A poker live tournament, while intimidating, is an experience you will forever remember. Whether you’re placed at a table with very talkative play poker enthusiasts or surrounded by sullen poker faces giving glances, at a poker tournament you’re sure to experience a sea of emotions.
However, while learning how to bluff and sending dubious glares to the fellow poker players can be fun. But it shouldn’t be top priority at your first poker live tournament. Rather, your focus should be on what you do in the moments before you pick up your first card. It can be from searching a seat to gathering your chips. Preparation, you will hit upon, is important.
Take a look at our guide, below:
Get to grips with your chips
It might appear to be straight and simply knowing where to exchange chips can confuse many first-time players. Normally, you will be able to find chips either behind a cashier’s desk, from dealer at the table. Or as you enter the tournament space at the front of the room. A few tournament spaces will exchange chips in all three areas. While others will only offer them from one, it’s worth scoping out the entire floor before you find your seat.
Once you’ve got your chips and you’re set to play poker online, it’s time to stack them up. As civility to other players, you should aim to keep your chips in neat stacks of 5, 10 or 20 chips. This makes it easy for your players to see how much is at stake. And it is considered a vital element in many no-limit and pot-limit games.
Take a seat, but not immediately
Just like you wouldn’t walk into a table-service restaurant and find your own seat. At a poker tournament you must also wait your turn.
Once you’re ready to start playing, head to the front desk of the poker room and tell them which games you’re interested in. They’ll then either put you on a waiting list for when an opening comes up, or, if you’re lucky, you’ll be guided to a vacant spot in an active game. Just keep in mind not to wander off if your name is on the waiting list as you’ll overlook your turn!
Abide by the etiquette
While you may be well-versed in what to wear to a casino, there are many more etiquette rules you need to know before going to your first poker live tournament.
One of the most vital rules you should adhere to is playing ‘in turn’. This factually means you wait for your turn, i.e. you let the game roll out clockwise as each player passes the turn to their left. Get distracted or ignore the rules and you could accidentally act ‘out of turn’, something which will not only exasperate your fellow players, repeated offences could see you removed from the game completely. This is bound to irk players and could demonstrate your lack of experience.
Now you know what to expect from your first live poker tournament, the power is in your hands.
Happy playing poker!