Overview Of Typical Poker Tournament Rules
By Matthew Winnington, Sat Dec 10th

Each and every day more and more men and women are drawn toplaying online poker. Many of these people eventually end upinterested in participating in one or another of the variousonline tournaments that can be found on the Internet atany given point in time. There is a wide array of differentpoker tournaments on the Net that a person can to participate inat any point in time.

Before you charge off and sign up for an online tourney,you should have at least a basic understanding of some of thegeneral rules and practices associated with online pokertournaments. Of course, there are some similarities between therules and practices associated with in cyberspace andpoker in the "real world."

In any event, what follows is a brief overview of what you canexpect in the way or rules, practices and procedures as the samepertain to online tournaments in this day and age.

Basic Rules of Online Tournaments:

Naturally, like in the brick and mortar world, each individualpoker tournament can adopt its own set of rules. Thus, there isoften at least a degree of variation between the rules at one oranother of the different online tournaments that a personmight find on the World Wide Web. With that said, there are somerules and regulations that are standard to the majority of allpoker tournaments that are played on the Net or off.

First, all participants in an online tournament will startplay at the same time. There are no staggered of "shotgun"starts such as might be found in other types of competitivetournament play.

Second, each player in an online tournament will beginplay with the same number of chips. As the chips are depleted,some tournaments to allow participants the ability to buy morechips up to the amount that they started with in the firstinstance. (This is done through the re-buy or add-on process.)

Third, the tournament ante or bid level increases at regularintervals throughout the competition itself. In some tournamentsthe ante or bid level will increase based on the passing of aspecified amount of time. In single table tournaments, the anteor bid level may increase after the passage of a specifiednumber of play periods.

Fourth, a player is able to continue playing in a giventournament until he or she completely runs out of chips. Theplayer left standing, the player who is the last in possessionof chips, is declared the winner of the online tournament.

Prizes and Winnings

Once the ultimate winner of an online tournament has beendetermined, the prize money will be distributed according to therules of the competition. As has been mentioned previously, eachonline tournament does establish its own rules. And, ashas also been mentioned previously in this article, there aresome general rules and procedures that can be found in nearlyall Internet based tournaments.

The very top winner out of all of the participants in a givenonline tournament will garner the bulk of the prize money.In most cases, when it comes to an online tournament, thefirst place winner will get about 40% of the purse, 40% of theprize money in the competition.

As a general practice in online tournaments the secondplace winner will get about 20% of the available prize money.The third place winner will receive about 10% of the availableprize money.

In some instances, an online tournament will

offer othertypes of prizes. As an example, in a satellite tournament -where a person is playing in order to gain the right to play ina more major tournament - the prize itself may be entry into themore major tournament, entrance fee being included.

If you are interested in participating in an online pokertournament, it is in your best interests to take the time toconsider the rules and regulations of that tournament before youactually sign up. By familiarizing yourself with these rules,regulations and practices before a tournament, you will be in asound position of knowing what to expect during the course ofthe tournament itself.

About the author:A regular tournament player who contributes to sites dealingwith a variety of games both online and off, visitMatthew's site at http://www.playrealpokeronline.com for thelatest news and articles on America's favorite card game.