Online tournaments are poker competitions that take place in cyberspace, namely online poker rooms. There are many different kinds of online tournies. You can play heads-up with just one other person. There are also sit 'n gos. These are one or more table tournaments in which a set number of players vie for prizes, usually paid out to the top few finishers.
Most online tournaments are freezeout events. That means that you play until there's only one player left. Sit 'n gos are just one example of that. There are also freeroll tournaments. These are events which are free to enter and give away prizes, usually of a monetary nature. For bigger action, play in the multi-table events which, for a relatively low buy-in, give you a chance to play against hundreds - and in many cases, thousands - of other online poker players for some serious cash. Some of these events pay out tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Finally, there's satellite events. Satellites give you the opportunity to play your way to a big-time event for a fraction of the cost.
Regular Online Tournaments
Every online poker room has regular tournaments each week. Most have big-time events on the weekends. Poker Stars, for example, hosts a Sunday Million Tournament. It's the internet's first one million dollar guaranteed tourney. First prize is always bigger than $100k. Most weeks, you can pay $215 to enter the event direct. The last week of the month, the stakes are raised - and so is the entry fee. It's $530. Then, four times a year, PokerStars mega-plies the Sunday Million with a $1,050 entry. Of course, if that kind of cash isn't in your account, you can play satellite events to win your way in. Some of these start as low as $3.00.
Full Tilt Poker, where pros such as Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey and Jennifer Harman play, hosts a $350,000 Guarantee each Sunday at 6pm EST. Registration costs $216.00. The event pays out tens of thousands of dollars to most of the final table usually. You can satellite into the event using just 300 of your Full Tilt Points, incentives given to players who enter real-money tournaments and sit in on cash games, or spending $4.40 to play in tournaments that go on throughout the week.
Party Poker , Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet also feature weekly guarantees. At Absolute Poker, you can qualify to play in their 100K Guarantee by playing in daily events, or buy-in directly for $216 each Saturday at 16:30 pm EST. The 100k features AbsolutePoker's gallery of pros, such as Mark Seif, Lacey Jones and Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi. Knock one of them out and win a bounty that's twice the amount of the tournament buy-in.
Ultimate Bet allows you to win your way into their weekly $200k for as little as $5.50. These satellites run every day and feed into the Main Event, which takes place on Sundays at 5:00 pm EST. Party Poker also has a Sunday 200k Guaranteed Tournament. It costs $215 to enter direct, or you can win your way in with daily qualifiers beginning as low as $3.00.
Of course, these aren't the only regular tournament events in the online poker universe. There are hundreds - literally - of sites out there for you to choose from and thousands of events that occur, daily, weekly and monthly. Once you find the rooms you like to play at the best, just check out their schedules. Most are posted in the lobby when you sign into the software. You're bound to find something that will fit your skill level and budget just about any time, day or night.
Which are the best poker rooms for online tournies
There are so many poker rooms to choose from. Frankly, we've lost count. The truth is that with so much choice it can be difficult to know where you should sit down to play. Your decision can rest on a variety of factors such as the type of competition - is it hard (difficult) or soft (easy) - the games offered, and the popularity of the card room itself. Hands down, the best places to play on the web tend to be the most popular card rooms. These offer you the most choice in tournaments and in competition.
Full Tilt Poker, Doylesroom, Ultimate Bet, PokerStarts, Party Poker, and Absolute Poker are all fantastic online tournament hotspots.
The trend towards adding increasingly spectacular cash guarantees
Online card rooms know there's a lot of competition out there. Your poker dollars could be spent just about anywhere. You can play poker online or at a variety of brick and mortar casinos. In order to hold your interest, more and more online poker sites have moved towards adding big-money guarantees to their roster of events.
The online poker rooms not only value you as a consumer they also understand the popularity of the big events like the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and World Poker Tour (WPT). These tournaments draw in millions of people and make billions of dollars each year, and there's no end in sight. Honestly, there are a lot of slices in the poker tournament pie.
Online poker rooms are working hard to bring you bigger and bigger pieces daily, weekly and monthly. It's a great time to capitalize on the big-money tournament trend.
