Poker Tournaments

Poker Tournaments – Go From a Chump to a Champ

Poker Tournaments

Winning a poker tournament in either land based or online poker has the affect of making a name for a player. Don’t know who said this but winning a tournament can turn the player from a chump into a champ! Many online poker players have been made from ordinary people into poker "Stars" overnight by winning the World Series of Poker and a variety of other tournaments.

The "WSOP" (World Series of Poker) is held every year in Las Vegas and it is every poker players dream to get to the final table in this tournament. The first tournament was held in 1970 and was an invitational featuring six of the best poker players on the Horseshoe Circuit. This competition has grown in size and winners from tournaments at many online poker rooms are often found playing in this strictly live tourney. From 6 players in 1970, WSOP has grown to nearly 10 000 players today.

Poker has grown immensely in popularity since the first real money game was played online in the late 1990’s. Poker rooms offer many variants of the game and many ways to participate also. The most popularly played games are Sit‘n Gos, Ring Games, Satellites, Tournaments and Freerolls.

All of these are designed to help the player improve their game and offer them incentives to win. The internet played a large role in the explosive growth in popularity of playing poker, but media also has a hand in it. Once Television networks realised the huge audience which could be draw to world class poker tournaments and started airing them, media attention has grown the interest in the game to millions of players worldwide.

Prize pools have also grown exponentially in size to keep up with what consumers have come to expect from playing poker, and famous poker players have become superstars, while some superstars have also become famous poker players.

A small fee paid to get into a satellite tournament may lead up to an entry into the "WPT" (World Poker Tour) or "WSOP" (World Series of Poker), or even one of the other large and well known tournaments. No matter how much of a long shot this is, people such as Chris Moneymaker have proven that winning massive prize events by starting online can be done.

There is specific strategy which needs to be used when taking part in poker tournaments and any player starting to take them-selves that seriously needs to look into this. To win big money, big money needs to be wagered, so the fluctuations in ring games can help to get a good bankroll started. Online tournaments attract thousands of players, so even if the buy-in is just a couple of dollars, the prize stakes can get very high and winning will certainly bankroll the player into bigger games.

Many online poker sites also sponsor big tournaments of their own as well as world tournaments and they give away prizes of a buy-in to the big land tournaments. These prizes include buy-in, travel and accommodation costs. Check out some of the best sites at GamblignIn.co.uk, to find out more about up and coming poker tournaments.