There are many types of poker tournaments of which the multi table No-limit Texas Holdém tournament is the most popular. This tournament school focuses on this type of tournament.

In this school we also assume that you already know how to play No-limit Texas Holdém. If you don´t know how, please study our poker school for Texas Holdém here. 

In principle poker tournaments are played like normal No-limit cash games with two mayor and most important differences. 

• When the your out chips your out of the tournament. In a normal cash tournament you always have the opportunity to buy more chips. In general you need to play somewhat more carefully since you risk being eliminated.
• Since blinds increase over time you need to accumulate more and more chips just to stay alive. Depending on how many chips you have relative the blinds you often have to adjust your play considerably. See chapter Zone play for more information.  

Normally you pay a tournament fee to enter a tournament (plus a small fee that goes to the poker room for running the tournament). At the beginning of the tournament each player is given an equal amount of chips (for example $1000). The players are seated automatically at each table and the tournament starts simultaneously at all tables. Normally there is a five minute break every hour. When players are eliminated the remaining players are automatically reseated to keep the tables as full as possible. Normally there are 9-10 players at each tables. The price pool is usually divided according to a predefined price structure. The blinds are usually raised every 15 minutes but this might vary depending on the tournament you are playing.      

Apart from the ”normal” type of tournament (as described above) there are also a number of variations.

They are as follows:

• Rebuy
• Addon
• Shootout
• Freeroll
• Sit and Go
• Turbo
• Qualifier/Satellite

Rebuy

In a rebuy tournament a player may “rebuy” (reenter) the tournament after beeing eliminated. This can be done during the so called rebuy period which usually defined as the first hour of gameplay. Usually the rebuy fee is equal to the entry fee.

Addon

If an add-on option is available players are able to add chips to their stacks at predetermined point in the tournament. Often an addon is combined with a rebuy option where each player is able to “addon” at the end of the rebuy period. We recommend you to addon since this gives you the advantage of having more chips. 

Shootout

Instead of moving players around to keep tables full a shootout tournament requires that each table continues with the same players until there is only one player left. This final player is then moved to a new table where a new “shootout” commences until only one player is left. The remaining player is the moved again and so on and so forth.

Freeroll

Freeroll is a tournament to which entry is free. 

Sit and Go

 Sit & Go is a special tournament where you Sit down at a table and as soon as the table is full the tournaments starts (go). If you can´t wait this is the tournament to sign up for.

Turbo

Turbo means that the blinds rise quickly.

Qualifier/Satellite

The price of a Qualifier/Satellite tournament is a place (or entry fee) in another tournament.

Above are the main variations of No-limit Texas Holdém tournaments. At the end of bigger tournaments you are also often able to make “deals”. Deal making allows players to split the price money between them without actually playing for it. 

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