Buy-ins and entry fees
If you want to play in a poker tournament you have to enter a buy-in. The amount of the buy-in is the same for every participating player. In addition to this you pay an entry fee (usually 10 % of the buy-in) to the poker room or casino. The total amount of the buy-ins makes out the prize pool in the tournament. For example, if 50 players enter a $100 buy-in the prize pool in the tournament will be $5000. In this case the poker room or casino gets a total of $500 in entry fees.
Prize structure
The prize structure differs from tournament to tournament. In some a few, but high prizes are awarded, in others many smaller prizes are given out. Generally the top 10 % in a tournament will be “in the money”. The player who wins the tournament will receive the highest prize, the runner up the second highest prize and so on.
Fast and slow tournaments
All players in the tournament start with the same amount of chips, but the size of the original stack is different from time to time. The stakes are low (the lowest) in the beginning but are raised regularly during the tournament. There is usually a raise every 15-60 minutes. A tournament where the players start with a small amount of chips and the stakes are raised frequently is called fast and when the conditions are reversed the tournaments is called slow. Strong players generally prefer slow tournaments since they will have a lot of time to outplay the weaker opponents. When the stakes have a great influence on the players’ stacks more is left to chance.
Table structure
If there are 50 players in the tournament they will usually start by playing ten handed at five tables. When a player loses all his chips he’s eliminated (if it’s not a re-buy tournament, where players have the possibility of buying in again during a specified time period). When players get eliminated, tables are broken-up and re-configured and some of the remaining players have to move. For instance, if there are ten players on one table and seven players on two others, two players from the ten-handed table may move to the seven-handed ones, making all three tables eight-handed. The tournament is over when one player has knocked everyone else out and has all the chips in front of him.