picalseceguisub.netlify.com

When you’re new to poker, a cash game is probably where you’ll start. You sit down to play and when you’ve won (or lost) enough, you just get up and go. A poker tournament on the other hand, can seem a bit daunting.

• Different Types Of Poker Tournaments Near Me
• Different Types Of Poker Tournaments
• Different Types Of Poker Tournaments Real Money
• Different Types Of Poker Tournaments 2019
• Different Types Of Poker Tournaments 2020

The reality is tournaments are just a different form of poker. Once you’ve won a few prizes and realised you can handle the competition, you might decide it’s your favourite way to play.

With literally hundreds of different options ranging from the start time, to blind and stack structure, to the poker format, there is no other place where you’ll have more selection and the capability to pick and choose to enter tournaments that play to your strengths as a poker player more than in online events. There you have it – an overview of poker tournaments, how they work, and different types of tourneys you can play. From here it’s a matter of choosing a game and getting started. If it were us, we’d choose a $5 or $10 turbo MTT with a starting stack of 1,500 and 3,000. Maybe find one that offers bounties – which can be lots of fun.

Different Types Of Poker Tournaments Near Me

Whether it’s the World Poker Tour or a big online event, there are some essential tournament tactics you need to know. In this section, we take you through the basics, including rebuys and making your stack size work for you.

Different Types Of Poker Tournaments

Shuffle up and deal, folks. It’s time for your first tournament - you can check out our Power Series poker tournament to find a few games or you can read on just to brush up on tournament basics!

In this section, we walk you through your first tournament, including:

Before the tournament starts, all players pay an entry fee and buy-in. This gets you a number of chips and your seat at the table. From then on, it’s a simple knockout situation where you keep playing until your chips run out. The winner is the player who ends up holding all the chips.

To add to the atmosphere, the blinds usually get bigger by set amounts at specific times as the game goes on. In later rounds, there’s often an ante (a fixed bet everyone pays before the first deal) as well.

In some tournaments, once you lose all your starting chips, that’s it (we call it a freeze-out). More often, you’ll get a chance to top up your stack, or ‘rebuy’.

This could mean rebuying any amount of chips at any time or, depending on the rules, a limited amount and only at certain stages.

After the rebuys, there might also be an ‘add on’, where everyone has a chance top up their chips.

Should you do it? As always, it comes down to bankroll management, and the odds of winning versus the amount you’re putting at risk.

In any tournament, you’ll always know the prize pool in advance – which will help you work out if the money you’re putting in is worth it. Bear in mind that runners-up often get something too.

There can be quite a gap between first prize and fifth prize though. In which case, the final table will sometimes cut a deal to split the money. Result.

Ready for your first tournament? We say try a few low-cost Sit & Go tounaments before chasing the big prizes. Our page on Sit & Go tactics is a great place to start.

Tournament tactics

Here we’ll give you a little more insight into tournament play, including:

• What would you do?
  

Before you start playing tournaments, it’s worth taking a moment to work out your tactics. Yes, you need to win hands and chips, but some situations aren’t as clear cut as they look.

It's the first hand of a live tournament and you're the big blind. Everybody folds except the small blind, who goes all-in. You accidentally see he has a suited ace and king. You’ve got two queens. What should you do?

• Call You have the best hand and need to build up chips
• Fold There’ll be other hands and it’s not worth the risk
  

In many ways, there’s no right answer to this question. It really depends on where you’re coming from as a player.

According to a lot of experts, your objective in a tournament is simple: don’t go broke. This means avoiding close gambles for large portions of your chips whenever you can.

Say (as with the above example), you're a 57% favourite over your opponent. In a cash game, that’s definitely worth a call. But in a tournament, 43% of the time you’d be out. Based on the estimated value (the average outcome if you did this over and over), you’re never going to win.

There’s also the type of tournament. If the first prize is much bigger than the second, then you should gamble to give yourself the best chance. Likewise, in short-stacked game where the blinds keep going up, the clock is against you, so it makes sense to press ahead while you can.

In a typical single-table online tournament, though, it’s not about individual wins as much as defending and growing your stack. In which case you don’t want to risk getting knocked out at any time for a relatively small profit.

Most poker theory tends to assume that you’re a pretty experienced player. If that’s the case, you’ll have plenty of chances to outsmart your opponents later on, so why take the risk?

If you’re a new player, you’re relying on odds, not advanced strategy, to see you through. In which case 57% is not a bad bet to take.

To get you in the tournament frame of mind, here are some more scenarios to think about.

Q. It's the bubble stage (the part just before prizes) of a multi-table tournament and everyone’s folded up to you in the small blind. You have terrible cards, but put in a big bet to steal the blinds. Then the big blind goes all-in, a fraction ahead of your bet. What should you do?

A. Easy. Gamble. It might not pay off, but it’s not costing you that much extra to call, considering this is your chance for a prize position.

Q. It's the middle stage of a tournament, pre-flop, and you are one of two chip leaders at the table (he’s a bit ahead of you – the other players don’t even come close). He moves all-in, but you have two aces. Do you call or fold?

A. Again, this is obvious. You fold, even though you’ve got the best hand. This player is the only one who can send you home, so if you call, you're going to be out the tournament about 38% of the time. Better to pick off the less risky opponents first and go after the big money later.

Q. You’re down to the tournament final with just one opponent, whose stack size is about a quarter of yours. She moves all-in. You’ve only got a 2-2. Should you call?

A. Definitely. First, your opponent is getting desperate so might just have overcards (two high cards), not a pair. Even if she does, with your chip lead, you can take the hit. Also, you know you’re up against a good player, so you need to use any chance you can to beat them.

The card game of poker has many variations, most of which were created in the United States in the mid-1900s. The standard order of play applies to most of these games, but to fully specify a poker game requires details about which hand values are used, the number of betting rounds, and exactly what cards are dealt and what other actions are taken between rounds.

Popular poker variants[edit]

The three most popular poker variants are spread in casinos and poker rooms worldwide and can be divided into the following groups:

• Draw poker: Games in which players are dealt a complete hand, hidden, and then improve it by replacing cards. The most common of these is five-card draw.
• Stud poker: Games in which each player receives a combination of face-up cards and face-down cards in multiple betting rounds. The most common of these are five-card stud and seven-card stud. These two variants are further played in other different formats.
• Community card poker: Games in which each player's incomplete hidden hand is combined with shared face-up cards. The most common of these are Texas hold 'em and Omaha hold 'em.

Here are more common rule variations:

1. Lowball: The lowest hand wins the pot. There are different rules about whether or not aces count as low, and the effects of straights and flushes. The most common variants are Razz and 2-7 Triple Draw
2. High-low split: the highest and lowest hands split the pot. Generally there is a qualifier for the low hand. For example, the low hand must have 5 cards with ranks of 8 or less. In most high-low games the usual rank of poker hands is observed, so that an unsuited broken straight (7-5-4-3-2) wins low (see Morehead, Official Rules of Card Games). In a variant, based on Lowball, where only the low hand wins, a straight or a flush does not matter for a low hand. So the best low hand is 5-4-3-2-A, suited or not.
3. Players can pass cards to each other. An example of this would be Anaconda.
4. Kill game: When a fixed limit game is played and a player wins two pots in a row, the stakes are doubled. In some split-pot games, a player winning both halves of the pot may also cause a kill. In some variants of Lowball, a player may choose to kill by placing a double bet after seeing his first two cards.
5. Wild cards are added. This can range from simply making deuces wild to the 7-card stud variant named baseball.
6. A twist round in which players can buy another card from the deck. If a player does not like the purchased card, the player can purchase another one by adding money to the pot. This is sometimes called a 'tittle.'
7. A stripped deck may be used. Poker was first played with only 20 cards. In the spirit of poker history, players will sometimes only play with a stripped deck. A popular poker game in Spain is played with cards 8-A. It is played similar to hold'em, except that one card is dealt at a time and a player must use both hole cards.
8. Roll your own is played in stud games, and allows the player to determine which of his or her cards are turned up and visible to the other players. In a game like Seven-card Stud, the 'roll' action only applies to the first 3 cards, all of which are dealt face down. Each player then determines which card to expose. Play then continues as with regular Seven-card Stud. But a game like Mexican stud applies the roll option throughout the game. Two cards are dealt face down, and the players roll one card up. The game continues just as in Five-card Stud, except the cards are dealt face down, and each player then decides which of the two down cards is exposed.^[1]

Mixed poker games[edit]

Poker can be played in a mixed game format, for example one half-hour of Texas hold 'em followed by one half-hour of Seven-card stud. There are many types of mixed poker games. The most notable mixed poker variation is H.O.R.S.E. poker. H.O.R.S.E. is a mix of Texas hold 'em, Omaha high-low, Razz, Seven-card stud and Seven-card stud Eight-or-better. Each game will usually be played for a fixed number of hands or time and then the players will move on to the next game.

Other mixed games include:

• H.O.S.E. – same as H.O.R.S.E., except without Razz.
• H.O.E. – same as H.O.R.S.E, except no Razz or Seven-card stud.
• H.O. – Texas hold 'em and Omaha high-low
• O.E. – Omaha high-low and Seven-card Stud Eight or better.
• H.A. – Pot limit Texas hold 'em and pot limit Omaha.
• Omaha High-low Mixed – Fixed limit Omaha and pot limit Omaha high-low
• Holdem Mixed – Fixed limit and no limit Texas hold 'em.
• Eight Game Mix – Fixed limit 2-7 Triple Draw, fixed limit Texas hold 'em, fixed limit Omaha Hi-Low Eight or better, Razz, fixed limit Seven-card stud, fixed limit Seven-card stud Hi-Low eight or better, no limit Texas hold 'em and pot limit Omaha.
• Ten Game Mix (introduced at 2011 World Series of Poker) – No limit Hold'em, fixed limit Seven-card Razz, fixed limit Hold'em, fixed limit Badugi, fixed limit Seven-card Stud, no limit 2-7 Single Draw, fixed limit Omaha Hi-Low eight or better, pot limit Omaha, fixed limit 2-7 Triple Draw and fixed limit Seven-card stud Hi-Low eight or better (played with 6 players on a table).

Specific poker variant games[edit]

Some poker games don't fit neatly into the above categories, and some have features of more than one of these categories. These variants are most often played in home games, usually as part of a dealer's choice format.

High Chicago or Low Chicago[edit]

Either of these two versions can be played in any stud high game. In High Chicago, or sometimes simply called Chicago, the player with the highest spade face down (referred to as in the hole) receives half the pot. In Low Chicago, the player with the lowest spade in the hole receives half of the pot, with the A♠ being the lowest. If the player with the highest hand also has the highest/lowest spade in the hole, then that player receives the entire pot - having won both sides of the bet.

Follow the Queen[edit]

Different Types Of Poker Tournaments Real Money

This 7-card stud game uses a wild-card designated as whichever card is immediately dealt (exposed, or face-up) after any queen previously dealt (exposed). In the event that the final card dealt (exposed) is itself a queen, then all queens are wild. If no queens are dealt (exposed), then there are no wilds for that hand. Betting is the same as in normal 7-card stud games. Follow the Queen is a typical game variant in Dealer's Choice poker games.^[2][3]

Countdown[edit]

In this 5-card game, the dealer gives each player 5 cards face down. After the first round of betting, each player may choose to replace zero to three cards. A second round of betting follows and then players may opt to replace zero to two cards. Upon completing another round of betting, each player may replace one card of the cards in their hand. After a final round of betting, any remaining players show their hands, and the highest 5 card hand wins. The cost of cards doubles each round. For example, if the dealer says each replacement card costs $10 in the first round, then each card costs $20 in the second round, and $40 in the final round. When players purchase cards to replace ones in their hand, they put the cost of the cards in the pot.^[4]

This game will only work with 4 players (or fewer) otherwise you will run out of cards.

Billabong and Shanghai[edit]

Just as Oxford stud is a mixed stud/community card version of Texas hold 'em, Billabong is a mixed version of Manila. Each player is dealt two down-cards and one up-card. Low up-card starts the betting with a Bring-in if you are playing with one, otherwise high card starts the betting. Next, two community cards are dealt, followed by a second betting round, beginning with the player with the best exposed partial poker hand (counting the community cards, as in Oxford stud). Then a third community card is dealt, followed by a third betting round. Finally a fourth community card is dealt, followed by a fourth betting round and showdown. Each player plays the best five-card hand he can make from the three in his hand plus the four on the board in any combination.

Shanghai is the same game with an extra hole card, but no more than two hole cards play. That is, the game begins with each player being dealt three down-cards and one up-card; each player must discard one of his hole cards at some point during the game as determined ahead of time. The most common variation is to discard immediately as in Pineapple; the second most common is to discard just before showdown as in Tahoe.

Guts[edit]

Guts is a family of games that are cousins of poker rather than poker variants. They usually involve hands of 3 or fewer cards, ranked similarly to hands in poker, and multiple successive rounds of betting each of which consist of the decision to be 'in' or 'out', and each with its own showdown. The losers of rounds of guts generally match or double the pot, which grows rapidly.

Five-O poker[edit]

Five-O Poker is a heads-up poker variant in which both players must play five hands of five cards simultaneously. Four of the five cards in each hand are face-up. Once all five hands are down, there is a single round of betting. The winner is determined by matching each hand to the corresponding hand of the opponent. The player with the stronger poker hand in three (or more) out of the five columns, wins, unless a player folds on a bet that was made. If a player beats their opponent with all five hands, this is called a “Five-O” win.

Chinese poker[edit]

Chinese poker is a 2-4 player poker game with thirteen cards. The idea is to make three poker hands with increasing rank : two with five cards and one with three cards. If one of the hands does not adhere to increasing rank (i.e. is mis-set), the hand is declared dead and results in some sort of penalty.

Kuhn poker[edit]

Kuhn poker, using a three card deck, is more of game theory problem than an actual game people play, but it can be played by two players.^[5]

See also[edit]

Different Types Of Poker Tournaments 2019

References[edit]

Different Types Of Poker Tournaments 2020

1. ^Pagat.com: Roll Your Own
2. ^Pokernews.com: Fun Home Poker Game Rules - Follow the Queen
3. ^Pokerrules.net: How to Play Follow the Queen
4. ^Pokerrules.net: How to Play Countdown Poker
5. ^'A Parameterized Family of Equilibrium Profiles for Three-Player Kuhn Poker'(PDF).