The Poker Slayer

With thousands and thousands of poker players going online everyday to play internet poker, many poker rooms are able to support a wide range of different tournament structures. When you play poker in a live casino you’d never find this type of selection of poker tournaments available. If you enjoy playing poker tournaments then you’re going to love playing online poker. Below is a list of the different types of online poker tournaments.

* A single table tournament is generally played with nine players with the top three players making the money. This is the most common type of poker tournament played online and you’ll always be able to join in on one of these regardless of the time.

* A multi-table tournament can be played with any number of players as long as there are at least two tables full of players. These poker tournaments will take awhile to play, but the reward for winning is often huge and well worth the time. It takes a lot of skill and even some luck to win a multi-table tournament, but they are a lot of fun and good practice for tournament players.

* A freeroll tournament can be a single table tournament or multi-table tournament. The different between the tournaments listed above and a freeroll tournament is that you don’t need to pay any money to play in a freeroll tournament. From time to time you’ll find poker rooms offering freeroll tournaments for there players with added prize pools.

* A satellite tournament is any tournament where you don’t win money for finishing in the money. In a satellite tournament you simply move onto another event if you make it through the satellite event. An example of a satellite event would be playing in a tournament for $100 with the chance to win a seat into the World Series of Poker Main Event.

* A double-up tournament is generally played with ten players at the same table with the top five players winning money. Be sure to watch out for ultimate bet cheats on the double-up tournaments. This type of tournament is actually fairly new to the online poker world, but it has quickly become one of the most popular formats for online grinders. You can easily multi-table these types of tournaments and it isn’t that hard to finish in the top five if you know what you’re doing.

* A bounty tournament can be played with any number of players. In a bounty tournament part of the buy-in goes towards the prize pool and part of the buy-in goes towards your bounty. When you knock out another player, such as poker super start Phil Hellmuth in this type of tournament you will be paid that players bounty directly into your account. These tournaments aren’t that popular yet, but I’m sure as it becomes more known to poker players it will pick up some steam.

As you can see there are quite a few different types of online poker tournaments available online. I’m sure you haven’t heard of some of these, but I can guarantee if you play them you’ll have lots of fun. Poker tournaments can really improve your poker game if you take them seriously and it can also help solidify your bankroll with a big first place finish.

There is no doubt that there are more people playing online poker then live poker, but at the same time there are some major poker events every year that both live and online players frequent. The one thing about the major live poker tournaments is that they generally cost more to buy into, but they have massive prize pools often reaching well into the seven figures. We’re going to talk a little about some of the major poker events that take place each year so that you don’t miss out on them.

* The World Series of Poker started way back in 1970 and is easily the most anticipated event of the entire calendar year. What once started out as a single tournament has evolved into a massive series of tournaments that culminates with the $10K WSOP Main Event. The past several years have been huge in terms of success for the WSOP. Thousands of people travel to Las Vegas every year now to take part in this massive series of tournaments and many people walk away with more money then they came with.

* The World Poker Tour is another massive series of poker tournaments that are played each year. The WPT events are spread out throughout the year though and aren’t played within one timeframe. If you want to play in the WPT you may also need to travel since the events are played all over the world. Recently the World Poker Tour was taken over by Party Gaming and I’m sure we’ll see some nice improvements over the next couple of years.

* The European Poker Tour is only a few years old, but if you have played poker at all recently then you’ll have most likely heard of it. The EPT is very well advertised and has quickly become one of the biggest series of poker tournaments every year. One of the reasons the EPT is such a success is because it’s owned by Poker Stars which is the biggest online poker room in the industry. The EPT is played in various countries throughout Europe every year and they constantly add new events to their roster every year.

* The Asia Pacific Poker Tour or APPT for short is one of the up and coming poker tours. It started in 2007, but already has a loyal following in Asia and Australia. Without the APPT there would be thousands of poker players in Asia that would never have played live. The APPT brought the first ever live tournament to several countries including China and Korea. The size of the APPT tournaments are much smaller then the ones listed above, but within 5-10 years I could see this becoming the second largest tour of the year.

* The Latin American Poker Tour or LAPT is much smaller then the ones listed above, but it definitely has room to grow as poker becomes more mainstream in the region. 2008 was the first year that the LAPT was played and it featured only three tournaments including one in Brazil, Costa Rica and Uruguay.

Whether you’re just starting to play poker or you’ve been playing for years, you’re still going to make common mistakes from time to time. It’s inevitable that you will make mistakes while playing Holdem, but the important thing is that you learn from the mistakes you make. If you learn from the mistakes you make then you’ll be less likely to make the same mistake again. In poker the more mistakes you make, the more money you end up losing in most cases. You’ll rarely find a poker player that is in the green when they constantly make the same mistakes while at the poker table.

* One mistake players always make when playing Holdem is they play way too many hands. The problem with playing too many hands is that you’re going to lose a few bucks every hand you don’t hit and this will start too add up.

* When you’re playing Holdem on party poker you need to make sure you play your big cards strongly. A lot of players will play their big hands weak initially to try and make other opponents build the pot. The problem with this is that if the pot isn’t raised you’re going to have a lot of other players limp into the pot with marginal hands.

* Don’t play your low pocket pairs too strongly because they really aren’t that good of a hand. You’ll end up losing more money off of low pocket pairs then you make in most cases. The only time you’ll make money with low pocket pairs generally is when you hit your set. The chances of hitting your set aren’t really that good though. You should try limping into pots for as cheap as possible wit low pocket pairs so you can see if you hit your set on the flop, but if you don’t then just fold.

* Chasing flushes and straight draws in Holdem is a good way to get paid off when they hit. The problem I notice with some players is that they chase every single draw they have. You need to make sure you calculate the pot odds to find out whether or not you should chase your draws.

* In any type of poker online game you always need to make sure you’re focused on the game. You need to observe your opponents and pick up on their tendencies and weaknesses. By observing your table you’ll be able to find out what players raise a lot, what players only play monster hand and so on. The information you’ll gain from watching your table play is going to help you win hands you otherwise wouldn’t have won.

* You need to know when to walk away from the poker table. Whether you’re winning or losing you need to be able to determine when you need a break. Too many poker players will try and play poker for way too long at one time. You need to take breaks when you play poker so that you can re-group your thoughts. Poker is a game where you’re constantly thinking and if you don’t allow yourself time to rest, it could cause you too lose money that you wouldn’t have when you’re on your A game.