Tournaments

Tournaments are some of the most popular types of poker to be played today. Casinos around the world and in the United States normally have some type of daily or weekly tournament schedule slated within their poker rooms. Also, with the advent of online poker portals such as Pokerstars or CardSpike, players can literally find some type of tournament starting every few minutes – all available at just the click of a mouse. Amazingly enough, many of these poker sites even offer them at no charge to the customer. These “freerolls” are a guaranteed way to help out any novice or beginner tournament player, and they are a great way to not only learn how to play cards, but a simple way to gain some valuable experience before entering a real money tournament.

The popularity of tournaments has been on the rise dramatically since Chris Moneymaker’s surprising WSOP Main Event win back in 2003. Moneymaker, a full-time accountant [at the time] who qualified through a satellite on PokerStars.com, was the man responsible for kicking off what has generally been known as the “poker boom” when he mowed his way through some of the globe’s most renowned players and beat legendary gambler Sammy Farha heads-up for the title and $2.5 million dollars. His win has been widely regarded as one of the single-most industry changing moments in gambling history, and lifted both the live and online poker tournament scene into another stratosphere.

By the time you finish reading this article, there will have already been thousands of tournaments either being played or completed - along with thousands upon thousands more registering for play.  Multi-table tournaments (MTT’s), single-table tournaments (Sit and Go’s), and heads-up matches are just a few of the types of tourneys that are constantly running at either land-based casinos around the globe or online poker rooms.  You can get in on the action yourself by checking out your local cardroom in your area or visit all of the approved internet poker rooms and casinos here on this website.  

You can visit the following tutorials here at Gambling101.org to get even more information on tournaments and other strategy hints, as well as gain valuable insight into the world of MTT’s and how they differ from standard cash games:

Types of Tournaments Online
Beginner Tournament Strategy
Live Tournament Etiquette
Tournament Blind Structures & Chip Values
Cash Games versus Tournaments