Poker Tournaments
The game of Poker has experienced a phenomenal upsurge in popularity across the world. Many have attributed this growth to the game’s increasing presence as a ‘spectator sport’ on television and the invention of online poker gaming around the start of the 21st Century. Broadcasts of poker tournaments such as the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour have turned the game into a serious business, bringing in huge audiences for networks and millions of dollars in advertising revenue.
Tournament poker is a very different style of play than regular ring game poker. In tournaments, players must purchase a seat in the tournament at a fixed price, known as the “buy in”, as well as a fee to the cardroom for hosting the tournament in order to receive a starting amount of chips to play with. All participating entrants begin the tournament with the same amount of chips, and their goal is to win all of the chips from all of the other players. In order to keep the game play challenging and ensure elimination even if a player were to fold every hand, blinds are increased regularly. When a player loses the last of his chips, he or she is eliminated from the tournament and must leave the table.
In regular tournaments a player is immediately eliminated when he loses all his chips. The last player to remain at the table wins the tournament. However, some tournaments offer an additional re-buy (or buy-back) option that may or may not be available to all players. In a re-buy tournament, qualifying players are given the option to purchase a new starting stack of chips (re-buy) to get back into the tournament. The re-buy period usually takes place at the beginning of the tournament and is only available for a fixed amount of time. Re-buy tournaments usually have an add-on feature at the end of the re-buy period which allows you to top up your chip stack at a cost that gets added to the prize pool.
Poker Tournaments usually fall under two formats based on the number of seats:
Single table tournaments (STT) - Single table tournaments are tournaments which are limited to one table with the number of seats varying from 2 up to 10.
Multi-table tournaments (MTT) – Multi-table tournaments allow for much larger numbers of players to compete in a single tournament. The players are seated at as many tables as needed to accommodate all of the entries. For example, if there are 85 people in a tournament, 9 tables with 10 seats will be used. As players are eliminated, tables are kept in “balance” by moving active players. This is done by switching one player or (as the player pool shrinks) removing an entire table and redistributing its players amongst the remaining tables. Continuing on our previous example, after 5 players bust out leaving 80 active competitors, the players from the table(s) with the least amount of players are moved into the empty seats at the remaining tables to form 8 tables of 10 seats. This process continues until a single table remains. The remaining players continue to play down to the last player to determine the winner.
All poker tournaments will fall under the category as either a STT or an MTT. However, there are a few popular variations of these tournaments, with slight deviations of the rules that one should be aware of.
Sit & Go (SNG) – Sit & Go tournaments are tournaments that do not have a scheduled start time. Instead, the tournament has a set number of players and beings when all the seats are filled. While there can be any number of seats in a Sit & Go MTT, the most common SNG tournaments have 6 or 10 seats.
Satellites – Satellite tournaments are tournaments in which the winner(s) wins a seat to compete in a larger tournament. The number of seats awarded as prizes is dependant on the number of entries, the value of the seat prize, and the amount of the buy in. For example, if the value of the seat prize is $300 and the buy in of the tournament is $10, then one seat prize will be awarded for every 30 entries. Unlike a regular MTT, the tournament does not play down to the last player and instead ends when the number of remaining players is equal to the number of seat prizes being awarded. In the above example, if there are 600 players, then 20 seat prizes will be awarded and the tournament ends when there are 20 players left in the tournament.
Speed Tournaments (Turbo) – In a speed tournament, the time between blinds increasing is shortened. In most MTT tournaments, the blinds go up every 10 to 15 minutes, whereas in a speed tournament the blinds will increase every 3 to 5 minutes depending on the card room and on the event. Speed Tournaments are great events for those with a limited amount of time to play!
Guaranteed Tournaments – The prize pool of an MTT is created by adding together all of the buy-ins from all players in the tournament, in addition to any re-buys and add-ons if the tournament allows them. The prize pool is then distributed to the winners of the tournament in the manner that is shown in the tournament lobby. Standard distribution practice allocates winnings to approximately 10% of the players with the player in 1st place receiving 30-50% of the prize pool. A guaranteed tournament has a minimum prize pool amount that is supplied by the card room to ensure the tournament will pay out a good prize. Even if the buy-ins do not add up to the promised prize pool the card room will kick in the difference.