Rivered.co.uk

Rivered.co.uk is your one stop shop for everything poker!

Rivered's aim is to stop you getting rivered. We aim to do this by providing you with articles and information online and also by telling you what poker books and videos/dvd's you should watch/read in order to improve your game and stop that dreaded river!

New Welcome Bonus

Earn up to $200!
Mayagaming Poker will double your initial deposit up to $200! Once you sign up and deposit, you've already won. Deposit $200 and get $200 free!

Safety: Play online poker at mayagaming.com. It is easy, safe and secure with prompt payouts. Lots of poker games and limits - try Texas Hold 'em, Omaha Hold'em, 7 Card Stud or big poker tournaments.

Poker Tournaments

Introduction
An increasingly popular way to play poker is in tournaments. In a poker tournament, all players start with an equal amount of chips, and then the game goes on until all players have lost all their chips. Except one - the winner.

Your ranking in the tournament
Your finishing place in the tournament is decided by the number of players that are left when you lose your last chip. If five players remain, you finish sixth, and so on.

Division of the prize pool
Usually in poker tournaments, the winner does not take it all. Instead, the prize pool is divided among the best placed players, who all finish in the money. But the winner gets a large piece of the cake, so winning a tournament is still nice. Very nice, actually.

Increasing blinds and antes
To make sure that the tournament reaches its end within a reasonable time, the blinds or antes are increased in fixed intervals. This way, if you do not manage to make your chip stack grow, you will find the blinds or antes very costly after a while.

Types of Tournaments
Poker tournaments come in different varieties. Often, ten people sit down around a table to play a tournament. Other tournaments gather hundreds or even thousands of players. But you may also play a tournament against just one opponent!

Sit and Go tournaments
A sit-and-go tournament (S&G) begins as soon as enough players have joined in. Usually, a S&G consists of nine or ten players around a single table, but there are also S&Gs for two or three tables.

Multi-table tournaments
A multi-table tournament (MTT) starts at a preset point of time. It may be open to hundreds or even thousands of players.

Heads-up tournaments
In a heads-up tournament, two players sit down with an equal amount of chips and play until one of them has all the chips. The blinds or antes are increased during the tournament.

Satellites
A satellite is a tournament where the first prize is not a cash payout, but a seat to another tournament. The idea is that you can enter an expensive tournament by winning a tournament that is not as expensive.

For example, if ten players sit down and play a $10 tournament, the winner could win a seat to a $100 tournament.

In large satellites, there may be several seats up for grabs.

Rebuys and add-ons
The particular thing about tournaments is that you cannot reach into your wallet and buy more chips, as in a normal cash game. When you are out of chips, you are out of the tournament.

However, some tournaments actually allow you to buy more chips - make a rebuy - but only during the so called rebuy period at the beginning of the tournament. Depending on the rules of the specific tournament, you may make a limited or unlimited number of rebuys. When the rebuy period ends, you may make a last rebuy, called an add-on.v After the rebuy period, the tournament will go on as a normal tournament, with players busting out as they lose their last chips.

The rebuys and add-ons are added to the prize pool.

A tournament with no rebuys or add-ons is called a freezeout.