tournaments

Feel like having a go in a poker tournament? Below you can find all the information you could ever need on all the different kinds of poker tournament. So before you decide which to enter be sure to learn about the different kinds and find one which really suits you.

	Guaranteed Tournaments These tournaments have a guaranteed prize-pool which means there will always be money up for grabs.		Qualifiers Looking to play in a big tournament? Try and win a free place through one of our qualifiers.
	Freerolls Freerolls are free to enter which means a great chance to win some free cash.		Heads-up If you like playing one-on-one poker then a Heads-Up tournament could be the one for you.
	Rebuy/Add on If you lose all your chips or just want some more, simply buy them in our re-buy tournaments.		Freezeout The standard type of tournament, if you lose all your chips you�re out of the game.
	Turbo / Super Turbo With blind levels increasing every few minutes these are always fast and exciting games where every card counts.		Speed You only get 15 seconds to make a move which guarantees some high speed excitement.
	Double up These tournaments offer you the chance to win back double your original buy-in effectively making it free to enter.		Triple up /Winner takes it all There is no prize for second place in these tournaments; the winner takes home the whole prize-pool.
	Short stack These tournaments have a limited stack size which means they are sure to be fast paced.		Double stack Play with double the normal chip stack for some long, intense game play and highly competitive poker.

In a Guaranteed Tournament the size of the prize pool is predetermined regardless of the number of people playing in the tournament. As a result they tend to be extremely popular. If the prize pool crated by player buy-ins is smaller than our guaranteed amount we simply supply the difference.

The sum guaranteed is normally mentioned in the name of the event (for example $40,000 Guaranteed) or it can be found in the tournament prize pool information field.

Qualifiers serve as a way of obtaining a place at a larger land based or online tournament. They normally take the form of either a satellite or a freeroll tournament. Qualifiers are divided into a number of stages, in order to win the seat at the main event you must win your way through all the levels. Some of the really big tournaments even have feeders for the qualifiers, this means that you need to qualify for a qualifying tournament.

There are three different types of Freeroll tournaments; each one has its own entrance criteria:

A Heads-Up tournament is restricted to two players playing against each other. There are a number of ways to play heads-up poker. There are cash games which are specifically for heads-up games or you can play in a heads-up sit n go match you can also play in a tournament where the winners from each table are set against each other until there is only one winner.

In a re-buy if you lose all your chips you can simply buy some more and get back into the game again. However, this is normally only possible within a certain time frame, normally the first hour of a tournament.

In order to buy more chips you don�t have to lose them all first. If you have up to the same amount of chips as you started with, you can buy more chips.

At the end of the re-buy period all re-buy tournaments offer players a single chance to purchase an add-on. This is like a re-buy but is open to all players left in the games regardless of how many chips they have left.

This is a term or buy-in rule which means that a tournament does not include re-buys or add-ons. This means that once a player has lost all their chips they are out of the tournament.

Most tournaments are freezeouts so if a tournament is not labeled a re-buy it can be assumed that it is a freezeout tournament.

In a Turbo tournament the blinds will go up every three minutes. Because of the short period between increases in blinds turbo tournaments are faster and more intense than other tournaments. Blinds are rapidly increasing, and therefore players cannot afford to spend time waiting for perfect cards before making a move. Please note that some Turbos will have time intervals other than the regular three minutes.
A Super Turbo tournament has blinds going up every minutes, this makes the game incredibly fast.

A Speed Tournament as the name suggests involves very fast play. Players have only got 15 seconds to act before their hand is ruled dead (or if there has been no previous action, checked). Players are given a number of 30 second time extensions to use whenever they wish.

In a Double Up tournament, the top 3 or 5 winners receive double their buy-in. The higher the tournaments buy-in the fewer the number of winners that are rewarded. Therefore, should you enter a tournament with a buy-in of $10 instead of $5 you will have to finish higher in order to receive the double buy-in prize.

Triple Up and Winners Takes it All are terms which relate to the prize pool and simply mean that the winner takes home the whole prize pool. There is no prize for second place. A Triple Up tournament only has space for three participants but a Winners Take it All tournament has room for more.

In Short Stack tournaments players are only allowed a limited number of chips, for example $100. This is smaller than the usual chip stack and as a result the tournament will be played at a much higher speed.

This is the opposite of a Short Stack tournament. In a Double Stack tournament you play with double the amount in your chip stack which results in a much slower paced tournament.