Pokeriad / Learn / Tournaments
Updated November 2026
In a poker tournament you pay one entry, get a fixed stack of chips and play until you run out or hold them all, while the blinds keep rising. Usually the top 12 to 15 percent of the field gets paid, with the biggest prizes saved for the last few players.
| Stack | What to do |
|---|---|
| 40 or more | Play your normal game |
| 20 to 40 | Raise smaller, steal more from late seats |
| 10 to 20 | Raise small or move all-in |
| Under 10 | Move all-in or fold |
Everyone pays the same entry and gets the same number of chips. Those chips have no cash value, and you can't buy more when they're gone unless the event allows it. You keep playing until you lose them all, and the tournament ends when one player holds every chip in the room.
Since chips aren't money, your prize depends on the order you go out. Whoever finishes 20th earns less than whoever finishes 10th, however many chips each of them held at any point in the day.
A tournament listed as $100+$20 costs you $120. The $100 goes to the prize pool and the $20 is the fee the room keeps for running it. Add up the entries and you have the prize pool: 100 players at $100 is $10,000.
Put in the numbers from a tournament you've seen and you'll know what's up for grabs before you sit down.
The blinds rise on a timer so the tournament has an end. A level might last 20 minutes or an hour, and each new level makes your stack smaller in big blinds even if you haven't lost a hand.
A 5,000-chip stack that never wins a pot goes from 100 big blinds at 25/50 to about 6 at 400/800.
That's why the number of big blinds you have tells you more than the number of chips. At about 30 hands an hour, a 20-minute level gives you about 10 hands and a one-hour level gives you 30, which is the reason slower structures suit a beginner.
Measured in big blinds at each blind level
An ante is a small forced bet that makes every pot bigger before anyone looks at their cards. Many tournaments now use a big blind ante, where the player in the big blind pays it for the whole table, so the dealer doesn't have to collect a chip from nine people on every hand.
It shows up a few levels in, and from then on there's more in the middle worth fighting for.
Only the top finishers get paid, and the prizes climb steeply toward the end. At the 2026 WSOP Main Event, 1,383 of 9,208 players were paid, which is 15%, and the winner took $10,000,000 of the $85,634,400 prize pool, about 12%. In a small field the winner's share is much bigger.
The first paying places don't pay much. Under the European Poker Tour's old 15 percent payouts, the minimum prize was about 1.7 times the buy-in. The moment just before the paying places begin is called the bubble, and it's when the pressure on medium stacks is highest.
Pick a small entry and a slow structure, with levels of 30 minutes or more if you can find them. Arrive before registration closes, and ask at the desk what the structure sheet says about levels, breaks and re-entries. You'll be told your table and seat, and the dealer will take it from there.
Play tighter than you think you should for the first hour, because you've got plenty of big blinds and no reason to gamble. When your stack falls under about 20 big blinds, stop limping, which means just calling the big blind, and start raising or moving all-in.
If you plan to play tournaments often, keep at least 100 buy-ins set aside, as our bankroll guide explains, because even good players go a long way between paid finishes.
Late in a tournament, the blinds are 300 and 600 and there's no ante. Your stack is down to 6,000, which is 10 big blinds, and everyone folds to you in the small blind.
King-six doesn't look like much, but with a stack this short the push/fold chart says to move all-in, and it shoves this hand with up to 15 big blinds. Moving all-in also means the big blind can't raise you off the hand.
You collect the 900 in the pot. That's your own 300 back plus 600 from the big blind, which is what a shove earns when it isn't called.
Twelve spots in three rounds.
Whatever the listing says, plus the fee. Entries run from nothing for a freeroll up to $10,000 for the World Series main event, and everything in between.
It depends on the size of the field and the length of the levels, so ask at the desk. Budget for the whole evening in case you do well, and big festival events can run for days.
You're out, unless the tournament allows a re-entry or a rebuy and you still want in.
Send them the prize pool math.