Poker Tournament Types. Get the widest selection of poker tournaments types from 888poker. Whether you're a beginner or more experienced, we'll help you find the perfect fit. Learn all About Freezeout Poker Tournaments. Freezeout Poker Tournaments: Tips & Strategy. How to Play Sit and Go Rules Sit and Go poker Tournaments Rules. Sit and Go tournaments (a.k.a SnG's, Sit & Go's, Single Table Tournaments, STT's) are an exciting format of poker than has become very popular. Sit and Go's offer the thrill of a regular multi-table tournament but every game is like you've reached the final table. One of the other attractive features of Sit and Go's, and where.

Tournaments are popular. Other than High Stakes Poker, all that’s shown on TV is MTTs.

We think what makes tournaments sexy are the large prize pools. People like seeing people play for hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. And you don’t get that that often with cash games.

It happens often with tournaments, though.

Of course, it depends on the buy-in and game, but many of the events shown on TV are the large ones with a $5,000, $10,000 or even $100,000 buy-in. These tourneys create prize pools that often reach the 7-figure mark. And that creates a lot of buzz.

So, naturally, a lot of people are curious about tournaments.

• What are they?
• How do you get started?
• Where do you play?
• What can you play?

We thought it’d make sense to create a page that answers those questions – and many others.

A poker tournament is a game with a fixed format. Everything is predetermined – the blinds, buy-in, stack sizes, antes, structure and time limit.

The buy-in can vary from free (freerolls) to .05 to $20 to $100,000. There’s always a cut for the poker room, too, which is easier to see online. Most tournaments will be labeled $X+$Y where X goes to the prize pool and Y is the amount the poker room gets.

Once you’re entered you’ll want to log in or show up when the tournament is supposed to start. For sit and go’s (SNGs), that can be whenever, as they start whenever the tables are full. But for MTTs it’s a set time and place. If you’re online the poker room will automatically seat you (randomly) at a table.

From there you’ll have a stack of chips to play with. You’ll have the same amount as everyone else, unless the tournament offers re-buys and add-ons. Then the tournament will start.

A tournament will play very much like a cash game. Once every one posts their blinds, antes, etc., each player is dealt their cards. Then they play according to that game’s and variation’s rules.

But unlike cash games, tournaments have levels. Each level will be a predetermined length – it can be 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, and so on. Each tourney will be different. But after the time’s up, when the next level starts the blinds will be higher.

For example, in a turbo 18-man on PokerStars, the blinds start at 10/20. After 5 minutes they go to 15/30, then 25/50, 50/100, and so on.

This is important to pay attention to, because if you don’t continue to add chips to your stack, eventually the blinds will be large enough that you’ll be blinded out. Then your tournament is over.

The tournament continues like this until one player remains with all the chips in play.

Players are then paid according to the structure set from the beginning – although this does change a little in the beginning if the tournament allows late registrations (players can sign up and pay to play after the tourney starts).

The number of players paid will depend on the number of players in the tournament. SNGs are always fixed. For example, in a 9-10 man SNG 3 players are paid. In an 18-man SNG four players are paid. It’s seven in a 45-man and 9 in an 180-man. It just depends on the tourney.

When you play online any money you win will be put into your account balance automatically. We think some sites reserve the right to pay the next day on larger tournaments and payouts, but none that do this come to mind.

And that’s basically a tournament and how it works in a nutshell.

You’ll find tournaments online, in live casinos (not all are major “events” either), and even played in homes. They’re a great way to get LOTS of entertainment and value out of a fixed amount of money.

What Types of Tournaments Can You Play?

There are LOTS of tournaments you can play. The most popular game played is Texas holdem.

But since the “poker boom” more and more games are played in tournament form. And that includes both online and live (and shown on TV too).

That means you can play games like omaha, stud, razz, HORSE, other mixed games, and others, in tournament format. No limit is obviously the popular betting limit, but depending on the game, limit and pot limit is used, too.

And, as we mentioned earlier, stakes vary wildly. Online you’ll find stakes starting from free to .05 to around $500. There are some larger ones (including SNGs), but that’s where the bulk of tournaments fall. The Sunday Majors (the biggest tourneys of the week online) usually fall between $200 and $500.

Offline, you’ll find many tourneys starting at $20 to $500. It just depends on the room. But for the larger “events” they’ll start around $500 or $1,500, and then climb from there.

Other than the game and stakes, one other choice you’ll have to make is the type of tournament you’ll play. There are LOTS of them.

Here are the most common options:

• Freezeout – Most tourneys fall into this category. Once you bust you’re out of the tourney.
• Rebuy – Like a freezeout, except that for a short period (usually the first couple of levels) you can buy into the tourney again when you bust.
• Turbo / Super Turbo – The levels are much faster. Instead of 20+ minutes, they’re something like 3-10 minutes. This requires a big change in strategy. And the faster the blinds the more luck that’s involved.
• Guarantee – This is any tournament where a prize pool is guaranteed, no matter how many players show up. This is great because if the players don’t make up the prize pool, the room will. This is called an overlay.
• Satellite – These are tournaments where the prize are seats to a more expensive/higher value tournament.

For example, several years ago we played a 5-table shootout for $15 that awarded a few seats to the Sunday Million, which you could buy into directly for $215.

Another good example is Chris Moneymaker – he won a $40 satellite to a higher dollar satellite, which then awarded him a seat to the WSOP Main Event which has a $10,000 buy-in.

Here are the most common options:

• Bounty/Knockout – In these tournaments you pay a little extra. That little extra goes to a “bounty” which is paid whenever you or someone else knocks a player out of the tournament. For example, if there’s a $5 bounty on each player’s head, and someone knocked you out, they’d get your $5 chip.
• SNGs – We mentioned these a bit already, but these are smaller tournaments with fixed fields that start once all the seats have been filled. These are great to play between tournaments or as a variance buster.
• Deep Stacks – You start with a deep(er) stack than normal. Instead of 1,500 chips it might be 3,000. Or instead of 5,000 you might start with 10,000 or 20,000.
• Shootouts – With these each table plays until there’s one player left. Then all these players play a final table. For example, in a 5-table shootout, the winner from each table would play a 5-handed final table for the prize(s).
• Steps – This is common online. It’s sort of like a satellite tournament, but broken down even more. You might have 6 steps, starting from the lowest stakes (

For example, you buy in directly to step 4, and if you win, you get to play step 5. Once you get to the last level the prize is usually a seat to a higher value tourney.

The great thing about these is if you lose, often times you get to play the step over or move down a step depending on where you finished. Even if you win nothing you get LOTS of value out of these.

Those are the most common tournament variations. But depending on where you play you’ll find other variations.

One unique thing about poker tournaments is you’ll find many events and series to join.

A series is simply a set number of tournaments hosted by a poker site or venue. They’ll have higher buy in tourneys, satellites to all the series tourneys, and maybe give out jewelry to the winners.

Here are the major tournament series in both online and live poker.

World Series of Poker (WSOP)

50+ events with a bracelet and money going to the winner. Played in Las Vegas once per year starting in May/June. The Main Event final table plays in November.

World Poker Tour (WPT)

Similar to the WSOP. Played throughout the year. The winner of each tourney gets a bracelet.

Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP)

One of PokerStars’ online series.

World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP)

Another PokerStars’ series. Played in the fall.

Aussie Millions

A smaller event held in Australia. Known for having some of the highest buy-ins in history.

European Poker Tour

Owned and sponsored by the Rational Group (previous owner of PokerStars). Similar to the WPT, but held in different venues throughout Europe.

Those are the major events which are held once or twice per year. But you also have the Sunday Majors which are held once per week.

We say this as if you’ll find a major tournament series every Sunday at every poker site online. But that’s not really the case. PokerStars really has a monopoly on this. Right now they have 12 events running every Sunday with buy-ins ranging from $1+re-buys to $11 to $530 – and satellites running to all of them. Guaranteed prize pools for each event vary from $25,000 to $1,000,000.

Many sites run a (much) smaller version of PokerStars’ Sunday Majors. Sometimes they’ll host several larger tournaments throughout the week instead of all in one day. It just depends on the site.

How to Choose a Tournament to Play

Choosing a site to join for tournaments can be tricky. You could go a few different ways.

For example, you could join a new site where they’ll have smaller guaranteed tournaments. These often have overlays. You’ll have less players to fight through for the same prize pool.

However, these tournaments don’t get very big. And there’s not very many of them offered. On top of that, many sites have shut down tourneys when too few players show up instead of honoring the guarantee.

We prefer to go the other way. Look for sites that are established with lots of traffic and tournaments. We believe there’s more value in that. Not only will tournaments run more often, but there will be tournaments of all shapes and sizes. Tournaments with different games, variations, buy-ins, and blind levels/structures.

We would also look for a poker site that offers lots of live/online satellites. Often times the competition for the higher dollar buy-ins isn’t much greater than the lower stakes – it’s just a matter of who can afford it. Satellites give you a way to afford it.

From there choosing a tournament is rather straightforward. You want to choose a game and variation that you like and/or are good at. You might want to look at the blinds too, to make sure you choose a speed (normal to fast) you like and the structure jumps up in blinds at a comfortable pace. But we don’t think most players need to worry about stuff like that.

They should just find a game and get signed up instead.

Conclusion: Get More Out of Your $5 Than Just a Latte

There you have it – an overview of poker tournaments, how they work, and different types of tourneys you can play.

From here it’s a matter of choosing a game and getting started. If it were us, we’d choose a $5 or $10 turbo MTT with a starting stack of 1,500 and 3,000. Maybe find one that offers bounties – which can be lots of fun.

WAY more fun than you’ll get out of your $5 latte from Starbucks.

Have you ever wanted to play poker just like professionals do?

Then you will have to play at the tables they play. And we mean that you will have to play well.

Not average but at the top of your ability.

But before you do you, there are some other things that you will have to do. The first of those things is that you must find out how to play a poker tournament?

We will start with the simplest of things including:

Basic Poker Rules

We have talked about the rules of poker many times before but as the saying goes “repetition is the mother of all learning”, and when it comes to gambling especially then you will have to swear by this and make it a rule in your books.

Since most Poker tournaments revolve around Texas Hold’em, then this is going to be the variation we will be referring to at all times.

Poker is easy to learn but hard to master.

If you want to learn it well, then you must follow whatever the professionals say. So we as professionals are here to help you.

So how is the game played?

#1 The number one thing you must know about poker is how the players are laid out around the table.

For a game to begin, there must be at least two players. In the case of tournaments, anything from 5-10 players is eligible. You may get to see one to one knockout rounds from time to time though.

#2 When the round begins each of the players is dealt a couple of face-down cards. Those can be seen by the player only.

There are other cards that you can use to make up the best possible combination in your power, but this much depends on the five face-up cards that the dealer puts down for everybody to see.

Those are divided into the flop (first three cards), the turn (fourth card) and the river which is the fifth and final card to get put down.

#3 Depending on how strong the best possible combination between your hand and the five cards put down you may win or lose the current hand.

But this depends on various things like whether you will make the other players go all the way to the river or fold and let you win without going into the risk of calling your bet or raise.

Those possible hands are (sorted from worst to best):

• High Card = when no one has at least a single pair then the person/s with the strongest card wins. Cards in order of descending power are A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1.
• One pair = have a combination of two same numbers like two 7s, two 10s and so on.
• Two pairs = have two same combinations like both two 3s and 5s.
• Three of a kind = have a combination of three same numbers like three Qs.
• Straight = have five numbers in a row like 4-5-6-7-8 or anything of that sort.
• Flush = have five numbers of the same suit but not of the same colour, like an A-3-5-7-9 all of which are clubs, hearts, spades, or diamonds.
• Full house = have three of a kind and another pair like 4-4-4-5-5.
• Four of a kind = have a combination of four same numbers like four Qs.
• Straight Flush = When you have a straight which is a flush at the same time like 5-6-7-8-9 all of them being of the same suit.
• Royal Flush = the most powerful possible hand you can have in Texas Hold’em which is a straight flush of 10-J-Q-K-A.

The actions a player can perform are:

• Call: place the necessary chips in play (small/big blind players have to call half the needed amount remaining or check)
• Check: proceed with the current amount bet without raising, folding etc.
• Bet or raise: Put more money in the pot or call and then bet again
• Fold: Give up your hand and leave the current hand
• All in: Bet all your available chips

Read more in our guide on How To Play Poker Online.

How Po Play a Poker Tournament?

Taking part in a tournament isn’t as tricky as you would think.

Most of the times you won’t need credentials or any significant wins on your record to gain access.

Before you can enter a poker tournament, you are either going to purchase a seat (commonly referred to as a buy-in) or get access entirely for free.

As expected, Freeroll tournaments(the second kind) attract most of the players because you wouldn’t have to risk any money to enter them. The prize money is relatively smaller though.

The ones requiring a buy-in offer way higher prize pools, BUT you go into the risk of losing it all if you get disqualified. If you are lucky enough, you can earn money without even coming first. Many times all top three places win a reward.

This depends of course on what type of tournament you are participating in.

If for example, you are participating in a multi-table tournament, then you most likely will get prizes even if you reach the final table.

If you are playing single table tournaments, then the chances are that only the one single player remaining in play will get a prize.

The rules of the game remain the same, and the only things that can change are the blinds which will increase over time so that the tournament can end relatively quickly and not take many hours.

The other thing that can change is the prize but only in the case you are playing in a Jackpot tournament (technically not a tournament as it takes just a few minutes). Or a shared prize pool one where the prize depends on the amount of money each player uses as a buy-in (only applicable in the tournaments where each player can buy in with as many chips as he pleases).

Read more in our guide How To Join a Poker Tournament.

Good Poker Tournaments To Join

There are plenty of good choices like the Poker rooms offered on the platforms provided by the Best Partners network.

These are Bovadafor US citizens, Bodogfor Canadians and Ignitionfor the European gamblers.

All of those provide both classic and Freeroll tournaments. Those sites are great since you can also use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for example so if you want to keep your full anonymity while gambling online.

If you want to play on an esteemed and globally renowned platform, then you could always download the Pokerstars Poker Client for free.

Read more in our guide to The Best Online Casinos.

The Best Tactics

When it comes to poker, we always give the same piece of advice but since we are talking about how to play poker tournaments, we have two for you:

Standard Poker Tournament

In case you are playing a standard tournament try going in only when you have at least a pair of 9’s or better at the pre-flop stage.

If you are still having just one pair after the flop, unless that is a really good one like a pocket (one pair of) A’s or K’s don’t go in.

You may even have two of the same suit. If that’s the case only go in if you are four-fifths of the way in a possible Flush, the same goes for a Straight.

Poker Tournament Payout Structure

Jackpot Poker Tournament

If you are playing a Jackpot tournament, where time is of the essence, you will have to adjust your play accordingly.

Instead of folding all the time do the exact opposite.

Play as aggressively as possible. Don’t let your opponents any breathing space.

This way you are going to push them into making bad decisions and chances are that you will be the one taking the prize.

Just so you know, in that kind of “tournaments” there are usually only three players. That is you and two opponents.

Overall

How Do Poker Tournaments Work

So now that you know how to play a poker tournament, you must be all set to become a professional poker player.

If you want to keep learning new things about online poker each week, then make sure that you follow our website.

That being said the only thing left for you to do now is to visit an online poker room, sign up for some of the available tournaments and start winning some money.

How Do Bounty Poker Tournaments Work

Read our guide to The Best Bitcoin Poker Tournaments.