A tournament is just like a regular poker game with some distinctive differences. First, in Internet poker tournaments, the objective is to win everyone's chips and the competition does not stop until somebody does so. You can win LOTS of money for a small initial buy-in. However, you don't win any money unless you "place" in the top prize positions.

 

European Championship of Online Poker

ECOOP is one of the biggest Internet poker tournaments; the 2009 competition featured fourteen different poker tournaments with over $4.5 million in the tournament prize pot. The games included Omaha, Stud, and Texas holdem tournaments. ECOOP is one of the Internet poker tournaments that really tests the skills of all its players.

 

Winning Online Tournaments

Online Texas holdem tournaments and even other games are becoming more and more popular. For example, Party Poker hosts great tournaments on a nightly basis where the first prize is well over $20,000 - and sometimes as high as $70,000. The schedule is posted on their website, and the buy-in can range from $6 to over $100. Titan Poker also has daily tournaments with relatively low buy-in rates, along with weekly ones with big prizes. Other sites offering regular tournaments include Winner Poker, Poker Ocean and CD Poker.

 

You pay a fixed buy-in to enter the typical online poker tournament, and you're given a certain quantity of chips. The site may also charge a separate fee, or withhold a small portion of the buy-in, as the cost of running the event. The prizes for winning are usually derived from the buy-ins, although outside funds such as sponsorship revenue may be entered as well.

 

 

Advice for Playing in Online Poker Tournaments

The tournament circuit is a relatively new thing in online poker. Winning requires sound poker strategy, but two factors are emphasized more than in ring games: 1.Your chips have a different relative value. Since you cannot buy back in, you always need to have chips in order to survive. 2. Domination plays a much bigger role. High pocket pairs are good because they dominate lower pocket pairs, and ace with a kicker is a good hand because it dominates many other hands.

 

The best way to join in and get invited into the tournaments is to sign up with a number of poker rooms and begin playing. As with most things, there is no better way to learn than by actually doing. If you're new to online tournaments, start slow: even if you're a skilled player at land-based card rooms, you're going to want to ease your way into the Internet poker arena. You can also enter freeroll tournaments which cost nothing to enter and pay out in real money!

 

Tournaments are what draw a lot of people to poker; possibly because of the attention large tournaments like the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour get on television. Once you develop the right strategy, you can become a master tournament player in no time.