Beginners Poker Tournament Guide And FAQ

How Do Poker Tournaments Work And What Makes Them Different From Poker Cash Games?

In a poker cash game the chips in front of you have an actual dollar value. Whether you play for big bucks in Vegas or pennies around the kitchen table, bets are made in the chip equivalent of real cash. Furthermore, in a cash game players can purchase more chips at any point, up to the agreed limits for the game – so if you lose your chips you can simply buy a new stack.

In poker tournaments, players purchase a stack of chips for an agreed price – usually between 1500 and 3000 chips - and then play until their chips are gone, at which point they are eliminated from the tournament. These games finish when one player has won all of the chips.  In order to keep the games to a reasonable length of time the betting levels are increased as the game goes on, forcing players to play hands before their chip stack disappears via the 'forced bets' of blinds and antes.

Around 10% to 15% of the field gets paid in a typical poker tournament, with the biggest payouts for the winner and the players at the final table. As you will see from this FAQ, there are many variations on this central theme!

What Different Types Of Poker Tournament Can I Play Online?

While there are 100’s of ways tournaments can vary in the details of price, betting, game type and speed – these can be boiled down into the following broad categories.

Freezeout Tournaments: This is the standard poker tournament, so much so that the word ‘freezeout’ is not even used by several sites. In these games you get stack of chips in exchange for your buy-in, usually between 1500 and 3000 chips – and when these are gone you are out. Between 10% and 15% of the entrants will get paid, the amount depends on their finish position and will usually be between double their buy-in and up to 100 times this for a top 3 finish.

Rebuy Tournaments: A common option is to allow players to ‘rebuy’ more chips during a pre-defined period. Online the ‘rebuy period’ is usually the first hour of the game, with players allowed to buy more chips if they are at or below their initial chip stack. After the first hour there is usually an additional ‘add-on’ of yet more chips. Being able to rebuy can make many players more willing to take risks early – making these entertaining games! There are more variations within the rebuy tournaments theme, including ‘second chance’ and ‘1 rebuy, 1 add-on’ games.

Sit and Go Tournaments:  Using the strict definition, a Sit and Go (or SNG) tournament is simply a tournament which starts as soon as the required number of players join – instead of having a defined starting time. In reality there are certain sizes of game which are popular for Sit and Goes. These are 1-table (6 or 9 players), 2 tables, 5 tables, 10 tables and the 20 table 180 player games. With smaller fields these games need far less time, making them a popular beginner’s choice.

Satellite Tournaments: These games award prizes of seats in other tournaments, ranging from online games through to some of the world’s biggest events like the World Series or European Poker Tour games. Smaller buy-in satellites can also award prizes of seats in bigger satellites (sometimes known as ‘supersatellites’). This is a popular format, with many variations in speed, betting and poker game played. These games are hugely popular and we have a dedicated section for them here.

Knockout Bounty Tournaments: These games have an added twist, with a proportion (usually 20% to 50%) of each player’s buy-in designated as a bounty payment for whoever knocks them out! These prizes are awarded instantly as soon as you knock someone out of the game. Find out more about strategy for these fun games in this article.

Turbo / Speed Tournaments: Fast games are some of the most popular online and go under different names at different sites. What makes these games appealing is that the faster increases in betting levels force players to play more hands to avoid being left behind!

What Kind Of Profits Are Achievable, And What Are The Risks?

We look at profits from poker tournaments in two ways. First the short term wins and second the average returns over 100’s or 1000’s of games. Because a single win will often give players a bankroll boost of $1000’s, the profits from tournaments are considered ‘high variance’. An individual player might have a long run of games without even cashing, then suddenly hit the final table of a big event and win a large amount of cash.

Because of this volatility in returns, pro players look at their results over the long term of 1000’s of games. This is measured as a return on the stakes paid to enter the games. Tournament specialists can achieve return on investment (ROI) figures of 100%, while beginning and learning players will be doing well to achieve 30% to 50% return on their stakes. Since a single win has such a big effect on this number, samples in the 100’s of games are not considered big enough to judge a player’s true ability.

Your risk is that you will lose the money you deposit. In fact, if you only deposit a small amount this is the single most likely outcome. Poker players avoid losing their money by using ‘bankroll management’, which means following strict guidelines about the percentage of your total cash used in any one game. Bankroll Management guidelines for tournaments will seem very strict to new players - the pro standard is to play no more than 1% of your bankroll in any one tournament. There is no reason that new players should be this strict, as long as you know the risks and are ok to reload if necessary.

How Many Players Can I Expect To See In Different Games And How Long Will The Game Last?

The number of players in each game varies from site to site, by buy-in level and with the time of day. Peaks are in the European Evenings and weekends (particularly Sundays). At the biggest site, Pokerstars.com, evening games with buy-ins under $11 will often attract 3000+ players – especially if these games have guaranteed prize pools.  At smaller sites, for example Red Kings, the same evening game will get 300+, making the field far more manageable.

Large field tournaments can last for many hours, if you final table an 8PM $5 game, you can expect to be playing at 3am! Smaller games run for 3 to 4 hours, and are more suitable for players who have to get up for work or study the next day.

Do Tournaments Count Towards Clearing Bonuses?

Yes, in fact tournaments are one of the better ways of clearing bonuses – both the welcome bonuses awarded by the sites, and reload / promotional bonuses offered later. The amount of your bonus cleared will depend on the fee for the tournament, for example in a $5+50c game you are paying 50c to the poker site, of which up to 50% will count towards clearing your bonus.  You can compare how quickly bonuses clear playing tournaments in my SNG Bonuses Compared article (the fees are the same, so this directly translates for multi-table tournament players!).

Which Are The Best Sites To Play Tournaments On?

This will depend on what you are looking for in terms of size and choice of games, and whether you are an experienced player looking to switch to tournaments, or at the start of your poker career.

Pokerstars.com is the biggest and best site online, and has 1000’s of poker tournaments of all buy-ins running every day. The downside is that the fields are often huge at the lower buy-ins, making these games a big time commitment. Pokerstars host the biggest weekly game, the ‘Sunday Million’ which pays more than $150,000 for the winner each week! You can claim up to 3 welcome bonuses at Pokerstars - use Marketing Code PSP3108 when you register - use this link to see the world's most popular site for yourself!

Carbon Poker is the best choice for US based players. This is the biggest US site, who accept players from more than 40 states. With recent growth they have been able to expand both their SNG and multi-table tournament offerings. Find out more in my Carbon Poker 2012 Review here.

Red Kings Poker is my top choice for beginning players. Red Kings are part of the ‘OnGame Network’ who pool together players from different brands. The size is ‘just right’ for beginners with tournaments of between 100 and 400 players having some nice guaranteed prize pools. What is more this network have a lot of sports-betting sites as members, these send players to the poker room – keeping the games nice and soft. You can choose from 6 welcome bonuses at Red Kings, I recommend you check them out – click this link to visit Red Kings Poker for yourself.

What Tournaments Are Recommended For New Players?

There are 100’s of individual tournaments to choose from here. I have chosen the my top 10 for 2012 and made them into a dedicated article: 10 Best Beginners Tournaments

OK, I Got The Basic Idea – Where Next To Learn A Winning Strategy??

Well, you certainly came to the right place for strategy content – in fact I recommend you bookmark this page now (or the homepage) now and keep coming back to the regular updates!

First up you will need to understand how your approach needs to change at different stages of a poker tournament. This stage-by-stage strategy will show you what is important at various points, as well as how to avoid some common pitfalls. While you can often make ‘moves’ in tournaments, you are going to need some discipline in hand selection. Again this depends on the stage that the game is at – my Poker Tournament Starting Hands article explains all.

Once you have these basics down, you can start adding specific details to your skillset. I’m going to recommend you take one of these ideas, work on incorporating it into your game – and then come back for another strategy to add on top. This stops players becoming overwhelmed with ideas all at once and potentially making a mess of the execution!

#1 – Nail those odds and outs. You will need to know the odds of certain hands hitting to make sure you are not making a mistake when drawing to those straights or flushes. Read Poker Odds and Outs for more.

#2 – Bluffs are an important part of any balanced poker strategy. Before you start throwing around those chips hoping your opponent will somehow find their fold button you need to read-up on two important types of bluff. The semi-bluff is an important weapon in any players arsenal, and the continuation bet is a profitable move too.

#3 – Suited connectors are hands like 7-8 of spades, which can hit hidden straights and flushes on the flop. Since your opponents never believe you have these hands, you can often win a huge pot those times you do hit. Be careful though, you need the right ‘implied odds’ to be able to play them. This article explains how to profitably play suited connectors and small pairs before the flop.

#4 – Hand reading. As you improve your own game, it is time to start trying to assess your opponent’s hands more accurately. This article is a basic guide to Poker Hand Reading.

#5 – Re-raising can work wonders for your chip stack, particularly during the mid to late stages. When you see another player raise and re-raise them again they will immediately start fearing you have a monster hand. My article on 3-betting explains how to use this powerful move, particularly against timid opponents.

#6 – Sooner or later you will reach a final table, and with the big money at stake you had better be prepared with the right strategy and moves! I recommend reading my article on 5 Final Table tips before you reach the last few players of a big tournament – where one mistake could cost you $100’s!

There are plenty more articles, including pro player insights, reviews of top-rated software tools and detailed reviews of all the best tournaments and poker sites all on my ‘Poker Tournaments Main Page’.

In the meantime, make sure you check out those super-soft tournaments at Red Kings Poker soon – this is a great way to get your poker tournament career off to a profitable start! You can choose from up to 6 great welcome bonuses too!

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