Introduction to Online Poker Tournaments

by Mario Alfonsi  |  Published on May 23, 2017  |  Updated on May 23, 2017

Online poker tournaments offer poker players all of the exciting action and opportunities they could ask for, with less of the risk involved in cash poker games. You know going in how much you stand to win, and with a little bit of luck, or even better, well used poker strategy, you have a shot at winning a lot more than you put in.

The wonderful thing about online poker tournaments is that you can pretty much play one any time that you like. Most online poker tournaments offer a dozen or more multi-table poker tournaments each day. So there’s no waiting until 6pm at the local smoky casino, or card room, and then playing till you bust out and then driving home.

Online, you can build an actual poker bankroll, and then you can invest a portion of that bankroll into a tournament anytime you like, at whatever level you like, consistently building your bankroll, while paying yourself a fee for playing the game, it’s really not a bad gig at all.

In fact, online it’s pretty easy for a strong player to find a backer. Someone that will buy them into a tournament, for a cut of the take. In most arrangements, the player pays 60% to the backer, and keeps 40 for himself, with no risk at all to his own financial success.

More players profit online than do in live poker tournaments simply because of the vast selection of tournaments available. There’s pretty much a tournament starting at just about every stakes level all the time somewhere online, and with hundreds to thousands of other players playing, so really, it’s worth it!

The tournaments that are offered at the online poker sites allow players to enjoy a lot of great competition and compete for great prizes. Each online poker site will run its own tournaments and players can find one which has the elements they are looking for so they can enjoy poker the way it should be enjoyed. Online poker tournaments come in different forms; this is one of the great things about these tournaments.

Sit and Go Tournaments Online

One type of online poker tournament is called a Sit & Go Tournament. In this type of tournament the game will begin as soon as a certain number of players have joined. These tournaments will generally consist of 9 to 10 players. The Sit & Go tournaments are fast running and they generally last about a half an hour, sometimes they may last as long as an hour. There are a lot of online poker

sites that offer Sit & Go Tournaments for their players and anyone interested in playing in one will be able to do so at any time.

We go further into Sit n Go tournaments in our section on that style of poker game however.

Multi-Table Poker Tournaments – Online

What we’re going to discuss primarily in this section of the website are Multi Table Tournaments. We’ll help you set up your first poker bankroll, and talk about ways to get as much free money into that bankroll as you invest yourself. Did you know that 888 poker gives every new player $8 just for signing up? You don’t have to make a deposit or anything, just sign up, and get $8 free. There are a few strategies that could actually be used to turn that $8 into a real poker bankroll. Mix in a freeroll in or two and you’re on you’re way!

However, if you don’t want to spend months grinding at the penny tables, and you actually have a few hundred to invest into the game, we’ll show you haw to at the very least, double that money using a deposit bonus (the marketing funds that poker rooms use to entice poker players into choosing their games over games at other poker sites online.)

Multi-Table Poker Tournaments – An Introduction

The number of tables involved in a Multi-Table can vary greatly; in these tournaments players will be playing at a number of tables, there might be 20 players involved, or there could be thousands, it just depends on the game you’ve signed up for, how many seats are available and how popular it is.

So it’s safe to assume these games can go on for a long period of time. A game might last a couple of hours, or it might last a few days. Most online multi-table tournaments are over within a few hours. It is to the benefit of land based casinos to offer large tournament events that span across a few days however, because then the players and oftentimes their families will stay over at the casinos hotel, and eat the casinos food, while partaking of the casinos other games. So there are events, like the World Series of Poker, in obvious example that last as long as a week or more. These are large buy-in games, with life changing prize pools.

Once the players have reduced in number, by way of taking each others chips and knocking each other out of the game, tables will be broken up and players will be moved to new tables, until there is just one final table. The tournament will continue until the final game between two players is won. The amount of players that win cash at the end of the game depends on the tournament, and how many people bought into it. It’s common online for dozens of players to win some events, as common as it is for only 3 or 4 people to win smaller events.

There are other types of online poker tournaments offered at many of the poker sites. Some of these tournaments include satellite tournaments; rebuy tournament, knockouts, and a fan favorite, rush poker tournaments, which are now being offered at a new site called ZOOM Poker.

One of the great things about playing online is the fact that players have all of these different tournaments available to them each and every day no matter how early or late you wake up, and how late you stay up, there are tournaments going on online for all sorts of buyins.