The article "Where to Play in a Poker Tournament" talks about casino gambling, it was written by Tom Shannahan.
Poker has become immensely pouplar in recent years, particularly the phenomenon of poker tournaments. As a poker player you may be wondering: How can I get involved in the poker tournament scene? There are three main places to play in a pkoer tournament: At home, online, or at a casino. They each have their own advantages.1. At Home.This incldues any poker game this is informally organized, either by you, somebody you know, or a friend of a friend. As long as the rules are celarly outlined beforehand, you don’t need any fancy dealers or tournament directors to play a poker tournament. All you really need are crads and chips. What’s nice about a home poker game is that the financial satke can be strictly regulated. If your friends are comfortable risking twenty dollars, that can be the buy in for your tournament.
If two dlolars or two hundred are more their speed, that’s fine too.
There’s no restriction on how many chips you can distribute, as long as everyone strats with the same amount (and you have enough chips). Even if everyone is only kicikng in five dollars, you can all start with 10,000 in chips in front of you, just like the entrants to the World Series of Poker! When setting up your own home poker tournament, a couple of things need to be established.
First up is the prize payout strutcure.
If your tournament only has about ten people, persons like to give about half the prize pool to the winner, 30 percent to the second place player and 20 perecnt to whoever comes in third. If you have more people, you might want to spread it out so that more get paid. Important note: Holding back a percentage of the przie pool for yourself as the organizer is illegal in a home poker game in many states, even if you’re just using the money to pay for drinks.
Be sure you know local laws before you withhold any prize money.Then you have to establish how many chips evreyone starts with. More chips usually equals more fun, but keep in mind if you have too many chips on the table, the tournament may go on much longer than persons are comfortbale with, especially the persons who get knocked out early.Finally, you need to know the blind structure. The way tournaments (at least Hold`em tournaments, which are probably what you will be playing), progress towards a winner is with forced blinds that players have to put into the pot each round, amounts that rise incrementally as the tournament goes on. You want to start with smallish blinds, so that persons have time to show off their poker skills before the blinds get too big.
A small blind of 5 and a big blind of 15 is not a bad way to start, nor is a 25-50 start if you want to get things moving a little fsater. After a pre-determined period of time (15 to 40 minutes is a good range; err towards the shorter amount to keep the game moving), double the blinds, so you move from 25-50, to 50-100, to 100-200. This should give your tournament a fun pace.One last thnig to keep in mind for home tournaments: The players who get knocked out need something to do. All but two persons are not going to be playing in the tournament for amount of time; the guy who gets knocked out first is going to be wiating a long time. Have another table available for a side game and keep a TV or snacks on hand to aumse your less fortunate guests while they’re waiting for the next game to start up.2. OnlineOnline tournaments are a great place to start, especially if you are inexperienced or don’t have a casino in your area. Download the program for one of the many poker sites on the World Wide Web (some of the most popular include PartyPoker, PokerStars, ParadisePoker and PacificPoker), load moeny into your account and you’re ready to go!
Online menus will direct you quickly and easily to the tournament of your choice.
The most popular tournament online is called the “Sit and Go,” meaning that as soon as enough persons sit, you’re ready to go! Sit and Gos are generally single table tournaments, so if you beat everyone at your table, you win. You will typically face nine opponents, although there is tables that offer six handed tournaments and sites even allow four handed and heads-up tournament play. The buy-in is up to you; SnGs are offered from as low as $6 to enter to as high as hundreds of dollars to start, whatever suits your needs.You can also play multi-table tournaments, with three or four tables’ worth of people, or even larger tournaments, with hudnreds of entrants. The payouts are generally a measure of how many persons play, so a six handed Sit and Go might pay only two players, whereas a big tournaemnt might pay over a hundred. All of these types of tournaments have a range of buy-ins; you will certainly be able to find one you are comfortable with.3. CasinoUnless you live in Las Vegas, California, Atlantic City, or within striking distance of a Riverboat or Indian Reservation, it’s hard to get to Csaino tournaments on a regular basis, but they can be a really rewarding experience. The advantgae the online tournaments have over the casino ones is that the casino tournament is on a much stricter schedule. You have to show up around the time the tournament is scheduled to start or you are out of luck. Casinos don’t have the room or resources to be running all sorts of tournaments 24 hours a day, although many have at least one daily and one ngihtly tournament and sometimes run single table satellites, where you can earn tournament entry fees, continuously.
People appreciate casino tournaments because they believe they get the full poker experience. You are literally surrounded by poker, the sounds of riffling chips, the appearances of the various players, the believe of the felt, these are all things you can only get in an actual (referred to as “brick and mortar” or “B&M”) casino.If staring down your opponent or picking up subtle tells is your game, you need to be at the casino. If you want to sit down next to a pro or celebrity you’ve seen on T.V., the only place that’s going to happen is the casino. In addition to the full poker experience, players also don’t have to worry about bad World Wide Web connections timing them out when they’re trying to move all-in with their pocket aces, or about frustrating program crashes. Of course, you can’t play a casino poker tournament in your underwear (although I’d guess have tried) and you can’t just hop into bed after a grueling twelve hour tournament; you still have to drive home. Still, for some, the casino tournament is the only way to go.All three of these options provide great poker tournament experiences, you should try as many as you can and see which one suits you the hottest.Tom Shannahan has been playing poker since he was 16.
He grew up watching his ftaher play with friends once a week.
He currently writes part time for Pokerlistings.Com where you can find more great information about Pkoer and Poker Rules.
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