Poker Tournaments

Poker tournaments are one of the most popular ways to play poker, as they limit a player's risk simply to the buy-in and they encourage different styles of play that you won't necessarily see in a cash game. Most televised poker is in a tournament format, as the overall winner of a tournament makes for television that is easier for a casual viewer to follow. The two major types of poker tournaments are live tournaments and online tournaments. This page will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both. Playing poker tournaments at live venues has become extremely popular in recent times.

Many land based casinos now have a dedicated poker room area where players can play cash games and tournaments. Tournaments allow a player to "buyin" to the tournament where every play starts with the same chip stack. When one player has all the chips they are declared the winner and generally receive 50% of the total prize pool. The biggest prize pools in the world are found in the major live poker tournaments and poker championships. The World Series of Poker is the premiere live poker tournament event, and the WSOP Main Event offers the largest poker tournaments prize pool you will find anywhere. Winning live events gives poker players plenty of kudos, but it is rarely the most cost effective way to play poker. Most modern professional poker players are very selective about the live tournaments they play, choosing the right events based on sizable prize pools and the chance of media exposure that can be leveraged for places in exclusive televised tournaments or cash games.

European Poker Tour

The European Poker Tour schedule is very busy, with at least one event per month. Obviously, few poker players have the time to play in every event, let alone the money it takes to jet around Europe each month. This means that the mix of players at EPT events changes fairly regularly, making for more interesting viewing for people watching the events at home. That large buy-in can be well worth it when you consider the size of the biggest European Poker Tour prizes. The very highest European Poker Tour prizes have been in excess of $3 million, with many other big events bringing in around $2 million in total prize money. Monte Carlo has generally brought in the biggest prize pools, thanks to having been home to the EPT Grand Final event from Season 1 to 6 of the European Poker Tour.

World Poker Tour

The World Poker Tour schedule sees events taking place in many locations and over several months. The majority of stops on the WPT schedule are in North American locales, but the WPT Venice and WPT Spanish Championships give European players more convenient options. The World Poker Tour Championship certainly isn't as well regarded as the WSOP Main Event, but it is still a very challenging event to overcome. While WSOP bracelets might be the cake of poker achievement, World Poker Tour Championship bracelets are the icing. Buy-ins to the WPT Championship top $30,000 and this leads to a tournament filled with top poker pros.

World Series Of Poker

The World Series of Poker schedule changes each year to better suit the needs of modern players, but there are a few constants. First of all, the final event on the WSOP schedule is always the World Series of Poker Main Event. This is to ensure that every player can come into the event with minimal distractions from other tourneys and time constraints. Another standard event is the casino employees tournament that kicks off the WSOP each year and gives the many casino employees who keep the action moving in Vegas during the World Series of Poker a chance to play. Recent changes to the World Series of Poker schedule have seen more No Limit Hold'em tournaments with low buy-ins, as well as a move to scheduling concurrent tournaments in a way that gives players an opportunity to contend multiple events at once. Expect the WSOP schedule to be tweaked over the next few years to better accommodate players like Tom Dwan - the kind that want the ridiculous kind of action that playing in simultaneous live tournaments involves.

World Series Of Poker Europe

The World Series of Poker Europe, or WSOPE, is an attempt by the WSOP owner Harrah's to expand the World Series of Poker brand into worldwide events. This is a tough ask given how long the European Poker Tour, Irish Poker Open, and other major events have been operating in the region. However, thanks to the fact that this series offers its own WSOP bracelets and competitive prize pools, many poker pros make their way to the WSOPE each year to play in one of Europe's fastest growing live poker events. The WSOPE schedule is nowhere near as demanding as its Las Vegas cousin, only offering a handful of bracelet events each year, including a No Limit Hold'em Championship equivalent of the WSOP Main Event. Due to the limited World Series of Poker Europe schedule, only Texas Hold'em and Omaha tournaments tend to be held. These are the most popular poker varieties today, so it is understandable that you would want to get as many tournaments for them as possible in a small event. We think the WSOPE schedule needs to expand a bit faster. The current tournament buy-ins make it prohibitive for average players to enter, which ups the overall quality of play but also makes the WSOPE less accessible. A few "Donkaments" wouldn't be amiss at the WSOPE - after all, it needs to get a bit more of the modern WSOP Vegas feel!

World Series of Poker Circuit

The World Series of Poker Circuit, or WSOP Circuit, is a WSOP branded poker tournament circuit that runs in the lead up to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas each year. While the WSOP Circuit tournaments are not as prestigious as true WSOP events, they still draw plenty of players to the major stops on the circuit. A recent revamp of the WSOP Circuit has revitalised interest in this poker tour, and thus has meant bigger prize pools than have been seen many years previously.

Grand Series of Poker

The Grand Series of Poker, or GSOP, is both an online and live series of poker tournaments that is run by the Ongame poker software platform. Aside from running tournaments on its member sites, Ongame also holds tournaments all across Europe in a number of beautiful locales. The Grand Series of Poker Live is an excellent place to start out your live poker tournament career, as the level of competition is quite low. The Grand Series of Poker Online offers almost 20 events, with guaranteed prize pools of up to $400,000. Buy-ins to Grand Series of Poker Online events range from as little as $50 up to more than $500, with an overall buy-in of $5,000 for the Grand Series of Poker Grand Slam Final.