Types of Online Poker Tournaments

There are many different Types of Online Poker Tournaments, so which are the best for you to play. Most days in the USA hundreds of online poker tournaments are scheduled. These can be Holdem freerolls to seven card stud tourneys with a $5 buy-in. You can get some extra money to play in these tournaments by using online poker bonus codes.

Admittedly, most of the tournaments at online poker rooms are Texas holdem. On any given day you can also find tourneys stud games, Omaha, and Omaha Hi/Lo too. Every tournament online has a buy-in and a fee, except for free rolls. These are poker tournaments in which there is no buy in and the house puts up the cash prize. The buy-in goes into the pot, while the fee belongs to the online poker room.

6 Types of Online Poker Tournaments

Sit & go Poker Tournaments

With buy-ins as low as $6, sit & go tournaments are the most popular. As soon as the minimum-number of players are registered the sit & go tournament starts, meaning there's no beginning time. Seats at these tournaments are available on a first-come first-served basis.

Multi-table Poker Tournaments

These are the most popular poker tournaments worldwide. Multi-table tournaments are the most familiar-looking tournaments, with multiple tables eventually combining into a single table to determine the winner.

Shootout Poker Tournaments

Similar to multi-table poker tournaments, in shootouts players win prizes after each round, meaning you can win prize money before you even leave your initial table. The top three players at each table advance to the next round and more prizes are handed out. This continues until only one table is left, at which point shootouts look exactly like multi-table tournaments.

Heads up Poker Tournaments

These are “one on one” poker tournaments that use a playoff tree style progression to determine a winner. The playoff tree is similar in appearance to your NCAA bracket–players advance and face off one on one until only one is left standing.

Shootout satellite

A combination of satellite tournaments and the popular poker shootout tournaments.

Bounty Poker Tournaments

A cutthroat tournament where you get paid for every player you knock out. The poker room takes part of every buy-in and fee and establishes a bounty for each player. When you personally knock out a player, you get that bounty credited to your account immediately. The bounty tournaments turn a standard online poker tournament into a real shark tank.

Online Poker Tournament Prize Pools

Online poker rooms are known for their tournament schedule. The combination of high buy-in freezeouts and small buy-in rebuys makes the schedule of tournaments online perfect for poker players of all different styles. Online tournaments are famous for the size of their prize pools, offering million $$ guaranteed tournaments.Sites like Bovada offer multi million dollar tournaments.

Tournament Rules

Unless otherwise specified, online poker tournaments feature a five-minute break every hour in all tournaments.

When players draw a “high card” to determine position in a tournament, it is possible that two identical cards will be drawn. In that case, position is determined by suit order. Spades are the top suit, followed by hearts, then diamonds, and finally clubs.

In time based tournaments, the amount of time given players to make game decisions will shrink during the last 10% of the tournament in order to prevent players from stalling to keep a higher chip count.

Limit tournaments with fixed betting will feature one bet and three raises per betting round. Once the tournament is in showdown mode, with just two players, there is no limit on the number of raises.

Be careful to maintain proper playing etiquette, even though you're in an online tournament and not in a casino. Poker rooms reserves the right to boot players out of a tournament for breaking the rules of poker etiquette. The official statement on etiquette says: “Any players who abuse proper etiquette may be disqualified from the tournament.”

Tournament play is famous for a reason.  Many new tournament styles that have caught on at other poker sites, and they have lots of high-value guarantees and seats at the WSOP to give away.