Poker Tournaments

Best Poker Tournaments 2021

Are you looking for the best online poker tournament in India? Let us do the hard work for you! Here, at Red Shark Poker, we have selectively reviewed the excellent tournaments that give the best bang for your buck. In this section, you will find the most lucrative poker tournaments running on the best poker sites in India.

We have reviewed the buy-in, prize structure and maximum player accommodation of the best poker tournaments in 2020. You just have to go click on the logo mentioned above to read about all the aspects in detail.

If you are new to poker tournaments, you can read everything you need to know about the tournaments below.

What is a Poker Tournament?

A poker tournament is one of the most exciting formats of poker games, where you can win big with a small investment. You need to pay an entry fee, also known as buy-in, which forms the prize pool. You compete with other players who have paid the buy-in, and the players who secure the top positions at the end of the tournament win their share from the prize pool.

Poker tournaments have a fixed format, which means that every aspect of the game like the blinds, buy-ins (entry fee), chip stack size, antes, time limit and the overall structure are fixed.

Every player will get the same amount of chips and are seated across multiple tables in poker tournament games. As a tournament progresses, top players from every table move to higher tables to compete with the other top players. The finishers at the final table take home the lion’s share of the prize pool.

That is how we can define a tournament in a nutshell. Now, let us see every aspect to understand the format comprehensively.

What are the Poker Tournament Rules?

The general rules of poker are the same when it comes to the tournament format. However, there are some changes in the overall proceedings of the game. Let us examine every rule of poker tournament games.

Buy-in

1. Every participant has to buy the entry fee to play poker tournament games. This is also called “buy-ins”.  The buy-ins are collected to form the prize pool. Only the top finishers get paid from the prize pool. The entry fees are usually paid before a tournament begins. The house or online poker site usually takes 5% to 10% fees for running the tournament.

Tournament Seating

1. Players are seated by a random draw or assignment.
2. A change of seat is not allowed in poker tournaments after the play starts. However, the director of the offline poker tournament may assign some changes in the seating arrangement if he/she wishes.

Tournament Chips

1. An equal amount of chips is assigned to every player at the beginning of the tournament.
2. Poker tournament chips have no cash value, which means that players cannot cash out at any point during the tournament.
3. Chips are also placed for the absent player, but they can be removed any time at the discretion of the director. Chips are also removed after a new betting level begins or after 30 minutes have elapsed.

Blind Levels

1. The blind levels make tournaments different from cash poker games. The blind level increases at a regular interval.
2. The blind levels are pre-decided in poker tournament games. It is mentioned in the schedule of live offline tournaments games, and you can find the information in the lobby of online poker tournaments.

Deals in Poker Tournament

1. The dealer button is determined in the first hand randomly.
2. The deal proceeds the same as it does in cash poker games. Big and Small Blinds are placed left to the dealer button.

Betting Rounds

1. The betting rounds are the same as that of Texas Holdem Poker.
2. The usual betting rounds take place in the Flop, Turn and River.
3. The player with the best hand wins in the showdown.

Rebuys

1. Most of the tournaments allow the rebuy option, which means that players can pay the entry fee again and get the starting stack of chips if they have lost all of their chips.
2. There is a specific period of time that allows players to rebuy. This period is called the rebuy period.  This is usually one to two hours within the start of the tournament.
3. However, there are poker tournaments that do not allow the rebuy option.

 Prize Structure

1. There are two ways in which the prizes are awarded to the top finishers: Fixed and Proportional.
2. Fixed: The prize structure can be fixed, and each placing gets a certain fixed payoff. For example, there can be fixed prizes for the players who finish in the first five places. Any player below that does not win any cash prize.
3. Proportional:  Prizes are given out according to a percentage-based scale. The percentages depend on the number of participants. The payouts increase if the number of participants increases. The percentages are usually higher for the top three players than the rest of the placings.

What are the Types of Poker Tournament?

Elimination Poker Tournament: These tournaments are also known as Freeze Out poker tournaments where every player plays with the same amount of chips. Players play on multiple tables and are eliminated when they run out of chips. The surviving players move to tables with other players until only one table is left. The prize pool is divided among the top winners.

Rebuy Poker Tournament: These tournaments allow players to rebuy once they lose all of their chips. There is a rebuy time where they can buy again with the same number of chips that they get in the initial play. There is usually a rebuy period of one to two hours from the moment the tournament starts.

Shootout Poker Tournament: In this format, only one winner from each table proceeds to the next table. So, in the next table, there are winners from different table to take on each other. For example, if 100 players play in a shootout poker tournament are seated at 10 tables with 10 players each. One winner from each table will proceed to the next table. So, in the next table, there will 1 table with 10 winners from their respective tables.

Satellite Poker Tournament: These are preliminary poker tournaments (with smaller buy-ins) where players play for the sake of entering a larger tournament. For example, if there is one major tournament with 10 satellite poker tournaments, the top winners from the satellite poker tournaments will enter the final major tournament.

Poker Freeroll Tournaments: Most of the poker websites host free online poker tournaments to engage its active players. In poker freeroll, you don’t have to pay any entry fee. Just join the tournament for free and win from the prize pool. The websites pay the prize pool from their pockets. Also, there can be different criteria for joining the poker freeroll tournaments like depositing a certain amount with a particular poker bonus code to playing certain numbers of games.

Read: Best Poker Bonus Codes in 2021

What are the best Poker Tournament Tips?

Here are some of the quick poker tournaments tips that you should use to win a share of the prize pool.

1. Know the Type of Poker Tournament: Before you enter any tournament, know the type of tournament you are playing. Check whether it is a Texas Holdem or Omaha poker tournament. Know the prize structure and the intervals at which the blinds increase. Also, check if there are rebuys allowed, and if you choose to rebuy, know what position are you in the game to bounce back.
2. Passive and Aggressive Gameplay: It is usually advised to play passively during the early stages as you are given a limited amount of chips. As you progress to higher stages, you will have a bigger stack of chips and should play aggressively.
3. Calculate Your Risk Percentage: Always keep track of your chips and calculate the risk of betting your chips against your chip stack in every round of betting. For example, if you are betting 1000 chips out of 10,000 chips, you are putting 10% of your chips, which is not a major risk. However, if you bet 1000 out of 2000 chips, you have a risk of putting 50% of your chip stack.
4. Be cautious of short-stacked opponents: Players who have a small stack of chips will usually bet if they have a strong hand and might go all-in. Take these players seriously as they will not risk going out of the poker tournament by betting on a weak hand.

There are hundreds of great poker tournament tips and tricks on Red Shark Poker that you can study and use it to improve your chances of winning big in the upcoming online poker tournaments. Check out our strategy section to learn more poker tournament strategies.

Some Secret Tournament Strategies

The most important poker tournament strategy is profiling your players based on their pattern of betting. Poker is a game of observation. At each stage of poker tournament, you will be up against a certain type of players.  You need to observe their behavioural pattern and predict their next moves.

Legendary player Phil Helmuth has devised a unique way of categorizing poker tournament players according to their betting patterns. He classifies poker players and names them as different animals according to their playing styles. Let us see what the categorization looks like:

1. Mouse: Such type of poker tournament player is highly analytical and puts chips only when he has the cards to back it up. Such type of style is good in the early stage of a poker tournament when everyone has a more or less equal amount of chips.
2. Jackal: These types of players play aggressively and typically goes “all-in” to bluff cautious players. No matter how many chips they have, they put a lot of chips to scare away the opponents. This sometimes put them in a vulnerable position when faced against players who have strong hands.
3. Elephant: Elephants play as many hands as possible so that they can head to a speedy conclusion and play the next hands. They don’t usually raise and often call. They are willing to lose small hands so that they can win big later.
4. Lions: These are skilled players who know when the call, check, raise or bluff. You need to be cautious of such players as they are the masters of the game. They can be called as tight-aggressive players and make decisions based on their experience and overall skill level.

The most important poker tournament strategy would be to be adaptive and change your strategies according to different situations. Do not stick to a single style as doing so will make you predictable. For example, if you play like an elephant all the time and call every hand, you can be susceptible to losing a lot of chips against players who have strong hands. Always observe, adapt and improve your gameplay in both offline and online poker tournaments.

If you want to know which is the best online poker site to play tournaments, you can visit the poker site review section.