Online Poker Tournaments

Online poker tournaments are different from the traditional ring games found in most online poker rooms. In the online poker tournament, the game is not simply ongoing, but rather a formal gathering with a structured buy-in that results in a single winner. Tournaments can take considerable amounts of time and gain the winner considerable amounts of money. The largest tournaments have pots worth millions of dollars.

The Buy-In

Unless you’re invited to an invitation-only, sponsored tournament, there is a set buy-in all contestants must meet before they can join the game. The buy-ins from all of the players are combined to make the ultimate prize. Your buy-in to a tournament earns you a chance to play and a set of chips with essentially no independent value. The player holding the chips at the end of the tournament wins the prize.

Multi-table Tournaments

The multi-table tournament is how the large tournaments are handled. A large number of players enter the tournament and are given seats at many tables. As players lose at each table, the players at the tables are condensed until a final table of players plays for the final prize.

Increasingly, the largest of the multi-table tournaments, the World Series of Poker, has expanded online. Now online poker players can get in on the action with a low buy-in and play not for the biggest prize, but for a seat at the main tournament. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker won a seat at the big tourney after a $39 online poker buy-in, and came out the winner of the entire event.

Sit-and-Go Tournaments

Very common online, a sit-and-go, or SNG, tournaments are single-table tournaments where eight or nine players come together and when all players are seated, the tournament “goes” or begins. The SNG tournament is much like the final round of a multi-table tournament, but every player has an equal number of chips at the start and fixed payouts are often used.

Tournament Betting Formats

In a tournament, betting can be limited or not. There are three forms of betting in a poker tournament:

  • Fixed limit betting has a set amount that can be bet on a hand, although these limits do increase throughout play. This is a typical format for a seven card stud with a 10/20 stake. This means the raises would be $10 in the first three rounds and $20 in later rounds.
  • Semi-structured betting allows ranges for raises. Under this format, players must raise more than the last player raised. If one player raises the bet by $10, the next must raise it by at least $10 and so on.
  • Unstructured betting is also called no-limit. Some aspects of the game are fixed such as blinds, antes or bring-ins are fixed the players can bet as much as they like, even in the earliest rounds of play. In unstructured betting tournaments, players are able to “go all-in” meaning they bet all of their chips at once. This can happen early in the game as well as later in the event.