Poker Tournament: Don't Let the Chips Be Gone

In a poker tournament, players compete against each other for a pool prize. In a poker tournament, a player's objective is to rake and stack the most number of chips while making one's opponents lose theirs. Chips are the sole basis in determining whether a player stays in a game or is dropped from it. In a poker tournament, your chip count indicates whether your are on the winning end or on the losing end. Presence or absence of chips indicate whether you are in, or you are out. If you are out of chips, you are out of the tournament.

Poker tournaments are held in card rooms. The regularity of tournaments depend on the hosting casino or poker room. They may be held on a daily schedule, or on a weekly schedule.

As varied as their schedules are the structures of tournaments. Two of the most common poker tournament structures are multi-table tournament (MTT) and single table tournament (STT).

A multi-table tournament works as its name implies: players gamble at several tables at the same time. The number of available tables at a multi-table tournament are not fixed. They can number from five to five hundred, or ten to a hundred.

Where players are eliminated at different tables, the remaining players are re-seated to even out or balance the number of players at every table. This re-seating of players goes on until only one table remains at play for the pool prize.

In single table tournament or sit-and-go tournament, there is, as the term implies, only one table at play. It also goes by the name sit-and-go because of its rule that once seats are occupied, the tournament starts.

Also a common form of poker tournaments are satellite tournaments. Satellite tournaments generally function as a way to get a seat at multi-table tournaments and major tournaments like the World Series of Poker. Multi-table and larger tournaments generally demand a much higher buy-in and entry fee. Whereas, buy-in cost of a satellite tournament is comparably small. Rewards in satellite tournaments come not in form of cash but as seats in multi-table tournaments or in major tournaments.

Whether you play in a multi-table tournament or a single table tournament, the objective is one and the same: to stack the most number of chips. In any poker tournament, you remain in the game by keeping your stacks of chips up. You drive your opponents out of a poker tournament by keeping their stacks of chips down and gone.