Miss and terms of incomprehensible poker tournaments? Let's clarify!

Those who approach the world of online poker and poker for the first time can find many difficulties in understanding the terms and acronyms used to identify and differentiate the types of play and tournament. Here we therefore take care of clarifying the various categories of tournament offered by most of the online poker rooms.

First it is good to clarify the functioning of legal online poker tournaments in USA (read this page if you are interested in the poker cash).

Each tournament follows the "registration-monterepress tax" formula: this means that each player pays only a registration fee (buy-in) to the tournament to be able to play and can receive, depending on the position reached in the standings, an award in money.

Let's take an example in this regard: a Texas Hold'em tournament has a registration fee of $ 1 and a cash prize for the top 10 classified is provided. When the player starts the game, he receives a chips (for example $ 2000) on the table who have only the feature of tokens for the game. This means that if a player loses all the chips, in reality the loss in cash is only that of the buy-in. Similarly, if he ends the tournament in first place with $ 100,000 in chips, he wins the cash prize associated with the first position.

In general, the buy-in for tournaments varies between $ 0.50 $ 100.

The categories of tournaments:

  • Sit& Go: I Sit& Go sono tornei con un numero limitato di partecipanti, che iniziano non appena l'ultimo posto disponibile viene occupato da un giocatore. Proprio per questo i tornei Sit& Go non hanno un orario di inizio prestabilito. Il numero di partecipanti è solitamente compreso tra 2 (variante Heads-Up) e qualche decina.
  • Multi-tavol: This type of tournament takes place on a high number of tables. Each player aims to eliminate the other participants in their table and accumulate chips. As the tournament advances and the increase of free places, the tables are merged up to the moment when the finalists are sitting at the same table. Since the game times are quite long in tournaments with many players, a few minutes break is made every hour. The value of the prize pool is proportional to the buy-in of the tournament and the number of participants.
  • Satellites: Satellites are tournaments that include access to events of greater importance as a prize. The satellites winners receive tickets that allow access to tournaments whose buy-in cost is considerably higher. For example, in a 1 $ buy-in satellite the top 10 classified receive access to a $ 50 buy-in tournament. Just the particular prize pool at stake, the tournament ends when the number of players remaining is the same as the number of tickets put off.
  • Turbo tournament (or speed): (Turbo, 2x Turbo and 3x Turbo) These are tournaments in which the value of the Small Blind and the Big Blind increases over time much more quickly than what happens in the other tournaments. This translates into faster play and in a fewer hands played.
  • Tournament with Re-Buy: Some tournaments provide for the possibility that a player can buy additional chips to the game started, paying the cost of re-buy, generally higher than buy-in. The purchase of additional chips is however subject to temporal limits and other rules that are specified in the tournament information.
  • Free of free: Indicate with this term tournaments that have no registration fee, that is, that do not provide for a fee for the buy-in. The prize pool is however made up of cash prizes or tickets for access to other events.
  • Heads-Up: The heads up tournaments include the participation of two players only, who challenge each other in a head each.

Nota: Le categorie precedenti non sono in mutua esclusione: vengono infatti organizzati tornei Multi -tavolo Turbo così come Sit& Go satelliti.

Understand the acronyms:

In poker rooms, tournaments are usually identified by an initials. Let's understand what tournament it is based on the acronym assigned. Those who follow are only examples, as each poker room adopts their conventions. To learn more about this aspect it is advisable to install the poker room software and start to become familiar with the proposed interface. Let's see some examples:

  • $ 5 NL Hold'em (Turbo, 6-Max): Texas Hold'em No Limit Tournament, Buy-In $ 5, Turbo, maximum 6 players per table.
  • $ 50 Fixed Hold'em ($ 5000 guaranteed): Texas Hold'em Fixed Limit tournament, Buy in $ 50, minimum prize pool guaranteed for $ 5000.
  • $ 10 NL 5-Card Draw (satellite): 5-Card Draw Tournament without limit, satellite for more prestigious events.

For more information on a particular event, just access the poker room lobby and click on the desired tournament. There is always a window with more in -depth information.