Most poker games are what we refer to as "cash games" - In cash games, you are free to get up and leave at any time, taking with you any profits you have made.

A poker tournament is simply a poker game where you pay a set amount to enter and play continues until one player has all the chips. You cannot cash out your chips during the tournament - you play until either you win all the chips or you lose all your chips and are eliminated from the tournament.

The vast majority of tournaments are played as no-limit Texas Hold 'Em games, but any type of poker can be played as a tournament game.

On the internet, some tournaments are Single Table Tournaments (STTs) and other are Multi-Table Tournaments (MTTs). STTs have up to ten players sitting at a table and play continues until one player is left. In MTTs, players will frequently be shifted from one table to another as players are eliminated until there is only one table left. Play then continues as in STTs.

MTTs usually start at a predetermined time with as many players as have registered by that time. STTs are usually run as "Sit 'n go" tournaments. i.e. the tournament will start as soon as all the seats at the table have been filled.

The prize fund for a tournament is usually made up of the buy-in money payed by the players to enter the tournament, although sometimes, in MTTs, the poker room will guarantee a certain minimum prize fund and make up the difference if there is a shortfall. Naturally the winner of the tournament receives a large chunk of the overall prize fund but a percentage of the prize money is usually payed to people who finish in second and third place and so on. Often the top 10% of players will finish "in the money." In STTs, it is usually the top three finishers that finish "in the money."

During the course of a tournament, the blinds will be gradually increased. This helps to ensure that people continue to be eliminated from the tournament and that the tournament will end within a reasonable time-frame. In MTTs, blinds usually increase every 10 or 15 minutes. In STTs, blinds usually increase every 10, 15 or 20 hands or so.

In some tournaments there is a rebuy period - often for the first hour. During this period a player who loses all his chips may rebuy into the tournament by paying the original buy-in amount again. After any re-buy period, anyone who loses all his chips is eliminated and is out of the tournament. Some tournaments have an "add-on" - meaning that players can purchase a set amount of additional chips at the end of the rebuy period even if they still have chips left.

In internet games, the entry price may well be written something like this: $10+1

This means that you must pay $11 to enter the tournament. $10 of this goes into the prize pool. The other dollar is the administation fee payed to the poker room website itself.

Tournament Strategy

Playing tournaments can be particularly fascinating because you have to be able to change and mix up your strategy according to the situation in which you find yourself in the tournament. Sometimes you can play tight - but sometimes you simply must be prepared to get in there and fight it out with some fast and aggressive play.

Most of the main principles of good play in normal Texas Hold 'Em still apply. Playing tournaments does, however, involve additional considerations.

In "cash games," you don't normally enter into a hand if you have a rubbish hand. This applies even if you have rubbish hands all night! In tournament play, things are rather different. You have to act at some time, otherwise the rising blinds will eventually "eat you up." If your stack of chips gets small, you may be forced to act within a very limited period.

In particular, you need to keep an eye on how big your stack is in comparison to the blinds. If your stack is only a few times larger than the big blind, then you know that you must win a hand within a fairly limited time span. For example, you are sitting at a 10 seat table and have just paid the blinds. You have 1200 left and the blinds are 200 and 400. You know that, at best, you must win at least one of the next 20 hands to stay in the tounament. This may well mean you must really "go all-in" as soon as you see any sort of reasonable hand. You need to look at each hand and, taking account of your position and who else has entered the pot, decide whether you are likely to have a better chance to win a hand before you are "antied away" (i.e. "eaten up by the rising blinds"). 

Generally, it may well be good advice to act before you get down to such a desperate situation. If you wait till you have a tiny stack to make a move, you are probably going to get called and even if you win, you probably won't make very much and will soon be in a desperate situation all over again.

You should probably be looking to make a move when you still have enough chips to frighten people off. This way you may win the pot uncontested which is often what you want. Even if you have the best hand going in, you can easily get outdrawn, so the more pots you can win uncontested the better. As a tournament progresses the blinds get so big that stealing the blinds becomes a large part of the game since they are a prize really worth having. In order to be able to steal these blinds, you want to have a large enough stack to make the blinds wary of tangling with you!

Throughout a tournament, you may also wish to keep an eye on how large your stack is compared to the average stack. If you think about it, so long as you can maintain an average stack, then you remain on course to get in the big money and to actualy win the tournament. Even if you have only half the average stack, then that means you can easily reach the average stack in a single hand by doubling up. If you get a long way behind the average stack, you may decide to take a few more risks. However, it's only when your stack gets low in relation to the blinds that you may need to start seriously lowering your standards about which hands you might play with.

None of this means, however, that you need to panic just because your stack is well below average at any one time. Time and again you will find that the winner of a tournament had far from a smooth ride and may have had to tough it out with a desperately small stack for some time before his chances to build a big stack arrived. The main strategy, therefore, for winning tournaments is simply to "hang on in there!" Whilst you are not out, you still have a chance of winning. You should remember that a short-stacked player can easily treble or quadruple their stack in a single hand. A matter of minutes can easily see a player who was on the verge of going out of the tournament suddenly be right back up there with the main contenders. So - "Don't Panic!" If you get yourself out through panicking, you'll never know if you might have been dealt Aces or Kings on the very next hand!

Whilst appreciating when the time has come for you yourself to move up through the gears and take more risks, you also need to appreciate when you can take advantage of other players trying the same thing. When a player with a short stack goes all-in just before the blinds come round to him, it may be because he feels he if forced to make a move rather than because he actually has a good hand. If you have a large stack and a reasonable hand, you may decide to take that player on and try to eliminate him.

As another example, some opponents will bet big with moderate hands early on, in an attempt to build up a big stack - this may be because they don't have the patience to sit tight and cling on to life in the tournament only to still end up out of the money, or it may be because they are prepared to take extra risks while they still have the opportunity to re-buy into the tournament. Being aware that certain players are taking big risks may give you an opportunity to build up your own stack.

Additionally, some players will want to enter into more hands at the start of the game because the blinds are small and you can often see a flop much more cheaply than you can later in the game. Other players adopt the opposite tactic of playing especially tight at the start since the blinds are so small, they figure they can afford to sit and wait for a monster hand. You have to observe the individual players to work out which tactic they prefer and adjust your play accordingly.

In rebuy tournaments, many players take big risks during the rebuy stage of the tournament. They don't mind taking a risk in order to build up a big stack so long as they still have the opportunity to rebuy. Being aware of which players are using this strategy is important.

At the other extreme again, players may well be extra-cautious as they "get near the money." For example, if the top ten players are paid, then no-one wants to finish in eleventh place (known as finishing "on the bubble"). When the tournament gets down to the last fifteen players or so, many players will start playing much more cautiously, just hanging tight and waiting for other players to be eliminated. Other people advocate playing very aggressively at this point to take advantage of all the players playing cautiously.

As a relative beginner at poker, getting in the money may well be important to you - after all, it feels so much better to win even a few dollars than to have been playing a tournament for 3 hours and still get nothing! If this is the case, you might decide to play cautiously as you approach the money positions. If, on the other hand, you are keen on winning the tournament, you may take advantage of the opportunities provided at this stage to steal a few pots.

As you get near the finishing post, prize money can jump very rapidly each time a player is eliminated. So you may want to be very selective about which pots you get involved in. If other players are knocking each other out in fairly quick succession, you can be effectively making money just by sitting back and doing nothing - since your prize money improves every time a player is knocked out.

If there is still more than one table in the tournament, you might even consider the tactic of playing excessively slowly by using your entire time allocation every time you have a go. This can be very effective since by playing slowly, you are giving more time for players on other tables to knock each other out! Be aware, however, that you may recieve some abuse in the chat boxes if you employ this tactic.

Another tip for tournament play is to choose your opponents carefully. If the player who bets has a stack much smaller than yours and no-one else seems likely to call, you can at least call or raise knowing that you won't be out of the tournament if you lose. In any case, the fact that your opponent has a relatively small stack may well make it more likely he is betting with only a moderately good rather than a really strong hand. If you have a decent stack yourself, you may want to avoid going up against other players with a big stack, especially players who have bigger stacks than you. A lucky draw for your opponent could put you out even if you start off with the best hand - so be careful! Playing against smaller stacks has the advantages that not only are you taking less risk, but if you manage to knock them out, you are one place nearer the big money yourself. Indeed, on the final table, going up even a single place can mean a big jump in prize money.

Most internet poker rooms run freeroll tournaments - these are tournaments that are free to enter but have real prize money. Internet poker rooms use these to attract people to their site. It's not easy to win money from freerolls because there are usually an awful lot of people in each tournament, but they are an excellent way to start building up experience of tournament play.

When you move on to tournaments where you have to pay to enter, be aware that people are likely to play a little differently than they will in freerolls. In freerolls, because it costs nothing to enter, many players will be rather reckless and will simply bet all-in before the flop on any sort of half-decent hand, especially in the early stages of the tournament when they are a long way from the money. In non-freeroll tournaments, you are more likely to see this sort of behaviour only as the blinds get very big.

Raked Hands Tournaments - Some of the best value tournaments of the web are what is known as Raked Hands Tournaments. These are freeoll tournaments, but you have to have played in a certain number of cash game hands (each of which are "raked" a minimum amount) in order to qualify. They are a kind of reward for loyal players. These touraments usually have the advantage that there are far fewer players than in normal freeroll tournaments. The prize money is often more generous too!

When you have gained enough experience from freerolls you may want to play some "proper" tournaments where you must pay to enter. Obviously you probably want to play in small stakes tournaments to start with.

If you're trying to make money from tournaments, especially MTTs, you need to be aware that the swings in your bankroll are likely to be much bigger than with cash games. In cash games a good player can make a regular profit most days. If you play MTTs you can expect to lose money most of the time but occasionally have that big win that makes it worthwhile. It could be a while before you can be confident that you are playing well enough to make an overall profit.

One thing to bear in mind is that many professional poker players tend to specialise in either cash games or in tournaments. Some cash players are no good at tournaments - perhaps they just aren't aggressive enough! Some tournament players are no good at cash games - perhaps they just aren't patient enough. Some players are good at both cash games and tournaments, but to some extent your personality may dictate that you are better at one than the other.

Some tournaments don't have prize money as such. Instead, the winners (or the top few finishers) qualify for a bigger tournament. Such qualifying tournaments are known as "satellites." You can also have satellites for satellites and so on!

One of the great things about internet poker is that you can play satellites for tiny money and have a chance to qualify for some of the world's biggest live poker tournaments and biggest TV poker events. You might pay $10 in a satellite and end up playing on the TV with The Devilfish or against Doyle Brunson in the World Series of Poker Championship Event itself.