Making Money Playing Tournaments:

People have various reasons for playing poker. Some do it for fun, others do it to relax and there are players who do it for the money. Although majority of those who tried making money end up losing it. This is due to the fact that most of them think they already got the skills but in the end find out that they still lack it.

Those serious about making money from tournament poker understand that it is also a job that should be taken seriously. You have to put in enough hours to begin making money. From your experiences, you learn and improve your game and in the end you'll see the profits trickle in and through time it might start pouring in as well.

For some people, poker is all about pots, be it big or small. They might have erratic streaks. Sometimes they might win big and the next day they might lose big as well. They start to think that money could be plucked in bundles but in reality it must be nurtured first. With proper nursing and cultivating, your poker skills might reap an abundant harvest.

You'll know a person will be successful in tournament poker when he has already logged in hours and hours of game play. You can't hope to win at once. You have to experience everything first, even losing big and those long droughts.

Players need to have good skills in order to win most tournaments. First of all, there aren't that many brick and mortar poker tournament available around the clock. You could not put a lot of hours and effort playing poker tournaments across the globe. If you do, you could have a very high expense account. Although tournaments have a much lower rake than ring games, add the expenses to the equation and you'll be getting the same rake level. Expenses include transportation, food and lodging.

Poker players must pay rake to the hotels and airlines, thus resulting to a lot of poker money going out of circulation. This is also the case of satellites, in which casinos have devised to charge players rake on the same money two times. Tournaments thus cause poker money to go to the pockets of non-poker players.

But this does not mean that poker players can't make money from winning tournaments. They just need to keep in mind that time does mean money and that the rake includes all their expenses. Players who thins that a big jackpot after a long losing streak is enough for them to keep going is not suited to play tournament poker. That big jackpot is just enough compensation for the time they spent losing. Some players would spend their entire prize money in one night, not thinking about the future. It is important to factor in all the expenses incurred before winning that jackpot.

Tournaments and ring games actually have something in common. Both have talented players who don't understand the concept that playing poker should be considered a job and not just some hobby. There are looking for that big win when in fact they could accumulate small prize, playing smaller events or tournaments.

Winning poker tournaments is a systematic process of cause and effect. Don't think of scoring that big jackpot. Treat it as a 8 to 5 job, where you should consider prizes as your wage and expenses as additional rake.

Now that we got that out of the way, next thing to do is to think of winning. Don't let anything distract you from your focus. You should always think of maximizing your potential win. There are ways in which to achieve this.

Let's look at this example. There are only eight of the original 12 tables left in the tournament. The game is Omaha High/Low and there are 3 players left on the table. The blinds are 150/300 with John having the medium stack. One player limped. John raised with his 2-4-Q-A. The big blind called. The first player called. John was sure the limper didn't have a premium hand since he limped before the flop.

The flop is 9-J-J and didn't help John's cause. The first player went all in. John raised 250. The big blind folded. As it is, John has succeeded in his goal of eliminating someone from the pot, thus having a better pot equity. Not only that, even if the limper wins, he managed to win some chips and John gets the rest, including that of the big blind.

As you can see, tournament play is not about eliminating someone out of the match. Players must have positive expectation and their goal should be to maximize their financial expectation. Remember that in poker, money matters the most above anything else. Don't ever forget that you came to win and not to have a good time.