There are two main types of poker you can play online: cash games and tournaments. When playing cash games, you’re playing with real money and can choose how much you want to buy-in for and when to buy chips.
With online poker tournaments, things run a bit differently: every player pays the same amount of money to take part and receives the same number of chips (usually between 1,500 and 3,000) to play with. The tournament ends once a single player has won all of the chips.
To prevent games from lasting too long, tournaments have levels that last a pre-determined amount of time. As each level passes, the blinds increase, pressuring players with lower stacks to either take a stand or run the risk of being blinded out of the game.
Everything about an online poker tournament, including the blinds, the structure, the buy-in and the time limit, is fixed. Tournaments typically start at a set time, though some start only once a certain number of players have joined.
The number of players that receive payments varies depending on how many players have taken part in the tournament. However, the pay is always distributed according to a set structure pre-determined by the casino. Most of the time, the top 15% of players will receive a cash prize.
What types of poker tournaments are there?
Freezeout tournaments are the most common type of poker tournament you’ll find online. In fact, a lot of online casinos just refer to them as ‘tournaments’. The way these tournaments work is quite simple: once you’ve run out of chips, you’re out of the tournament.
The Fish ’N’ Chips Tournament Series at 888 Poker is a collection of four tournaments. They each take place three times a day and offer generous cash prizes and low buy-ins ranging from $1 to $30. There’s a restriction of only nine players per tournament.
The Lucky Dollar tournament at Party Poker is only available to those who have been a member of the site for a week or less. The target audience of these tournaments is rookies. It’s great to have tournaments just for beginners that keep players with more experience and skills away. Buy-ins for this tournament cost just $1.
Poker Stars’ Daily Bigs are another group of online poker tournaments ideal for rookies. Their buy-ins are very low and you can even take part in a satellite tournament beforehand, so you could win your seat for even less. All of the Daily Bigs have big prize pools, which get even bigger every Sunday.