WSOP and Poker Tournaments

The World Series of Poker first started in 1970 at Binion's Casino in Las Vegas and today is considered the most prestige's poker tournament held any where in the world. In the last few years the field of players has been enormous in number and the prize money has been several million dollars to the winner of the tournament.  They have been showing the poker tournaments on TV and the camera view of what each player is holding has helped to gain a huge TV audience.  Three factors have attracted the large number of players to tournament poker.   The many televised tournaments that are now shown on TV are one factor of the growth.  Another factor is the many satellite tournaments where a player can pay a small entry fee and win the entry into the tournaments.   The final factor is the popularity of Internet poker and the many tournaments that offered daily at these online poker casinos, there are literally thousands of them to choose from.  This has allowed many young players to gain experience and they now make the final table at many tournaments that are shown on TV.

There is a significant difference between tournament poker and cash game poker.  When you lose all of your chips in a cash game, you can purchase more.   In a tournament when your stack is gone, you are over in that tournament.  So the secret is to maintain your chip total at a good level and try to make the final table where the prize money is the highest.  When the blinds are low, the player can take some flyers with suited connectors and lower pairs.  When the blinds get really big, the better hands may not come and you need to be more aggressive or you will be blinded out of the tournament.  It is easier said than done to wait for really concrete starting hands in tournament play.   Aggression is rewarded and the art of the bluff is a big part of the way the game is played.  Calling significant raises in tournaments must be done only when you have a solid hand or have many outs that can give you a winning hand.  Gambling early on in the tournament on marginal hands is a sure way to get eliminated from the tournament.  Of course if the cards are running over you, then you can play almost any two cards in Holdem. For new players the budget tournaments that are held daily on virtually all the sites are a superb place to learn to play tournaments.