Playing a Poker Tournament:
Tournament poker has become amazingly popular in the last years. Since 2002 spectacular tournament poker events with huge money prizes have become a common thing. Except tournament poker classic World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour there are dozens of other global events that provide an exciting time for players and spectators.
Tournament poker is fun, exciting, competitive and affordable. Investing small money players get a chance to win millions. Various types of poker tournaments with different buy-in amounts exist to fit all needs and all budgets. There are major and minor tournaments, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly tournaments, guaranteed, free-roll and re-buy tournaments, tag-team tournaments, satellite and super-satellite tournaments, bounty, shootout and jackpot tournaments, and much more.
Minor tournaments usually last three days, while major ones can last from one week to one month. Buy-ins for major tournaments range from 300 to 10,000 dollars depending of the entering stage, while minor tournaments rarely have higher that 300 dollars buy-ins. Not only professional players participate in poker tournaments. Even at the major ones, you can find many rookies who seek for fame and fortune.
Most poker venues organize daily tournaments to attract more players. These tournaments are usually designed to last no more than a couple of hours, and have absolutely affordable buy-ins starting from as low as 5 dollars.
In guaranteed tournaments all prizes are fixed sums announced before the tournament starts, so the prize pool does not depend on the number of entries. Usually such tournaments have larger turnouts.
Re-buy poker tournaments allow players to purchase more chips during the tournament, paying another buy-in. The same tournament can often be guaranteed and buy-in at the same time.
Satellite tournaments award a seat at a major tournament as a prize. Regular satellites are one-table tournaments where the winner wins the seat. At super satellites, the money collected from entry fees is used to buy as many seats as possible for the winners. Usually super satellite tournaments also award money prizes for those who were next to the qualifying players. Major tournaments with expensive buy-ins, such as WSOP, often get the majority of the players from super satellites.
Shootout tournaments consist of series of one-table tournaments where winners of the lower stage tables play against each other in a higher stage. Shootout tournaments provide valuable experience of playing short-handed poker, which is critical for professional players.
Online poker tournaments form an important part of tournament poker world. Large online poker rooms, such as PartyPoker and PokerStars organize their own tournaments with millions in prize money. These sites and many others also run satellite tournaments for major poker events, such as WSOP and World Poker Tour.
