Poker Tournaments, like ‘tournaments’ in any other sense of the word is basically a league where poker players compete to win. Poker tournaments vary widely from freeroll tournaments (free to enter) to the high roller tournaments with the top prize ranging in the $100,000s. Many people believe tournaments are for the more aggressive player, this is not always the case, especially in the low limit tables i.e. $1-10 entries as this attracts a lot of new players.
If you already play in some sit n go rooms why not try entering a few freeroll tournaments, this will give you a good insight to the way it works and then move on to the low buy-in tournaments.
Another good advantage with tournaments is that you have more time to study your opponents, see when they fold, if they constantly bluff etc. People are often more aggressive in poker tournaments epsecially at the beginning of a tournament with a re-buy option (this gives the player the ability to buy back in to the tournament if he is out early)
Before starting a tournament you should see a break down of prizes, this obviously depends on how many people have entered and how much the cost of entry is. The winner may recieve 30% of the total, 2nd place 20% and so on. So if the total prize pot is $10,000 the winner will recieve $3,000.
The tournament registration generally starts about 2 hours before the start for normal money tournaments and closes either at the start of the tournament or a few minutes before. For bigger tournaments the registration can open much earlier.
During the game, depending on the game type the blinds will go up during certain intervals (usually every 10-15 minutes) this ensures the game doesn’t go on for to long. Some turbo games up the blinds every minute! so only the lucky generally stay on.
