Best Poker Rooms with Online Poker Tournaments

How to Choose the Best Poker Sites for Tournaments

There are two main disciplines in poker – cash games and tournaments. They have many similar features: a certain number of players gather at the table, a game is played according to a specific type of poker, the hands are played the same way, the combinations are the same. 

But there are also a lot of major differences: tournaments have a separate prize pool, a specific start time, a limited duration, the game is played with blinds that increase over time. Each of these two disciplines has many fans. And in this article we are focusing on one of them, namely tournaments.

Almost every site offers internet poker tournaments to their players. Only their number and available formats differ. Therefore, it is quite easy to find a game for yourself. But you need to find not just any room, but a decent platform, right? And for that, you need to know what matters.

We've put together a few key points to keep in mind if you're a tournament player and want to pick a new site to play on.

Free game

It is necessary to analyze whether the room offers freerolls, and how wide their choice is. Are these free events open to everyone or are there only private options? This is especially important for novice players, because freerolls can become the basis for the formation of a starting bankroll. Also, thanks to such events, you can start getting acquainted with a new room without risking your own money and without making the first deposit.

Most often, free events are placed in a separate tab in the general list of tournaments, so it will not be difficult to find them. Sometimes you can simply register in them without any conditions, sometimes you need to do something to get a ticket (top up your account, complete a task).

MTT selection

A poker site can be characterized by the multi-table events it hosts. If you are an experienced tournament player or are about to become one, you need to make sure that there is something for you to play on the new resource.

We explore how wide is the target audience of tournament players of each room. It is important that a player with any bankroll can find enough events suitable for the game. Most often, the poker room tournaments are divided into different levels of buy-ins (micro, medium, high, for high rollers).

Tournament series

Popular rooms regularly hold such important events as poker series online. These can be unique events of the site itself (for example, SCOOP at PokerStars), or even prestigious offline events transferred to online.
Playing in such series can be really profitable: there is a wide grid of multi-table tournaments with large guarantees and comfortable structure, events start at different convenient times, they gather a lot of beginners and inexperienced players who were attracted by a large prize pool (and who also got into expensive games through satellites).

Also, in the best online poker tournaments during the series you can not only get huge prize money, but there is also a struggle for prestigious titles and awards. For example, in the WSOP series events at GGPoker, you can not only get a five or even a six-figure amount, but also earn a champion title and a precious bracelet (or ring).

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Guarantees, overlays and traffic

Before you understand whether a new room is right for you in order to make it the main one for regular tournament play, you need to analyze a few more points. Series of events with huge prize pools cannot be played every day, so you will have to play something from regular tournaments that take place on a daily basis.

You need to go to the tab of the events that interest you and do your research: how many tournaments are there with a suitable buy-in every day, when the most interesting options start, how much are the guaranteed prize pools. Then you can look at a couple of past events and find out how many participants they managed to collect, whether there was an overlay, or whether the guarantee was easily broken. You can also check the traffic of the room, figure out how many players play at cash tables and how many prefer tournaments. All this will help to understand whether you will have problems with the choice of the game and to discover the best online poker tournaments to play.

The presence of various types of poker

The most common type of poker both online and offline is deservedly considered Texas Holdem. And if you prefer this format, then you will not have any problems finding such events, as they are presented in every room. But a quality modern poker site should offer a wider selection of games.

A big plus of the room are Omaha events (its various types), Chinese poker, Stud high-low. And the ideal option would be to find good tournaments for mixed games. These are the events that will gather a small number of participants. Therefore, if you master such game formats, you will be able to compete for good prize money.

Interesting fact!

Once, thanks to one qualifying tournament, a simple guy named Chris was able to qualify for the Main Event of the World Series in Vegas. And then he won it and became the world poker champion, glorifying his bright surname Moneymaker. From that moment on, the poker boom began in the world both offline and online, as a huge number of players around the world wanted to repeat such success.

Different Types of Poker Tournaments

There are a huge number of different tournaments online. They can be divided by the number of participants (heads-up, Sit and Go poker tournament, MTT), by format and prize fund (Spin-and-Go, Double or Nothing, Shootout), by buy-in (freeroll, micro-limit event, high rollers), by speed (regular, hyper, turbo) and so on. Often players choose one discipline and actively play only tournaments of a certain type, improving their skills in them.

We will tell you about some of the most popular types of tournaments, which are presented almost everywhere.

The most popular type of tournaments, both online and offline. The scheme is simple: you pay a specific amount as a buy-in, you get the right to take part in the game and fight for a part of the specified prize pool. Such a tournament takes place simultaneously at many tables, so there is no limit on the number of participants. Because of this, the game can last for several hours in a row, and sometimes even for several days.

Millions of dollars can be raffled off in major events, and first-place winners can earn life-changing cash. Therefore, such tournaments attract not only experienced regulars, but also many amateurs who cannot afford such a game, but they dream of catching their luck and winning.

Each poker room holds its own unique MTTs. Here are some popular options for the best online poker tournaments:

• GGPoker – GGMasters, Global MILLION$, Omaholic Bounty;
• 888poker – The Rumble, The Big Shot, The Classic;
• Partypoker – Daily Legends, partypoker MILLION, The Grand.

Interesting fact!

The largest prize fund in one online poker event was collected in the GGPoker room. It was a $5,000 buy-in tournament and it ended up with an incredible $27,559,500 in prize money! This is officially in the Guinness Book of Records. As for the record for the number of participants in one tournament, here is the championship for Pokerstars. It was a one dollar event and it brought together 225,000 players.

Unlike MTT, there is a specific small number of participants (usually three), and the duration of the game is not hours, but minutes. The most interesting thing: the opportunity to win a huge amount, because initially the prize pool is not specified, and it can fall out from a boring amount (twice the buy-in) to an impressive jackpot. For this reason, many amateurs love these games.

In various poker rooms, this format has its own unique name and has different features (a number of participants, the duration of the levels, payouts, and so on). Some examples:

• GGPoker – Spin & Gold;
• 888poker – BLAST;
• Partypoker – SPINS.

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These are such qualifying tournaments in which you can get not only money but some tickets for more expensive events. Recently, such tournaments have gained great popularity, as they make it possible to play in more valuable tournaments than you can afford with your bankroll. The most popular events have a plentiful grid of satellites, which attract recreational players. For example, for the anniversary Sunday Million tournament with a guarantee of 10 million dollars a player can get an entry for only $1, although a straight buy-in is $215.

The main differences between satellites and other tournaments occur in payments. If in a regular MTT tournament ~ 13% of the players get into prizes, then in satellite it all depends on the buy-in. Sometimes in a large satellite for a hundred people, only one ticket to an expensive event can be presented as a prize. Also, in qualifying tournaments (e.g. World Series of Poker satellite tournaments), sometimes not just an entrance ticket to an expensive event is raffled off, but a whole so-called “prize package”. Most often this applies to online satellites to live major events. This may include buy-in, money for flights, accommodation in luxurious hotels, merch and gifts from the poker room.

How to Improve Your Tournament Game

Effective tournament play for real money has two elements: to win an event, you must accumulate all the chips in your stack, but to win all the chips from other players, you must at all costs avoid losing your own. Thus, in the tournament we have two goals: the accumulation of chips and survival. Achieving both of these goals at the same time can be quite a challenge for many players, but the regular practice will help you get there.

Your chances of getting into money in tournaments will usually be 10-20%, depending on your skills and the level of playing a tournament field. The chances of winning the tournaments are very, very small, but the largest part of your annual results will be often formed at the expense of the best places in large fields of tournament participants. Even experienced players can experience downswing in dozens and hundreds of events in a tournament poker. Moreover, you can even play thousands of tournaments and not win any of them. In short, it is better to mentally prepare in advance for some extreme downs, especially when playing in large fields. Given this, you must make sure that you have a good system of bankroll management.

Note!

Good players, as a rule, have an ITM percentage of 15% to 20%, and they usually earn more money at the final tables when they manage to make a deep tournament run. The desire for the value of more than 15% ITM will be a good goal for serious MTT players.

As when playing cash, you should look for both soft games and good rake structures with bonuses and rakeback when you play MTT. Most poker rooms keep rake from 5% to 10% of the size of the buy-in, and you should avoid any poker sites that take the commission more than 10%, since in this case any advantage over the field can be quickly destroyed by a high fee.

Tournament success is usually measured in career earnings. You should pay attention only to the long-term profitability of the game, and not to major victories in huge fields. Those players that you see on the Olympus of the tournament poker outplay their opponents for years, if not for decades, to achieve their current results. Measure your success, following the metrics, such as ROI and BB/100, and try to improve them in the long run (when calculating these metrics, do not forget to take into account any additional money invested by you in rebuys or add-ons). Giving attention to the profitability of your strategies, regardless of short-term results, you provide yourself with the best chances of entering the best tournament players and building a long-term MTT career.

Final Thoughts

Tournament poker is an exciting, fascinating and truly profitable format, since the most recreational players prefer it to cash. The game of quality poker is available to anyone who is ready to devote time and effort to work on their poker skills. If a player works on his game, analyzes hands and eliminates his leaks, he can become a tournament beast – the power that every opponent should consider.

The good news is that tournaments nowadays can be found everywhere and this search do not require much effort. Every player can try different rooms and combine them with each other to create the perfect tournament grid to play with the most convenient conditions.