Types of Online Poker Tournaments

SIT N GO

Sit and Go is a type of Poker tournament which has no exact starting time and it starts usually when all player positions are filled up. There are pre-chosen player spots in the game. As soon as the player positions get registered for, the game begins. Usually, there are 9 to 10 spots in the sit and go tournament and it is a single table tournament. Sit and go tournaments are more popular in poker played online, rather than in actual casinos.

FREE ROLL TOURNAMENTS

These types of tournaments do not require the participant to pay anything. As the name suggests, they are free tournaments. Though they are free, there is still some merchandise, gifts or real money as the winning prize in the poker pool. They are usually multi-table tournaments.
Free rolls can last for long hours and are not usually short games. Many people play free rolls to try their luck rather than improve their skills. But free roll tournaments are a great way to improve your poker skills also and not risk losing money. The host poker room sponsors the prize pool. The gifts and prizes are moderate but nevertheless for free.
Free rolls act as promotional games for bigger poker tournaments. Naturally, the prize pool isn't as big as the ones with actual buy-ins. However, many poker rooms provide free roll tournaments with good prize pools.

GAURANTEED TOURNAMENT

A guaranteed online poker tournament is a kind of tournament where there is a guaranteed prize pool from the poker room. For instance, a guaranteed $ 50000 tournament will have at least $50000 in the prize pool. It can even be more than this, but never less than 'guaranteed'. The prize pool need not be entirely from the participants. If enough people do not participate in the tournament and the amount is less, the poker room chips in the rest of the money.

If more than required players join the tournament then the extra amount will be added to the amount guaranteed by the poker room. The guaranteed amount is split between the winners of the tournament. At times even overlays occur, which means that a part of the promised amount is contributed by the poker room.

However, in this type of tournament, re-buys are not allowed as per the norm. However there are more chances of winning if the number of players is less. Bottom-line, there is more money in the pool than what the players contribute and this is what makes the game popular and attractive.

FREEZEOUT Tournaments

In freeze out tournaments the players are not allowed to use re-buys or add-ons. The player can play only with the chips with which he started playing. If he loses them to the other players then he is out of the game. He is not allowed to use re-buys.
In this type of tournament, the game ends when one player wins all the chips. In this type of tournament, tables are combined as players get eliminated.

$$$ Tournaments (Unguaranteed)

These types of tournaments have a specific buy in amount. The prize pool for this type of a game is tournament is based only on the number of players for the game.

RE-BUY / ADD-ON Tournaments

A re-buy in a poker game is a chance to buy additional chips than those with which you started the tournament. You can only buy the amount of chips that you bought at the start of the tournament. A re-buy in a poker tournament is allowed only when a player has lost all his chips to the other players. Instead of having to quit the tournament, the player can re-buy his initial amount.

Add-ons are very similar to re-buys. The only difference is that you can take add-ons even if you have not lost all your chips in the tournament. Add-ons can however only be used to achieve the initial amount that the player started the tournament with.
If the player wishes to re-buy, then he has to pay the same amount of money that he paid at the start of the poker tournament.
In some tournaments, multiple re-buys are allowed, but some tournaments keep the re-buys restricted to one. In most cases, re-buys are allowed only within the first hour since the commencement of the game.

SATELLITE Tournaments

Satellite tournaments are those tournaments which are not played for money or prizes. It is usually game which is played to enter another tournament. Hence the name 'satellite tournament'. These kinds of tournaments can be single or multi-table tournaments. The ones, who win, get a chance to play in the bigger games usually with good prize pools.