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1. Poker Tournaments Las Vegas
2. What Is A Shootout Poker Tournament
3. What Is Survivor Poker Tournament
4. What Is A Knockout Poker Tournament

In poker, a 'deep stack tournament' is a tournament where players start off with a large amount of chips relative to the size of the blinds. For instance, in a traditional tournament, players might start off with 5,000 chips and blinds may begin at 25/50, with antes being added later in the tournament. Here is the complete schedule of daily poker tournaments in the Las Vegas area, including Downtown, Henderson & Southeast, North Las Vegas, Summerlin & Northwest, and The Strip. Click on any tournament.

For the past year, three of the biggest tournaments on the World Poker Tour have existed in a sort of limbo. Because of the shutdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic, these three tournaments have not been completed in the timeframe that they were scheduled. We now know when these three events – the 2020 WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open, the 2020 WPT Gardens Poker Championship and the 2020 WPT L. A. Poker Classic – will finally play out.

WPT Gardens Poker Championship First Up

The first event that will be played out is the one that has been waiting the longest to determine a champion. The WPT Gardens Poker Championship, which set its final table in mid-January 2020, will reconvene on March 10. Instead of being played at the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas, however, it will be played out at the PokerGO Studios and it will be recorded for future broadcast on FOX Sports (there will be no live stream).

Under current COVID restrictions in Las Vegas, the players (and all personnel around the table, it is believed) will be masked. The players will undergo testing for COVID-19 prior to the resumption of the tournament. If a player tests positive for the virus, they will receive an ICM payout of their chip stack. All players have agreed to these specifications, allowing the tournament to resume next week.

In that event, Chance Kornuth (2.995 million) is in position to add to his illustrious poker resume by winning his first WPT title. He has two distinct challenges in Markus Gonsalves (2.37 million) and Tuan Pham (2.07 million), who join Kornuth in having over two million chips. The three remaining players – Jonathan Cohen (1.615 million), Qing Liu (795,000) and Straton Wilhelm (435,000) – have their work cut out for them.

WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Up Next, But Still Delayed

The other two “delayed” final tables will not be held until May. These two events will be joined by the final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, which is scheduled for April and will have its final table delayed until May 18. As to the COVID regulations for these events, there has been nothing set in stone at this time.

The WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open has been waiting nearly as long as the WPT Gardens event to reach a conclusion. The Borgata tournament played its last hand at the end of January and will resume its action on May 16 at the PokerGO Studios. It is an event that has a chance at making WPT history.

Brian Altman heads to the final table looking to join a highly exclusive club. In the history of the WPT, only ‘Chino’ Rheem, Anthony Zinno, Gus Hansen, Carlos Mortensen and Darren Elias have won more than two titles (Elias has won four, the rest three). A victory in this event would make Altman a three-time WPT Mike Sexton Champions’ Cup winner, but there’s some men on the felt who might have something to say about his efforts.

Altman (9.865 million) comes to the table in third place behind Veerab Zakarian (11.99 million) and James Anderson (10.04 million). Bin Weng (8.89 million), Andrew Hanna (6.73 million) and Nathan Russler (3.99) will also be looking to move up the ladder. The first-place prize in this tournament will be $674,840, but it will pale in comparison to the final delayed table.

L. A. Poker Classic Offers Million Dollar Payday

May 17 will see the 2020 WPT L. A. Poker Classic final table play out with a $1,015,000 prize awaiting the victor. Balakrishna Patur (6.32 million) will be atop the mountain in this tournament, but Matas Cimbolas (4.31 million) and James Carroll (4.125 million) will be able to mix it up with Patur. It gets a bit tougher on the remainder of the field as Ka Kwan Lau (2.25 million), Scott Hempel (1.67 million), and a short-stacked Upeshka De Silva (930,000) will try to improve their station.

In an interesting side note, De Silva made the final table of the World Series of Poker’s second run at a “Main Event” in December 2020. Due to inconclusive COVID testing, however, De Silva was prevented from playing at the final table of that tournament. He may once again face some sort of COVID testing in this tournament.

The completion of these tournaments, along with the final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown (that delayed final table will be played May 18), will put an end to the Season XVIII schedule of the WPT. In a unique move, the WPT has adjusted the Season XVIII history to cover between 2019 and 2021. It will certainly mark the end to a tumultuous timeframe in the history of the World Poker Tour.

Playing tournaments is currently the most common way people now experience poker. I have played in literally hundreds of thousands of them and will tell you exactly how they work.

How do poker tournaments work? Poker tournaments differ from cash games in that each player pays an entry fee then competes to win a portion of the prize pool. During the event, the blind levels increase steadily at regular intervals. A tournament officially ends once one player has all of the chips and is declared the winner.

Now, let’s break down every feature and phase of poker tournaments from beginning to end.

How Do Tournaments Differ from Cash Games?

In cash games, the chips represent actual money. So each chip won or lost goes into or comes from your actual bankroll. In tournaments, there is a set entry fee that is paid and, no matter what, that is the most money that you can lose during the event.

Tournament players compete to win a portion of the prize pool, which is made up of all the entry fees.

How Does a Poker Tournament Entry Fee Work?

Every poker tournament has a set entry fee that is the same for all players. The prize pool and the rake (the house fee) are both included in one fee.

Often, the details of the rake are disclosed plainly in how the fee is written.

• If the prize pool portion is $50 and the rake is $5, the entry fee will be disclosed as $50+$5.

10% rake is a fairly standard, however, some smaller live events have rake has high as 30%.

What Is the Difference Between a Freezeout, a Rebuy, and a Reentry tournament?

There are two typical ways that the entry fee of a tournament is structured:

1. Freezeouts – A freezeout means that each player can only buy in one time. Once a player runs out of poker chips, his or her tournament is over. This is the most common type of tournament.
2. Rebuys – A rebuy means that there is a specified period of time at the beginning of a tournament when players may buy more chips if their stack falls below a certain level or they bust out. The cost of the rebuy is usually the same as the entry fee, minus the rake.
3. Reentry Tournaments– A reentry tournament is the same as a rebuy except that a player must be eliminated before buying back in. They also do not get to keep their seat. Instead, it is treated as if it is an initial buy-in and the player is reseated at another table.

What Is an Add-On?

Poker Tournaments Las Vegas

In rebuy events, there is usually a specific number of extra chips offered to players at the end of the rebuy period. This is known as an add-on which typically costs a full entry fee.

How Do Poker Tournaments Pay Out?

Every tournament has a set way that they divide up the prize pool. Almost all tournament payout structures are top heavy. In other words, the top few places usually receive the lion’s share of the prize pool.

What is a typical Payout Structure?

The majority of the field in any poker tournament do not win anything. The number of players who “cash” in an event will vary.

Poker rooms usually payout between 10% and 30% of the field in a multi-table tournament (MTT). For single table tournaments, 33% of the field will typically win money.

Here is a typical payout structure commonly used by poker rooms. It shows what the payouts will be depending on the number of entrants.

MTT Prize Structure Example

How to Read the Prize Structure Chart

The top row tells you how many entrants are in an event. The rows below show you what each place will pay based on the number of entrants.

For example, if a tournament had 22 entrants, then you’d use the “19-27” column. Looking down the column you will see that 5 people would be paid out between 9 and 40% of the prize pool.

When Is the Final Prize Pool Established?

• In freezeout tournaments, the final prize pool is established once the initial entry period ends. Sometimes entries are closed at the start of the first deal and sometimes there is a specified period of time when players may buy-in to the event.
• In Rebuys, the final prize pool is not known until the end of the rebuy and add-on period. The final prize pool will always be much higher than it was at the beginning of a rebuy tournament.

How Is the Winner Determined?

The winner of a poker tournament is determined when only one player has all the chips. The last phase before the end is when two players battle it out “heads-up“.

What are Guaranteed Tournaments (GTD)?

Guaranteed tournaments have a minimum prize pool pre-set before the event. What this means is that if there are not enough buy-ins to meet the guaranteed amount, there is something called an “overlay.” An overlay means that the event basically begins as if several people had already busted out.

However, poker rooms know exactly how many people tend to sign up for a particular tournament, so they offer guarantees based on the usual prize pool. Therefore, overlays are rare and a guaranteed is effectively just a gimmick used to attract more players.

Even so, knowing the guarantee of a particular tournament is a good tool for professional players to use when planning their playing schedule.

How Are Poker Tournaments Set Up?

Most poker tournaments are played on a 9 or 10 seat table. Only one deck is used if there is a dedicated dealer. If the event is a home game or pub poker tournament, there are often two alternating decks in play. Typically, the player in the big blind will shuffle during the hand.

How Is Seating Determined?

Before play can begin the players must be properly seated. There are three typical methods used to determine seating assignments in a poker tournament:

• Random draw is the most common form of seating found in live multi-table poker tournaments. When a player pays his or her buy-in, the seat assignment is randomly given to the player by the table and seat number.
• Player choice is common in casual pub poker tournaments. This allows family members and friends to sit together to enjoy the game.
• Drawing from the deck is how seating is often determined in a single table tournament. The playing cards are typically fanned out on the table and each player gets a card. The high card gets seat one, the next highest seat two, so on and so forth. Ties are usually broken by either redrawing or using bridge order. Spades>Hearts>Clubs>Diamonds.

How Players Are Re-Seated During Play

From time to time, the number of players on the remaining tables will become unbalanced. You may have 9 people on one table, 6 on another, so on and so forth.

It is the job of the tournament director to make sure that the number of players on every table are as close to equal as possible. Therefore, players must be occasionally moved in order to maintain that equilibrium.

Usually, the director will try to move players “in position”. For example, if a person was going to be in the Small Blind, they are moved to the same position on their new table. One thing that directors try to avoid is forcing someone to pay the blind on one table and then pay the blinds again immediately upon moving.

Even so, if more than 3 players are moved there will be a redraw at the new table to determine who has the button.

What Is the Structure in Tournaments?

The structure of tournaments will vary from event to event. Here are a few things that must be established in every event:

• The number of starting chips that each player will get.
• The blind level structure.
• How long each blind level lasts.
• Whether or not rebuys or re-entries will be allowed.
• Whether it is a sit and go event or has a set starting time.

Poker Chip Distribution (Starting Stacks)

This is an area where tournaments differ from other forms of poker. While cash games allow players to choose the buy-in they begin with, tournaments have one uniform starting stack size.

What Is A Shootout Poker Tournament

Average Starting Stack Size

The number of chips that poker players get at the beginning can vary wildly from event to event. For lower buy-ins and most pub poker type tournaments, the starting chips are usually in the 2,000 to 3,000 range.

Shallow Versus Deep-Stacked Tournaments

Typically, anything below 3,000 chips is considered shallow stacks and anything above 8,000 is usually considered deep-stacked. However, the effective size of the stack is relative to the size of the blinds and how fast they increase.

Poker Tournament Blind Levels

In poker tournaments the blind levels do not remain static. At set intervals, the levels increase.

This effectively decreases everyone stack size and forces the players to constantly try to increase their stacks. Otherwise, they might “blind out” and not have enough chips to even pay the blinds.

What Are the Typical Blind Levels?

The exact amounts of each blind level can vary quite a bit, but here is a common schedule:

Poker Tournament Speed

Every tournament has a set interval in which the blinds go up. This can range from every 3 minutes all the way up to every 2 hours. In fact, the biggest determining factor on how shallow starting stacks are is in how fast the blinds go up.

Also, hands played per hour has an impact on tournament speed. Live events play much slower than online tournaments. Therefore, the blind intervals have to be treated differently when figuring out speed.

Tournament Speed in Live Events

At most, you usually play about 30 hands per hour in a live tournament. This doesn’t give you much time to pick up premium hands if blinds are going up quickly. With that in mind, here is a commonly accepted breakdown of live tournament speed:

Tournament Speed in Online Events

Online, you can usually see between 60 and 90 hands per hour. This dramatically changes the calculations for tournament speed. Slow tournaments are blind levels of 30 minutes or longer while 15 minutes is average speed. Turbos are typically 5 minutes while hyper-turbos have 3 minute blinds.

Tournament Strategy Is Largely Affected by Speed of the Blinds

Ultimately, tournament speed is controlled by how big your starting stack is and how fast the blinds go up. One way to look at it is to figure out how fast you will blind out of the tournament if you never played a single hand. This “patience factor” is helpful in deciding both what hands to play and how to play them.

One of my favorite authors, Arnold Snyder, explains these calculations in his popular book titled Poker Tournament Formula (click to see Amazon listing). I highly recommend it if you want to improve your tournament speed play.

Poker Tournament Types

There are two basic types of poker tournaments:

1. Multi-Table Tournaments (MTT)
2. Single-Table Tournaments (STT)

When Does a Tournament Begin?

• Scheduled – Scheduled tournaments have a set starting time.
• Sit N Go – Sit N Go (SNG) tournaments only begin once a certain number of plays have registered and “sat down”. Most SNGs are single table events and are often associated with satellites. However, two-table up to 5-table events are common as well.

How Long Does a Poker Tournament Last?

No matter what format, all tournaments are designed to play out until there is a winner. Generally, the winner is determined when one person has won the heads-up match and has all the chips.

Ways Tournaments Can End Early

There are two ways that a tournament can end early:

1. A deal is struck between the remaining players who agree to a final table payout. Once the deal is made, the event is often over. However, occasionally the players will agree to play out the event for bragging rights or for an amount set aside from the prize pool.
2. The event is a satellite with a set number of seats. In that case, there is no point in continuing on once the number of players left equals the number of seats in the prize pool.

What Is Survivor Poker Tournament

Tournament Format Variations

There are numerous variations and sub-variations of poker tournaments. I will cover the most common types that you need to know about. They are:

1. Bounty Tournaments
2. Spin N Go’s
3. Shootouts
4. Satellites
5. Double or Nothings

What Is a Bounty Tournament?

In bounty tournaments (sometimes called knockouts), a portion of the prize pool is set aside as a “bounty”. Whenever someone is knocked out, the person that won their chips is immediately awarded the bounty. The introduction of a bounty alters the optimal strategy and makes loose calls of all-ins more frequent.

What Is a Spin N Go?

What Is A Knockout Poker Tournament

First created on Pokerstars, a spin n go is a fast-paced three-person sit n go that features 3-minute blinds and a prize pool that varies from event to event. The prize pool is randomly selected as a multiplier of between 2 times to 3000 times the buy-in. Players start with 500 chips in a winner take all format.

What Is a Shootout Tournament?

Shootout tournaments are basically multiple sit n go’s played over multiple rounds. At the start, there are a pre-set number of tables with between 2 and 10 players each. In the first round, play continues until there is one winner on each table. In the next round, all of the winners start anew on a new table. The rounds continue until the final table is reached and an ultimate winner determined.

What Is a Satellite?

A satellite is usually a sit n go where the prize pool is an entry into a larger buy-in poker tournament. Buy-ins to each satellite determine how many “tickets” are awarded. Sometimes only the winner gets a ticket but often there are multiple seats to be won. Satellites can be an STT or an MTT.

What Is a Double or Nothing?

Sometimes called “double-ups”, a double or nothing tournament has a flat payout structure where half the field wins twice their buy-in amount. In another variation is called, called “triple-ups”, one-third of the field wins three times their buy-in.

What’s the Best Poker Beginner Strategy?

A variety of different poker styles have been successful over the years. Therefore, there is not a one size fits all strategy. Even so, I first recommend that you learn the basic rules and fundamentals and then read a book called “Harrington on Hold’em.”

“HoH” is about as basic as it gets for tournament strategy and is a great starting point for learning how to play tournament poker hands.

Once you have played a few hundred tournaments and have a better grasp on them, I suggest that you move on to a more aggressive strategy which is laid out in “Poker Tournament Formula“, which I mentioned earlier.

Do You Recommend an Online Poker Site to Practice On?

To give yourself the best chance of success as a new player, I recommend choosing a poker site that is not too big yet not too small, that caters more to newer or recreational players.

• For players in the United States, I recommend Ignition Poker, which has anonymous games. This keeps pros from tracking your play over the long-term and taking advantage of your weaknesses.
• For players outside the United States, that cannot play on Ignition, I recommend Bodog. Bodog shares it’s player pool with Ignition and also has anonymous games.
• If you cannot play on either of the sites mentioned above, try PartyPoker or 888 Poker.

I recommend avoiding Pokerstars as a new player. They have the toughest games in the world which make it very hard to win for a newer players.

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed this crash course on how poker tournaments work. If there is something I failed to mention or a question that was unanswered, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading and now go win that tournament!

Related Questions

Who can play in a poker tournament? In general, unless it is a close event anyone that has the entry fee may play in a poker tournament. This is what makes the World Series of Poker so intriguing. Unlike other sports, you can compete against the best players in the world without having to qualify in some way.

When can you call clock in poker? Anyone may call clock on another player at any time during a poker tournament. However, this is usually only done in rare cases when a player is taking an inordinate amount of time to act. Once clock is called, a floorperson comes to the table and gives the challenged player one minute to complete his or her action. If the clock runs out before the “on the clock” player acts, the hand is declared dead and is folded.

What is ROI? ROI is an acronym that stands for “Return On Investment.” ROI is measured as a percentage based on how much money a poker player wins once buy-ins are subtracted from their winnings. To figure out your ROI, divide your net profit by your investment and times it by 100. For example, let’s say you win $15,000 in poker tournaments and paid $12,000 in buy-ins. Your net profit is $3,000. So, $3,000/$15,000= 0.2. When you times .2 times 100, you get 20%. Therefore, your ROI is 20%.