Written By: PKRPoker3D.com
If you’re new to the world of online poker, it’s not always easy to understand the variety of tournaments that are available. So here’s a quick run down of the various types of poker tournaments, and what you can expect from each of them.
Freeze-Out Tournaments:
Freeze-Out tournaments are the most basic and common type of multi-player tournaments available. They have a set start time, and the prize pool is generated based on the number of players who enter the tournament. For example, if a tournament with a $10 buy-in has 1000 players in it, the prize pool will be $10,000. Freeze-out tournaments have no frills, no guaranteed prize pools, and no re-buys.
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Guaranteed Tournaments:
Typically, Guaranteed Tournaments are where you’ll find the largest amount of cash up for grabs. Poker rooms will promise to put up a certain amount of prize money for people to win, no matter how many players end up registering for the tournament. The largest guaranteed tournaments take place every Sunday on Pokerstars, with their Sunday Million Guaranteed Tournament. Full Tilt Poker also holds a huge Sunday tournament, with a prize pool of $750,000 regardless of how many people sign up to play.
Satellites:
Satellite tournaments are a great way for players with small bankrolls to get a chance to play for large amounts of cash. This is because the prizes in satellite tournaments tend to be tickets for larger, more expensive tournaments.
By winning a satellite that may cost as little as $1 to enter, a player can win a seat into a poker tournament with a direct buy-in cost of $150.
Perhaps the most famous example of a satellite qualifier winning big is Chris Moneymaker, who won the World Series of Poker in 2003 having qualified for the tournament through a satellite with a buy-in of just $39.
Sit N Go Tournaments:
Sit N Go’s (more commonly known as SNG’s) are different from normal poker tournaments in that they have no set start time. Instead, they start only when a set number of people have signed up to play.
The number of competitors in an SNG can range from two players to over one hundred. Generally speaking, Sit N Go tournaments consist of fewer players than traditional poker tournaments. The most popular Sit N Go tournaments have either 6, 9, or 10 players. In 6 player Sit N Go tournaments, typically the top two players make it in the money. In 9 or 10 player Sit N Go’s, the top 3 players make it in the money. In a 10 player, $10 Sit N Go, the usual payouts would be: 1st Place – $50, 2nd Place – $30, 3rd Place – $20.
Bounty Tournaments:
The introduction of the Bounty Tournament is something that has been driven by poker rooms like PKR who have really embraced them.
These tournaments are unique in that they take a player’s buy-in and split it into two. Half of the buy-in goes into the general prize pool while the other half is used as a bounty on your head and given to the player who eliminates you.
Of course everyone else has a bounty on his or her head too, which means that your bankroll can increase dramatically in a short period of time as you get paid for every player that you knock out.
Let’s say that you enter a bounty tournament with a buy-in of $20. $10 of each players buy-in will go into the prize pool, the other $10 will be given to whoever eliminates them. If you knock out 5 players, you’ll make $50 just from the bounties you’ve won.
Re-Buy Tournaments:
These kinds of tournaments work exactly the same way as freeze-out tournaments, except they allow players who go out early to buy their way back into the game. The re-buy period tends to be for a set amount of time, usually the first hour of the tournament. After this point, all players who lose their chips are frozen out for good.
Most re-buy tournaments also offer ‘Add-On’s’. An Add-On is one last chance for players to buy more chips before the freeze-out period begins.
Re-buy tournaments usually contain very large prizes due to the additional cash that is thrown into the prize pool from players who bought extra chips.
If you can get a long way into a re-buy tournament without needing to splash out more cash, then you can generally earn a great return on your original stake.