Tournament play is one of the most exciting formats in the world of online poker. The beauty of tournaments is that you can win huge prizes, by only wagering a little. Some of the prizes can be very exotic, such as trips to Vegas, or Aruba to play on tv for $1million.

Each tournament has a buy-in as well as a fee. The buy-in is put into the prize pool, while the fee is kept by the tournament organizers. (There is no "rake" in tournament play.) The size of the prize pool depends upon the size of the buy-in and the number of players in a tournament.

To enter any tournament, you have to select it from the lobby area and register to play. Once the tournament starts, and all players have been seated, each player gets the same amount of starting chips. Then each player is dealt a card, and the one with the highest card starts the game off as the dealer. This is called " high-carding for the dealer button ". Once the tournament starts, the aim is to amass as many chips as possible. Players, who have lost all their chips, are out of the tournament. As time progresses, fewer and fewer players are left in the tournament until only one person remains; the tournament winner.

Tournaments are available for most poker games. They will either be "Scheduled tournaments" that the poker rooms advertise registration for in advance, or, they will be "Sit & Go tournaments" where seats will be filled up as players register until all seats are filled & the tournament starts.

The most common type of tournaments are listed below. All the online poker websites featured on pokerwonga.com will offer a wide variety of tournaments.

Multi-table Tournaments

All players in a multi-table poker tournament begin with the same chip stack. Several tables will be playing at the same time within the tournament, as each player plays to win the others' chips in an attempt to eliminate the competition. The size of the "blinds" increase incrementally as the tournament progresses. As players are eliminated tables are "broken". The poker room software will automatically re-assign players to other tables to maintain balance, as well as full tables whenever possible. The tournament will culminate in a final table with the last remaining players. The overall tournament winner is the player that wins all the chips! The top tournament finishers are awarded cash prizes, depending upon the tournament payout rules for that poker room.

These tournaments are often called " collapsible tournaments " as multiple tables are collapsed into one. Some poker rooms offer multi-table tournaments where players are not moved around but instead qualify through to a final table.

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Multi-Table Tournament Tips

Single Table Tournaments

A Single Table Tournament (STT) is a poker tournament where a player plays a game at a single table with a group of (normally 10) other players until all players but one are eliminated from play. Players are ranked by how long they can stay in and the prize pool paid out on a sliding scale amongst the top finishing players.

Single Table Tournaments are available at all the poker rooms featured on PokerWonga.com. To keep track of the best Single Table Tournaments, go to the poker room lobby at the poker websites listed in the quick links on the left hand side of this page.

Strategy for playing single table tournaments is similar to multi-table tournaments.

Satellite Tournaments

Satellite qualifiers are single table tournaments where the "satellite table" winner is rewarded with a place in a large prize Multi Table Tournament that has a high buy-in. Basically, players at a satellite table are effectively "buying in" a seat at an expensive multi-table tournament between them, and then play off to see who gets it.

ReBuys & Add-ons

In a rebuy tournament you can purchase additional chips within a certain predefined period of a tournament if you bust out or fall below a certain chip count. The software at the various online poker rooms will prompt you automatically with rebuy options in arebuy tournament.

Rebuy tournaments also ofteninclude an "add-on" option that allows you to buy additional chips at the end of the final rebuy round regardless of the number of chips that you may have. Add-ons are always useful, giving you extra chips with which to play with during the remainder of the tournament.

Freerolls

It does what it says on the tin. A freeroll tournament is one where there are no buy-ins or fees to pay. All poker rooms operate freeroll tornaments. Some are more attractive than others, and some are open to new account holders only.

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