Poker in the card rooms of Las Vegas or online can be divided into two different undertakings: (1) Ring games (also called "cash games"), which are like the "live action" games of friendly home-based poker games, and (2) tournaments. Almost all of the televised poker broadcasts competitions are in the tournament format.

Tournaments are For Everybody

One might think that you need to be a good player, maybe even a pro, to register in a tournament. But just as there are tournaments for bogie golfers and beginners at bridge, so also are there tournaments for every sort of poker player. If you visit a high-traffic online poker site during peak hours, the number of players active in tournaments is often four or five time the number of players active in cash games.

Live poker rooms may hold some sort of tournament every day, and surely a couple on important holidays. Tournaments are a way of attracting players - both new and old. Online poker rooms have blossomed thanks to tournaments, and will hold many, many every day. Some, obviously, will be small and the prizes will also be small. But others can be gigantic. The size record still may be the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, in which 8,773 aspirants had registered for $10,000 each, and Jamie Gold took away $12 million in first place money.

Newcomers to poker do not need to aspire to the heights of the WSOP right away, though there is nothing standing in their way except skill and determination. The overwhelming number of daily and weekly tournaments are designed for the "improving" player.

Freerolls and Paid Tournaments

Like everything else, poker tournaments come in different species. In recent times the phenomenon of the "freeroll" has emerged, particularly online. A freeroll tournament has a zero or a very low entry fee. Online sites hold free rolls to reward new players or players who accumulate loyalty club points by playing at the site. Basically the entry fee is the point total needed to qualify. Sometimes the prize is real money - money that has to come from the tournament host because there's no entry fee - and sometimes the prize is merchandise, or more bonus money (that requires more loyalty points to convert to real dollars). Prizes can also include a paid entry ticket into a live tournament, including the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. More commonly, however, tournaments with reasonably expensive prizes or real money will have an entry fee, and a good part of the fee goes to fund the prizes.

Live poker rooms hold periodic freerolls as well, and offer them as benefits for loyal players. In both paid tournaments and freerolls it may happen that a company (including the host casino, perhaps) wants to use the tournament for promotional purposes, and contributes into the prize pot. Thus, the amount given out in prizes can be more than the total collected from the tournament entrants. Such tournaments are sometimes called "overlays" by seasoned players, in a metaphor to horse racing. Some people wrongly interpret this to mean simply that the tournament is a good deal. Looking at it like a lottery, they compare the size of the price times the chance of winning to the cost of the entry ticket and declare the cost of entry to be a good deal. But this assumes that everyone's chance of winning is the same, which patently, it is not. This situation occurs whenever the prize money is supplemented by more than entry fees.

That is not what "overlay" means. Poker is not a lottery. The correct view is that any given player's expected payoff is higher than the cost of his entry. In racing, the "take-out" is what the track keeps from the betting pool for administrative costs, purses for winners, and taxes. In tournaments, it's what the house keeps for running the show. It goes to cover costs and expenses of marketing and administration as well as net profit. The rest of the money is prize pool - the equivalent of the pool in pari-mutuel betting that is used to pay off the winning wagers. If the "track odds" on a horse are 9:1 but the "real odds" are only 4:1, the horse is an overlay. There's a 20% chance of getting $1000 back from a $100 bet.

Tournaments display the same benefits sometimes. If there is a 500-person tournament with a $100 entry fee and a 10% take-out, the prize pool is $450k. If 50% goes to first place, that is $225k for a $100 ticket. The "track odds" are 2249:1. If the "real odds" of winning are anywhere less than that, the tournament is an overlay. Of course, to know a player's "real odds" requires knowing how to handicap the player and also the competition, so this is mainly a theoretical exercise and only a metaphor.

The main point, however, is that by having a tournament sponsor - some entity that reduces the entry cost by absorbing some of the expenses or adding to the prize pool - the expectation of the tournament player can go even farther in a positive direction. The event becomes even more attractive to any player who has a ghost of a chance of competing well. For the tournament player who is quite unlikely to finish in the money, it really does not matter what the "track odds" are because the "real odds" are so bad anyway.

As a result, both in live card rooms and online, good players always look out for freerolls and paid tournaments in which there is a sponsor or contributor of some kind. Online, it is often the web site itself, spending money to attract new customers.

Tournament Sizes

Another important distinction is between Single-Table Tournaments (STT's) and Multi-Table Tournaments (MTT's).

Single-Table Tournaments

A single-table tournament or STT looks much like a cash game, except the house charges a fee to sit down at the table, and the chip stack is a fixed amount. Depending on the game, anywhere from two to twelve players may participate. Many online poker rooms will organize single table tournaments on the spot, as the demand arises. These are usually called "Sit 'n' Go" Tournaments or SNG's. The SNG is a staple of online tournament play, and many, many can be organized at any single moment. Usually it is 9 to a Hold'em table and seven to a Stud table, but shorthanded tournaments are also offered.

The rules applicable to a single-table tournament will vary widely, depending on what sort of STT it is. Common options include (a) "freeze-out," in which the players keep going until only one person remains with any chips; (b) "heads-up," in which two players battle it out one-on-one; and (c) turbo poker, in which a game (usually Texas Hold'em) is played, and the blinds are doubled very rapidly, perhaps every seven to ten minutes.

As in other tournament formats, the house makes an STT a freeroll or charges a fixed entry fee. Out of the fee it retains a portion as its compensation for running the event. There is no rake, as would be charged in a cash game. As in other tournaments, the rest of the money goes to the winners, usually only first, second and third. Because there is not much money in an STT pot (being open to so few players), the prize pool tends to be small. A common division would be winner, 50%: second, 30%: and third 20%.

Most online poker room software permits a player to play more than one SNG at a time.

Multi Table Tournaments

MTT's look more like the conventional tournament, similar to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, or a golf or tennis event. The structure is always hierarchical, and usually "single elimination," meaning that one loss and you're out of the running. Though a few large tournaments are still organized in "rounds" or "brackets," as was the common practice in earlier days, it is far more common these days to hold a tournament as a single round.

Continuous MTT's: In continuous, or single-round multi-table tournaments, all the players are randomly seated at one of many different tables. Then, as some players are eliminated (go bust), the remaining players are reallocated from partial tables to fill up spots at other tables. This process continues until eventually just one active table remains: the "final table."

Bracket MTT's: If the older "bracket" structure is used, players are assigned to tables, and play tournament rules at the tables until there is a winner and runner-up. In the next round, the survivors of round one sit at a much smaller number of tables and battle it out again. Eventually there will be a "final table" of the top winners from the last round. There might even be a consolation table for runners-up, depending on how deep the prize money goes. To use a common example, in a tournament of 128 players with eight to a table, the first round will have 16 tables. Round two will have four tables (including the number 2 winner at each of the round one tables). Round three will be the final table of the 8 surviving players.

Double Elimination: Occasionally a poker room may organize a double elimination tournament, somewhat like the structure of Olympic Hockey or World Cup Soccer, in which losers of one match go to a losers bracket and can theoretically recuperate themselves and win if they do not lose again. This is a bit laborious in poker, and requires more time and patience than most tournament hosts and players have. Tournaments like this are usually set up as a promotional gimmick to go along with sports betting, for example, during "March Madness."

Rebuys Allowed. A somewhat odd variation of the conventional, continuous, single elimination tournament is the "Rebuys Allowed" rule, which, if in force, permits players who have busted to reload some tournament chips and rejoin the fray. Be sure to read the exact terms and conditions, as the rebuy rules can be quite specific and strictly enforced. The rules specify when the option to rebuy arises and for how long it stays open.

Online tournaments can operate a bit differently because of the software. Players can suddenly be reassigned to a different table as the tables grow sparse. This means that online tournaments keep the tables close to full and balanced most of the time. Thus, the strategy of play is a bit different for online tournaments, in that short-handed play does not become prevalent until near the end of the event. Frequent online table shifts might cause a player to sit in blind positions several times in a row. It does not happen often, and is also thought to balance out over the long run.

No matter what the format or venue, in a tournament the survivors of the winnowing process (or of previous rounds) eventually wind up at a "final table" which ultimately decides the tournament winner(s). The number of players at the final table can not be more than seven in Seven-Card Stud and related games, and it is often not more than eight or nine in Hold'em games, though more players could be accommodated. Sometimes there will be a second table (or even more) to determine places in excess of the number at the final table. How many money finishes there are depends mainly on the size and depth of the prize pot, and that is almost always determined by the number of entrants and the entry fee, plus any help from tournament sponsors.

Satellites and Single Events

Another dimension that cuts across tournaments is the concept of satellites. In the early days, tournaments were free-standing events: people registered, and then they played. However, the economics and marketing of tournaments - particularly the well-known competitions like the WSOP, the WPT and other televised events - have caused the poker business to organize "satellite tournaments" as if they were just a few tables in one corner of a large room in an opening round of a gigantic tournament. Satellites can be held all over the world, with winners advancing to more qualifying tournaments or for the principal tournament in question. It is common, for example, to have a poker room organize a tournament and give as a prize a paid entry to another tournament somewhere else.

In addition to these somewhat spontaneous feeder events, the WSOP itself has gotten in on the action by organizing its own "official" satellite events around the country. The entry fees are lower, obviously, than for the WSOP events in Las Vegas, but they generate interest and new players, so all the WSOP events are chock full.

Online casinos sometimes hold satellites for their own events. They might promote a $500k prize tournament at the end of the month with a $300 entry fee, and then award free entries to players who win "satellite" or qualifying tournaments on the previous three weekends.

Obviously, all sorts of combinations and variations are possible. The main point, however, is to note that feeder events - satellite tournaments - are somewhat like pre-opening rounds in the tournament hierarchy, and they have greatly expanded the geographical and electronic reach of poker tournaments.

Quite a few single poker events throughout the world still are not in some hierarchy that leads to another event somewhere else. They are self-contained. Land-based and online poker rooms often host (or collaborate with others to host) a big tournament in which there are many prizes, mainly cash. Some are in Ireland, the UK, Australia, Spain, the Caribbean, and on cruise ships. If they are big enough tournaments, well, then they might spawn satellites of their own.