Best Poker Sites for Tournaments

HomeOnline Poker » Best Poker Sites » Best Tournament Poker Sites

One of the most lucrative and exciting ways to play online poker is to participate in poker tournaments that offer cash prizes to the winners - often the top finishers rather than simply awarding the sole winner at the end of the tournament. The best tournament poker sites offer a wide range of different tournaments including freerolls (free poker tournaments that still award cash prizes), satellites (qualifying tournaments for larger poker tournaments), guaranteed (where the prize package amount is guaranteed to be a certain amount regardless of the amount of participants) and other qualifier tournaments for major events. At the best tournament poker sites, these tournaments often run 24 hours a day with enough site traffic to keep them full and lucrative.

Different Types of Poker Tournaments

There are several different types of poker tournaments online that offer a completely different poker experience than normal cash game play. Freeroll poker tournaments are often preferred by beginners and amateur online poker players as they are funded by the poker site and do not require participating players to pay any money to buy in - but award real money to winners. These tournaments should not be confused with play money tournaments that do require a buy in of fake money and pay winners with more fake money. Guaranteed poker tournaments are events that offer a flat prize package to the winners, regardless of the amount of players that enter the tournament. So, if you are lucky enough to find a guaranteed tournament with a $20,000 prize package but only 50 participants, you have very good odds of winning a substantial prize, although rare.

There are other varieties of poker tournaments that involve different aspects of both how players increase their chip stacks and how the prize package is determined. One type of tournament bases the prize package solely on how many players participate. Another focuses on eliminating other players by awarding players that actually perform the act of eliminating a player with a bounty applied to each player's head. Satellite poker tournaments are smaller tournaments with low buy ins that, if won, can provide the winner with an opportunity to participate in the larger tournament with a reduced or free buy in. Finally, qualifier tournaments are poker tournaments that act as a way for players to qualify for larger tournaments.

How to Participate in a Poker Site Tournament

Participating in a poker tournament at the best tournament poker sites is as easy as registering for a tournament in which you would like to participate, paying the buy in and remaining logged in before the tournament begins. Some poker tournaments will offer late buy ins during the first hour or so of the tournament. If that is the case, feel free to wait until the last few minutes of the late registration period to register so that you do not need to needlessly compete against a seemingly endless pool of players. Once the tournament begins, you will immediately be transferred to your starting table and play will begin. Longer tournaments offer breaks every hour of play but be sure to clear your schedule for up to 6 hours if you expect to compete in the final tables.

Choosing the Best Tournament Poker Sites

The best tournament poker sites are those that offer a variety of tournaments - not just tournament types but stakes and limits within that tournament type. For example, a poker site that offers mainly high stake Texas Holdem tournaments would not be of much value to a player that prefers to play micro stakes Omaha tournaments. You should also look for the best tournament poker sites that offer consistent tournaments 24 hours a day - not just during peak hours. You might work during the day and prefer to play late at night or very early in the morning. Most of the best tournament poker sites will hold their guaranteed tournaments during peak hours to make sure that they do not lose too much money due to smaller entry volumes. However, other tournament varieties should be available throughout the day.

Best Tournament Poker Sites - Sportsbook Poker

Sportsbook Poker is one of the best tournament poker sites as it offers a huge variety of daily, weekly and monthly tournament events. In addition to daily guaranteed tournaments with buy ins as low as $1.00, Sportsbook Poker also offers unique tournaments such as the Kamikaze SNG where every player in the tournament is forced to go all in during each and every hand. A $100,000 guaranteed freeroll every month can reward even the players with the lowest bankrolls with free cash.

Best Tournament Poker Sites - Absolute Poker

Absolute Poker was one of the first sites recognized as one of the best tournament poker sites largely because of their $75K and $150K tournaments offered each week. Weekends are the prime guaranteed tournament time at Absolute Poker as each weekend features guaranteed tournaments with prizes totaling more than $500,000.

Best Tournament Poker Sites - Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker offers a variety of tournaments with buy ins ranging from $1.00 to more than $25,000.00. Guaranteed tournaments at Full Tilt Poker pay out in excess of $8 million every week. Freerolls at Full Tilt Poker range from small prize packages without any buy in to freeroll tournaments in which you can play by buying in with your Full Tilt Points.

Poker Site Tournament Strategy

With many poker tournaments on the best tournament poker sites, chips increase in value as the tournament progresses. For example, you might buy 1,000 chips at the beginning for $10.00. However, by the time the middle stage of the tournament hits, these chips might have doubled or tripled in value. For this reason, most poker tournament strategy involves playing tight in the beginning and gradually becoming more aggressive as the chips increase in value. During the beginning of the tournament, you should try to remain around the average chip count in the tournament. During the middle, your goal is to start building your chip stack while maintaining your original size so that you can see a money spot. The last part of the tournament requires aggression and luck as many players will be willing to risk it all as they have already at least won some money.

John HollowayBy John - This is my site about playing online poker. This site contains many articles that will help you become a better poker player. I hope you enjoy it and share it with your friends. If your new to this site you should check out the blog and the poker strategy section.