a
cash award, only the winner in a heads-up game. There are some tournaments which qualify you for bigger
tournaments if you place in the money. Players
compete for one another's chips as the blinds and/or antes increase
incrementally.
Single Table Sit & Go Tournaments - Single
table poker tournaments for Texas Holdem, Omaha High, Omaha Hi/Lo
and Seven Card Stud begin once registered players filled the table
. All players start with an equal amount of chips and play
until one player has won all the chips. Normally top three finishers
receive pay outs.
Multi Table Sit & Go Tournament, players start
with a fixed number of chips. Players at numerous tables compete for
one another's chips as the blinds and/or antes increase
incrementally. As players are eliminated, tables are
"broken," meaning players are re-assigned with one another
or to other tables, in order to keep tables full. Eventually, the
last few surviving players with chips are assigned to the final
table, where the winner is the individual who wins all the chips
from his or her opponents. Cash prizes are awarded to top finishers
based on the number of registered tournament entries. Normally
multi-table Sit & Go is two or three tables. Makes for
tournament action in a shorter time span.
Regular Poker Tournaments - There is an
unbelievable variety of full tournaments. Tournaments with as few as
25 players to over 2000 players. Buy-ins for as little as $1 to
several hundred. Qualifying tournaments for seats in large
tournaments and even tournaments such as World Poker Tour tournaments.
You can have a great time in these games. Check out PokerStars.com
- PartyPoker.com
- PokerRoom.com - AbsolutePoker
as well as many others listed in SlicknetPoker.com's poker
room page.
Satellites - A
satellite is a smaller buy-in tournament in which the prize is an
entry into a larger buy-in tournament. For example on some sites, if
you won a $2 satellite tournament that had at least 10 entrants your
prize would be a $20 entry into a $20 buy-in tournament. Instead of
distributing the $20 prize pool over the top 3 finishers as done in
standard tournaments with 10 entrants the $20 prize is pooled and
awarded to first place only. If 20 entrants, 2 $20 tournament buy-in
entries would be awarded. Therefore, for this example, for every 10
entrants, 1 $20 tournament buy-in fee is awarded.
On a much larger scale, a $100 tournament with 50
entrants could win you a $5,000 tournament buy-in for a major World
Poker Tour tournament event held in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition
to the $5,000 tournament buy-in fee, some sites will include
additional cash and prizes to accommodate travel & hotel.
Free Roll - play-money tournaments, good practice
to get accustom to tournament play. Some sites offer a small
cash reward or seats to other tournaments to the winners. The Free
Rolls that offer cash usually are very large tournaments, sometimes
with 2000 players.
Private Tournaments - some poker rooms offer
the option of creating a private room with various options.
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