Practicing Holdem Poker Tournament Play

US players are welcome

The best way to gain experience in playing tournaments is to jump right in and buy in to some poker tournaments on your online poker rooms of choice. UltimateBet has no-limit Holdem tournaments for buy-ins as low as $5, plus a $0.50 entry fee.

Two nice things about those $5 Texas Holdem tournaments are that they run several a day, and they don’t allow rebuys. The low cost means players won’t be too upset about blowing off their chips early in the tournament, but at least the really reckless ones are likely to go out early. Watch out for the ones that catch cards, though!

If you’d rather practice against the computer, you can invest in Tournament Texas Holdem from Wilson Software. As shown in Figure 1, you can choose between limit, pot-limit, and no-limit betting; play against average, above average, or tough competition; choose the number of players; allow or disallow rebuys; and choose the starting chip count and blind structure.

Figure 1 Set up the poker tournament you’d like to play today.

Each type of tournament offers a number of blind structures and progressions you can follow. Many tournaments in online poker rooms raise the betting limits very quickly to eliminate players and get the tournament over with, while the larger tournaments raise the betting limits more slowly so that better players can choose the hands with which they want to take on the competition. Figure 1 shows you the screen you can use to choose the bl­­ind structure and progression for no-limit tournaments.

Also recommended:

1. Single Table No-Limit Texas Holdem Tournament Tips
2. Texas Holdem Tournament Types
3. Table Image: Tight Play
4. Play Poker Information
5. Turbo Multi Table Tournament Tips