|
An
Introduction to Tournaments: Part One
There are many different types of tournaments, and
the sheer variety can seem staggering to the beginner who is just
getting into poker. There are tournaments common to casinos, and others
much more common to online play. There are two basic structures of
tournaments: re-buys and regular or “freeze outs.” In a freeze out
tournament everyone starts out with exactly identical number of chips.
In these types of tournaments, if you lose all your chips, you are out.
In a re-buy tournament there is a limited amount of time where if you
lose all your chips you are allowed to buy back the original starting
amount of chips by paying an additional entrance fees. Some have limits
on re-buys, others allow as many as needed until a certain time period
where it is no longer allowed.
In a freeze out tournament (the majority will be
these types) you will need to use a more conservative strategy, since
there are no second chances. In a re-buy tournament usually players
will be extremely aggressive (often overly so) early on in an attempt to
double up or triple their chip stack since they can just buy more chips
if they lose. Some players strongly believe in playing aggressively to
get that early horde of chips, others insist on waiting for a very
strong hand, since most likely you will have two or three callers in a
re-buy even when you have a strong hand.
Those are both large scale tournaments, and are the
most likely to be found in any casino you walk into. The large table
tournaments have been made increasingly popular by the large upsurge of
viewers who watch the World Series of Poker on ESPN or the World Poker
Tour. These types of tournaments are often found at any online poker
site, and are referred to as Multi-table tournaments. These are in
comparison to Sit-and-Go Tournaments, which normally can only be found
online. Sit-and-Go tournaments are tournaments set up for a specific
number of players (anywhere from only 2 for a heads up game to I’ve seen
up to 45). These are made possible because of online poker rooms,
allowing individuals who don’t let the odds or feel of larger
tournaments to sit down at a table, start out even with everyone, and
still compete for some amount of money.
The tournaments move along by increasing the blinds
(or antes, depending on what game you are playing) every so often.
Online these might be done by minutes, such as a raise every five, ten,
or twenty minutes, or by number of hands (such as once every 15 hands).
Most larger casinos and larger online tournaments will move the blinds
more slowly, while smaller casinos and smaller tournaments will move
more quickly. Just pay attention to the details, as every tournament
will list all this information to allow you to make a decision before
playing. When you find one you like, go for it! Have fun, and good
luck.
|
