Different Types of Tournaments

There’s quite a few different types of poker tournaments you can play online these days, from pick up, single table action to satellites for the World Series of Poker.

Satellite Tournaments
When you think of a huge prize pool in a poker game, you are thinking of a pool that is comprised off all of the entrance fees you and other players paid to enter the game. As you may well know, the higher the fees, the higher the amount of the pool you can win. The World Series of Poker, a very popular poker event due to the huge prize money, charges a whopping ten grand to enter. You can see how this may be out of the prize range of many casual players. To combat this problem for players with smaller budgets, many gaming sites often hold smaller tournaments where first prize doesn’t win cash, but rather a seat to a bigger event. A sample of this would be a tournament having twenty players pay five hundred dollars each to enter. The winner would win the equivalent of ten grand and would be rewarded a seat at the World Series of Poker main event.

These “satellite” tournaments are becoming more and more useful to poker players all around the world, as players can win their way into big games while paying a much cheaper price.

Don’t have five hundred dollars to enter the satellite? No problem, many sites will go as far as to offer a satellite to a satellite, called a super-satellite. If you win the first satellite event, you would win a free seat to the second satellite where you would be able to test your luck again. All in all, it might be possible to get a ten thousand dollar seat for less than twenty bucks! Clearly you can see the importance of satellites to large tournaments.

Sit and Go Tournaments
Ever wish you didn’t have to wait for a tournament to start hours after you pay your buy-in? Sit and go tournaments solve that problem! They begin as soon as they have enough players to go, usually ten to twenty players, and have varying ranges of cash buy-ins.

As mentioned before this style of tournament has no set clock on when to begin. If the tournament has ten seats and they are filled within a minute, then it will begin in a minute. As you may have already determined, this unique feature of sit and go tournaments separates it from larger, more planned events that you normally see. This style of game is even more popular online. Many players play in different countries and time zones and cannot be up at weird hours to play tournament games. Sit and go tournaments solve this problem with ease. They are currently so frequently played that a new one is formed almost every minute online! So from now on, remember that in addition to the on demand service you get from HBO and Starz, you also get the same from poker tournaments.

Unlike bigger tournaments, sit and go games are usually refrained to only one table. These games are the most popular and often have no more than ten players at once.

Final tables are what big name players strive for, in a game where there is only one table, guess what? You are already at the final table! In a much bigger tournament online you may experience many moves as the game progresses due to players being eliminated. This can be a severe disadvantage for players who rely on exploiting their opponent’s weaknesses. By playing a single table game, you instantly void yourself of having this problem. You will play the entire game against the same opponents! Another advantage of this style comes in knowing that no matter what the amount of chips at the table are set. How annoying is it to be the chip leader at your table in a large tournament only to have a powerhouse moved to your table? Don’t worry about this anymore! You will only play these same nine opponents until everyone but one has lost all his chips.

As mentioned before, sit and go tournaments usually are comprised of a small amount of players, some as low as five players. This results in a very quick game for those with little to no time for bigger games.

Although it may seem like single table games are the only ones offered based on the above, that is not true at all. Many sit and go tournaments also offer the option of playing with more opponents, much like normal big events. This allows you to enjoy the best parts of a sit and go combined with the best parts of a large event. Good on the timing and great on the prizes! If sit and go tournaments sound like your style of game, try them out! Don’t be afraid of losing the big stakes of multi table games.

Tournament Rebuys and Add-ons
A rebuy is a tool that is offered to players in a couple tournament events, not all. In the event that you are allowed to rebuy, it simply means you can buy chips and add them to your stack during a game, instead of having to just win them all. Some games can limit the amount and times you rebuy.

Two possible scenarios of restrained rebuys include allowing players to rebuy only once they are below 500 chips or allowing them limitless rebuys for the first hour only.

An add-on is similar to a rebuy but not the same. This method allows players to add chips to their growing stacks already. Usually offered before a transition in a game, these can allow players with chip leads to grow their chip amounts even more.

It may be an obvious rule, but you cannot add-on limitless chips. The exact number is set along with the price. This makes it fair to players who don’t add-on.

A way to juice up any tournament game, both add-ons and rebuys are meant to prolong a game for players and change up the way they play poker.