Anyone that has ever looked at the Tourney schedule of any online Poker site as experienced some confusion. Every poker site uses its own abbreviations to make as much information as possible to the player. If you don’t understand the possible structures, how can you make sense of these arcane abbreviations? These abbreviations can make the government’s acronyms look easy.
Both of these were found on a single online Poker site.
- Turbo 1x1 $20 NL STT
- Speed $15 NL – 6 Seats [STT]
Compared to that SNAFU is easy. Many Poker rooms aren’t even consistent within their own site.
Here we explain the most popular structures, and hopefully with that fore knowledge you can better understand the Tourney schedule of most online Poker rooms.
It would seem that selection of the game should be simple but it often isn’t. Anyone, that plays a lot of Tourneys, has ended up in an Omaha Hi8, instead of a Hold’em Tourney or at 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo instead of 7 Card Stud table. Then we will look at the price and the prize structures, which can be quite confusing, when dealing with “Free Tourneys.” Finally we will look at the starting stacks, blinds, and blind progression. Because these will affect our strategy as we play in the different free rolls available at online Poker rooms.
So you know what game you want to play? Look at this Tournament board for ParadisePoker.
The tourney name is pretty easy. You might want to know that R&A means Re-buys and Add-ons allowed. Those with additional information give prize indications like $10,000 or $35,000 guaranteed prize pool, and the Legends WPT has a limited sponsorship to the World Poker Tour as the main prize.
Next is the type of Poker. In this case Hold’em, Omaha , and O H/L8. Now it doesn’t take much to determine that O H/L8 is Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or better to win low, but many people do not know there is such a thing an Omaha High only. When they say Omaha , They mean Omaha HI/LO. Notice, that there is no indication of the betting structure. Are the games Limit Hold’em or No Limit Hold’em? By clicking on each tourney additional information is provided that gives the structure, but you have click on each tournament for the information. Often when sitting in a Limit Hold’em Tourney, several players will sit-out and leave, as the No Limit Hold’em players find out too late that they didn’t pay attention to the structure.
Notice that the price is then listed as a single amount. Paradise lists entry fees as a total and then takes a percentage of the entry fee. Most sites list the service charge separate. For example: The highlighted Parrot is listed as $5. On most sites it would be $5 +1 or $5 +.50 depending on what the service charge, or vigorish, vig, juice, or gouge is. Since we are mostly interested in Free Poker Tourneys, this isn’t that important to us, but it is where they get the money to have those Free Poker Tourneys, and it should be part of this explanation.
Next; the number of Poker players entered, the date/time, the time remaining before the Poker Tournament begins, and the status. These are pretty self-explanatory, but when playing in free rolls one should always pay attention to how many players are registered. Fewer Poker players implies better odds of winning, since you are competing against a smaller number.
ParadisePoker only has one Freeroll per day right now and the prize is a $300 entry into a $100,000 guaranteed Poker tournament.
Here is the Tourney schedule from another Poker site, Doyle’s Room. Doyle’s has a lot of small freerolls as the lure business to their new site.
Doyle’s Room does a lot of thing right, but the Poker Tourney Schedule is not one of them. It is easy to see that we are playing Holdem and the tourneys shown here are all No Limit (NL), but can you see the 8 free tourneys listed?
- 2 x Bonus $5 Freerolls (I won one of these, the $1.35 didn’t go far.)
- 5 x $2 Giveaway – Speed
- 1 x $500 Freeroll (Note, there are only 187 players registered.)
See the Buy-in on these “Free Poker” tourneys; on the $500 Freeroll, the buy in is $0 + 20… (2000 action points). These are discussed later on the; “Prizes” page? Some free rolls aren’t.
After selecting the proper game the next most important thing to know when you enter a Poker Tourney is what type of competition you will face. Different types of Poker players and all skill levels can be found at all levels of play. Generally the bigger the prize the better the poker players competing. The smaller the prize the softer the competition.
Pros and Semi-Pros play in Free tourneys to: When the Tournament is a feeder to larger real money tournament (The 100k seat at Paradise Poker), or for prizes like the World Poker Showdown cruise, where they get a shot at significantly larger prizes. To fine-tune their play. Freerolls offer an excellent chance to practice against large fields. In the 2004 WSOP, there were 2576 entries.
To recreation players it offers and opportunity to do something besides watch re-runs. It is mental exercise and they understand that they are exercising their mind and maybe improving their game at the same time with no real cost, and it's fun.
To beginners, like the pros, it is a chance to improve their game and hopefully learn the tactics that make them winning Poker players and eventually they will become contributing members of the Poker community.
We can use the motivation of these different Poker players to our advantage. As we sit at the table try to ascertain which group each player belongs to. Now when they are in the hand, especially if it is against us, ask ourselves what possible hands they might have. If we have placed them in the correct category we can predict what their hand is quite accurately.
The Pros will always have something, watch their play, learn from them and avoid confrontations with them like rabid dog. If you do find your self in a hand against one, he will lay it down. But remember, to the professional poker player "time is money." He may be wasting time while waiting for a real tournament. He might get discouraged and throw his stack away so that he can get in a more lucrative game. Watch for erratic play 10 or 15 minutes to the hour as he decides to leave this tournament to play in another. You can take advantage of this.
The Recreation Players will come with anything but tend to have some standards. They will not play trash but they are here to play so they will play more hands than profitable. They will play Ace, rag, any two suited cards and will call to the river with a draw. If they have top pair, you will have to show them a winner. Their play is a great chance for profit as long as you play only the good hands. Look for them to play loosely before the flop and with some skill after. The Novice is another matter. They will play the same hands as the Recreation player but will tend to overplay marginal hands. Again this is a great chance for profit when you restrict yourself to good hands.
Chat it up. Talk to them. Ask ‘em questions; “Have you ever won this tourney?” “How often do you play?” People love to talk about them selves and you can often use this to place them into the proper category, and adjust your play against them appropriately.
" Nothing would more contribute to make a man wise than to have always an enemy in his view.”
Lord Halifax
In Poker strategy we talk about the considerations of No Limit Tourney play. Your stack position in the poker tourney and the Tourney level are initially determined by the starting stack, and how fast the blind levels increase. These structures vary greatly from poker site to poker site and from one type of poker tourney to the next. Here is a comparison I love:
Pacific Poker:
- Starting stack: 1500
- Starting blinds: 5/10
- Levels change every 15 minutes
Poker Room:
- Starting stack: 1500
- Starting blinds: 5/10
- Levels change every 10 minutes
Which tourney forces you to gamble a little sooner? On the surface, Poker Room. The blinds go up every 10 minutes instead of 15, but actually that isn’t true. If you’ve played at the two poker sites, you would know that Pacific poker seats only 8 at their tables and Poker Room seats ten. Those two empty seats cause the blinds to come around 20% faster. These rapid blinds, even if smaller, can quickly drain your stack, if you hit a stretch of bad cards.
The starting stacks will also vary by game and betting structure.
Limit Poker tournaments start with smaller stacks. 800 or 1000 instead of 1000 or 1500 depending upon the particular poker site. Since 7 Card Stud is usually Limit, almost all Stud tournaments have a smaller starting stack. In large freeroll poker tournaments the starting stack is also restricted and the level progression accelerated. Otherwise the tournaments could take forever. The World Series of Poker had 2500 entries it took 3 days. Generally the bigger the tournament the longer the levels. Many online poker tournaments will have 1800-3000 players. They have to speed things up so we can finish in an evening. Most people have real jobs.
One final note on the structure. "Re-buy and Add-on tournaments (R&A). These poker tournaments allow a player to buy more chips when he runs out of chips or when he has the initial stack or less and then at some designated time, usually the first break, allow everyone to purchase additional chips. After that no re-buys are allowed and the poker tournament progresses normally. These re-buys and add-ons generate great prize pools. Yes, there is a specific re-buy strategy that can increase your expectations.
Re-buys
No Limit:
If re-buys are only allowed if you're busted, I recommend not re-buying unless you feel you have a definite edge.
Otherwise: Re-buy before the game, giving you a double stack or as soon as possible. This gives you significant leverage over those players who do not re-buy.
If I bust out, I do not re-buy.
LIMIT:
Since the re-buy does not give you any tactical advantage, don't. Generally never re-buy if you bust out, one exception might be. If it is near the end of the re-buy period, consider a re-buy, two if allowed and the add-on. This will usually give you a modest stack going into the second session. If this tactic would still leave you short stacked, don't re-buy.
ADD-ON:
There are times when it is not cost effective to add-on, and they all involve monstrous chip leads or your stack is so small you don't have a chance. Best rule is always add-on. When you enter the tournament just plan for one re-buy and add-on and consider it part of the entry fee.
Those are your modifications but the R&A structure also modifies the play of the others. Often even tight players will limp in with very marginal hands during the re-buy period. Since you can buy more chips many players consider flush draws profitable. |
