Texas Holdem Poker tournaments are a great way to get introduced to casino poker. Many players are intimidated by the idea of playing in a casino, and are afraid of losing their shirt. But there are casinos around the U.S., the world, and online that offer daily tournaments for as little as $10 to $15.
With a very small amount of money, you can get lots of experience playing online poker for real money in USA, and have a lot of fun while doing it! You may even win a tournament on your first time out, it’s been done!
Another great thing about online poker tournaments, is that everyone starts with the same amount of chips. This “levels the playing field” so you won’t get intimidated by a deep pocket that can afford to bully you around. You can walk into the casino and know exactly how much you will risk.
You won’t feel like you have to keep reaching into your pocket to buy more chips, because in tournaments, you buy in once and play until you run out of chips. Now having said that, I must tell you that many tournaments have optional re-buys, which means that you can buy more chips if you run out or run low, but only during the beginning stages of the tournament.
How Poker Tournaments Work
So how does an online poker tournament work? It’s very simple. You pay your entry fee and you receive your seat assignment. You find your seat and receive your tournament chips. Tournament chips are different from other casino chips. They have no cash value. You cannot win some chips and quit.
And even if the tournament only cost you $10 or $15, you’ll find yourself with $200 or $500 in tournament chips to start with, and you’ll play with blind or antes that start at $5 or $10 and increase every 15 minutes or so. Think of the chips as a way to keep score.
If you run out of chips, you’re gone, so you gotta build them carefully without risking them on weak cards. You stay in the tournament until you run out of chips, or until you win all the chips. The prize pool is split between the last few remaining players, with the largest portion going to the winner, who will usually receive about 40% of the prize pool. Second receives about 20%, and so on. The number of players that win money depends on the number of entries, but usually it is at least the entire final table.
Another thing about poker that you will learn in an online poker tournament is the way the betting structure works. It is a little bit different than kitchen table poker. For example, if you’re playing limit hold’em, and the betting limit is 10-20, then the two players next to the dealer button must post bets of 5 and 10 before the cards are dealt.
These are called “blinds”. Starting with the player next to the big blind, the players either fold, call the big blind of 10, or raise it to 20. Any further raises must be in increments of 10, up to 3 raises. After the flop, you can bet 10, or raise 10. After the next card, the “turn”, the limit doubles to 20, so you must bet or raise in increments of 20. The bets are still 20 after the last card, called the “river”.
This is called “structured” betting, as opposed to “spread” betting where you can bet, say, $1 to $4. Then every 15 minutes or so, they raise the limits. The second level might be blinds of 5 and 15, and betting limits of 15 and 30. This continues throughout the tournament, and at the final table the limits can be very high, like 5000 and 10,000 or more!