Poker on its own can be a very intimidating game, but tournament poker is usually carries far more of an intimidation factor for players, especially those new to the game.  Many players believe that all tournament poker enthusiasts are hardcore experts that do nothing but play hand after hand all day long.  While this is certainly true of a number of players, the vast majority of tournament opponents you’ll face, both online and live, are just casual players that are looking for some poker fun.  There are many reasons to try and poker tournament while you realize that, including these:

1.  Minimum Financial Risk:  When you sit down at a cash game you can continuously pull more money out whenever you lose all of your chips and continue playing, which can often lead to big losses when you do not know when to quit.  Tournament poker however features a set buy-in which limits how much money you will have to risk in order to enjoy some poker action.

2.  Faster Gameplay:  This varies largely on the caliber of dealer and aggressiveness of the players at your table, but tournament games very often progress faster than a cash game.  Since the blinds (and eventually antes) go up reach round, players are encouraged to see as many hands as possible per hour.  This will get you used to fast-paced poker games and make it easier for you to stay alert.

3.  Variety of Opponents:  You can play at a cash game for hours and maybe only see one or two new faces come into the game over that period.  In a tournament however, especially if you survive to the later rounds, you’ll get the experience of playing with a wide range of opponents, which is key to developing your quick-read abilities and being able to get reads on a player that you’ve just met.

BY: Chris Iaquinta

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 8:27 am and is filed under Poker Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.