Basic of Tournament Poker
A poker tournament is entered by players through a ‘buy-in’ which means they all enter for the same amount of money. The casino or poker room charges an entry fee that each player must pay for entering the poker tournament. For example, if the tournament buy-in is $50 and the house charges a $10 entry fee, each player must pay $60 to enter the tournament. If 150 players enter, the prize pool will equal the number of players times the buy-in, in this case 150 X $50 = $7500 prize pool. The exact structure of the pay outs is established by that tournament but, generally speaking, there will be a prize for about the top ten players with each prize being a set percentage of the prize pool. For example, the first place player might receive 30 percent of the pool, second place 20 percent, third place 15 percent, etc.
In tournament play, each player begins with the same number of chips and, over time, the stakes are raised periodically(small blind, big blind), perhaps every 15 to 60 minutes. The number of chips, the stakes and the time periods between advances in stakes defines whether the tournament is fast or slow. Many expert player choose slow tournaments because they begin with more chips, lower stakes and longer time periods. This provides the better player with the greatest chance of outwitting the other players before the stakes are raised to such a level that they must simply gamble too much.
If there are a large number of players, such as the 150 example above, the tournament play often begin with tables of ten players each. As players lose all their chips, they are eliminated from the tournament unless they buy-in again, which some tournaments allow during a specific time period. Once players are eliminated, tables are reorganized so that the number of players are each table remains as close to equal as possible. Eventually, the tournament play will boil down to only one table and the winner will be the player that wins all the chips.
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