Poker Tournaments for Beginners

As the game of Poker is scaling new heights, casinos and resorts where the game is played along with the media have left no opportunity untouched to accrue contemporaneous benefits. This is evident from the rise in number of Poker tournaments.

Since past decade there are significant number of Poker tournaments held at the local as well as the national level. The highly played poker games in these tournaments are- Seven Card Stud, Seven Card High-Low, Omaha Hold 'Em, and Texas Hold 'Em, community poker etc.

Poker tournaments can be of different types. For instance- shootout tournaments where the tables along with players are not eliminated but continue to be there till one player emerges as a winner. Unlike to this are the elimination tournaments were the game commences with all players having equal amount of chips and prolongs until one player manages to get all the chips. Here the tables are removed and at the end a single table is left. All those who survive in the game till the last table get some sort of reward to cherish. Such tournaments have no re-buys but the 'Re-buy' tournaments provide the chance to re buy the chips once they are all gone. The chips are to be purchased by paying extra money. So the game continues for long and there are little odds of being segregated from the game.

Besides this there are also satellite games in some areas of United States like Las Vegas. These tournaments involve a group of people that gathers and each places in a portion of his money. The fortunate winner gets a good amount (even more than a million dollar) to invest in other costly large-scale crucial tournaments.

Usually the prize money for the poker tournaments comes from the entry fees. This fees is most often known as the 'buy- in' fees. Sometimes the money flows in from an external source or agency. But this amount gets invested in buying the invitations only. The buy-in fetches you a calculated amount of chips to start your game with. These chips act as your 'play money'. Play money can be re purchased only in 're-buy' tournaments.

The betting on these tournaments can be of three types:

· Structured Betting - bets can only be of a particular amount

· Semi structured betting - the bet can vary to some extent and not more than that.

· Non structured betting - there is no fixed limit to bet. It is at the discretion of the player to bet as much he desires.

Then there are two basic strategies to decide upon who will be the winner - Fixed Winnings and Proportional Winnings. The former are those where the organization holding the tournament beforehand decides upon the winner. While in the latter the winner is calculated proportionally. These are split between the players left at the end proportional to the amounts of play money each has accumulated during the game.

The escalating popularity of the game and the increasing number of tournaments have attracted players from all over the world. It is due to the fascinating and mouth watering amount that one gets on winning the tournaments that women as well as celebrities too want to try their luck. So, do you want to be a part of the Poker world!

Suresh gupta writes about poker tournaments topics.

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