Poker Tournament Rules

Robert's Rules of Poker is used for most tournaments. Specific rules can apply, which are not applicable to ring games or cash games.

1. By convention in live card rooms, tables and seats are assigned randomly. Seats can not be changed. Online, random seat assignment is a rule. No changes are allowed (to combat collusion).
2. A round is over at any given table when one player accumulates all the chips in play. Other players are placed according to the order of their exit from the game. If two players (or more) leave on the same hand, the player with more chips at the start of the hand will be ranked the higher of the two.
3. Moving Button Rule. Online, most tournaments use a simplified version of the moving button rule to cover when a player is eliminated in a tournament and as a result a remaining player misses being in a blind position. The button moves one click around the table after each hand, no matter what happens, and no matter who gets up and leaves. The blinds are then defined in terms of the button. Thus, another player may sometimes miss being in a blind position. Over the long run, this benefit evens out for all players, it is thought. A common exception employed online is not to move the button when the small blind is eliminated, so the next person due to be the big blind doesn't miss it on that round. (The full version of the moving button rule, which is hard to program into software, is that the new big blind and anyone else who missed a big blind will post a big blind in the new game. The small blind comes before the first big blind. It may take a couple of hands for all the blinds to shake out. The full moving button rule is not used much at all in tournaments because of this complication.)
4. The Dead Button Rule is used in live poker rooms to solve the same sort of problem, when players leave or are eliminated. The rule provides that after a player or players leave the game or are eliminated, the blind and not the button is moved. (This makes it somewhat like the common online exception to the moving button rule when the small blind is eliminated.) The big blind passes to the player who otherwise would have had it, and the small blind and the button are then adjusted backwards from there. It is possible that the small blind or the button will be at an empty seat. If so, so be it. The cutoff player may have two hands in a row at cutoff, and there may be a missing small blind, but the burden of the big blind does not shift around.
5. In two-player play, the button posts the small blind and acts first in the opening round of betting for that hand.
6. Straddles, Chops and Kill Games are not permitted during tournament play.
7. Limits (small and big bets) and blinds will rise as the tournament progresses. Exactly when and how the blinds and limits rise is a specific term of the tournament that can vary widely.
8. By tradition, the Dealer Button is allocated at the start of a round by a single face-up card dealt to each player. High card wins the button. Suit order resolves ties, just as it does for the Bring-in player in Stud.
9. When play gets down to two players, changes can occur to the betting limits. Either the three-raise-per-round rule is abandoned (because a player can just call and end the round) or the rule moves to something like a five raise maximum.
10. If you are concerned about breaks for bathrooms and meals, ask. Break schedules can vary widely. Online, there are usually no breaks in SNG's.
11. Speed is important, particularly when blinds increase in short time intervals. Players in tournaments are expected to act rapidly. Some online software forces players to act within a certain amount of time or the decision is taken by the software - usually to fold. Other software offers a time clock with a budget of extra time that can be used throughout the tournament by the player. But when it is exhausted, there will be no more mercy.

A Few Other Tournament Details

Deals Sometimes, particularly in single-table tournaments, the remaining players might reach a point where they are willing to call it quits. In such case, there will be some kind of deal about dividing up the prize money - for example, in proportion to the size of each player's stack. Whatever that deal, if it involves all active players, poker rooms will honor it. But they do require some formalities. The deal is always put in writing and signed. Some online poker rooms will do the same thing, though the process is a bit different. Chat records do not constitute a writing. Something more formal will be done before payout.

Cheating Collusion between players is a constant problem in poker rooms, and it is even more difficult in the online context. The most basic form of collusion would be for one player secretly to communicate to another player the contents of his or her hand. The edge received by the first player would provide profits to be split later. A more insidious form is the case on line when players trade information by other means with each other about their hands. Online poker rooms have developed software to become sensitive to when player behavior reflects the possibility of collusive communication. In the poker world this is regarded as criminal conduct and is prosecuted to whatever degree possible. A softer kind of cheating is playing with another player in tandem, both with the objective of making the first player win more, even at the expense of the second player. It could be as innocent as a boyfriend wanting to "go easy" on his girlfriend, who may just be learning. But whatever the motivation, it is cheating. In the extreme, it is called "chip dumping" and is in the same category as money laundering. Both live card rooms and online poker sites monitor games closely for evidence of suspicious soft or slow playing and chip dumping.

Online Issues If an Internet connection drops during a tournament, each poker site has procedures to address the problem. There is even a sort of insurance to cover for any losses caused by electronic problems. Usually a cutoff player's antes and blinds are posted automatically and the hands folded between the disconnect and the reconnect, up to some limit of time. If the problem is on the web site's end, each web site will cover whatever losses the players suffer as a result, and the game is frozen until recuperation is possible. Finally, the chat feature is provided by software as a convenience, but players and railbirds are not supposed to discuss any forbidden subjects - like the hand in play.