3D Poker Room offers the most true-to-life
online poker tournaments on the Internet. Whether
you're a tournament expert or novice, the poker
tournaments at 3D Poker Room will provide you with
hours of challenge and entertainment. Click here for tournament schedule.
Online poker tournaments are friendly
competitions involving 10 to 1000+ players, all
of whom start playing at the same time (at one or
more tables) until one person -- the winner -- remains.
All players start with the same amount of chips,
called "tournament chips", used during the course
of each poker tournament. As time progresses, the
stakes rise, making it more and more difficult to
stay in the game.
Players who fall behind will ultimately "bust out"
(lose all their chips) and be removed from the table.
Games are typically played until only one person
remains. Players are awarded prize money based on
their finishing position in the group.
Each tournament has a "registration
period". Registration periods are between 2 and
30 minutes, and typically immediately precede the
tournament start time. To sign up in a tournament
in 3D Poker Room, click the "Trny List" tab in the
Poker Rooms window. (The Poker Rooms window lists
all poker rooms at 3D Poker Room and can be accessed
via the Rooms button in the upper left of the display.)
Each upcoming poker tournament in the list shows
a time (to the right side) when registration starts:
i.e. "reg starts in X mins". Simply wait for the
time to arrive, and then click once on the tournament
to get a Pop-up menu. The menu offers you the option
to register. You will also notice that the time
now shows "reg ends in X mins" which lets you know
when registration will end and the tournament will
start.
You are free to play in other games, or even leave
the site while registration is underway -- your
place is reserved. You will be automatically placed
into your seat when the poker tournament starts
(even if you're not online; more on this below).
To see details of any tournament
on 3D Poker Room, locate a list of all tournaments
under the "Trny List" tab on the Poker Rooms window.
(If the Poker Rooms window is not visible, click
once on the Rooms button in the upper left of the
display). Click ONCE on any listed poker tournament
and then choose Properties to see all details of
the chosen tournament.
Some of the more significant tournament factors
include:
Buy-in:
how much does it cost to enter
Entry
fee: how much does 3D Poker Room charge
Prize
money: how much prize money will be given to winners
Number
of winners: how many winners (and what % does
each get)
The cost to enter a poker tournament
can range from zero, to a nominal amount, to amounts
as high as $100 or more. 3D Poker Room offers both
Play money and Real money tournaments. When you
register, the entry cost is deducted from your account.
If you un-register before the tournament starts,
the cost is refunded.
Entry costs typically involve a Buy-in, which is
put towards the prize pool. There is also an entry
fee, which is 3D Poker Room's fee for hosting the
games. For example, a tournament might involve 30
people, each of whom buys in for $10 plus a $1 entry
fee. Each player's $10 goes towards the prize pool,
which in this case would equal $300. The $300 prize
would be split, likely between the top 3 players,
in a ratio of 50%, 30% & 20%; or $150, $90 &
$60.
Separate from the entry fee or buy-in, each tournament
has a "starting chip amount" -- the amount of chips
you will be given at the start of the tournament.
Chips are often set relative to the buy-in, but
not always. (For example, a $10 buy-in for a tournament
with a $1000 starting chips amount.)
Some poker tournaments (called free roll) will have
no buy-in or entry fee, but still offer a prize,
funded by the house. Other poker tournaments might
require you to place in the top 10 of a prior tournament
-- called a satellite.
And, it goes on and on. There is an endless combination
of possibilities -- and that's part of what makes
it so much fun!
As registration ends and the tournament
starts, you will automatically be seated at a table
with your previously allocated starting chips. If
you're in a game at the time, you will be moved
as soon as you exit the hand (either at the end,
or by folding). If you are disconnected or offline
at the start time, your avatar is still seated at
a table. All poker tournaments have a designated
"seating" time or "pull in" time to accommodate
players in another game when the start occurs.
3D Poker Room offers multi-table
poker tournaments. Tournaments with more than 10
players will therefore have more than one table.
A 60-person tournament will start out with 6 tables
of 10 players, and finish with just two players
at one table. So in order to keep the games fair,
tables are "balanced" as players are eliminated.
For example, suppose there were three tables with
10, 9, and 9 players respectively. If 2 players
were eliminated from one of the tables of 9, that
would leave three tables with 10, 9, and 7 players.
In such a situation, we would move a player from
the table of 10 to the table of 7, resulting in
a better balance of 9, 9, and 8 players at the three
tables. Generally, we will move a player to another
table whenever there is a difference of 3 or more
players between tables. In some rare cases, we will
move a player when there is a difference of 4 or
more players.
Deciding which player to move is based on their
position relative to the dealer button. We try to
move the player who has just been passed by the
button, into a seat at the destination table that
has also just been passed by the button. But since
this is not always possible, we move the person
who is closest to this situation, into a position
that is also as close to his current one as possible.
Collapsing is a natural extension of balancing.
Once there is a total of 10 open seats among all
tables, the smallest table is broken up, and its
players moved to all remaining open seats. Here
again, each player's position relative to the button
is considered in the moves.
Some poker tournaments offer you
the option of getting more chips during the tournament.
A re-buy is an option to purchase more chips at
any time up to a certain stake level. For example
you might have the option to get an additional $500
worth of tournament chips at a cost of $5, until
the games reach 200/400 stakes, after which you'll
no longer have the option. (Note: you cannot re-buy
if your chips amount is more than the original starting
chips.)
An add-on is very similar to a re-buy except it
is offered at a specific time to all players who
choose the option. For example, just before the
stakes rise to 150/300, you'll be offered the choice
of getting $200 worth of tournament chips for an
additional cost of $2.
All add-on and re-buy amounts are added to the prize
pool.
In a live tournament, if you've registered
and don't show up, or if you leave mid-game, your
seat is still dealt cards and your blinds are paid
by chips from your stack. The same occurs when you're
disconnected at 3D Poker Room -- your character
will become translucent (and green) to others in
the game, and you will fold each hand, even those
where your character bets the blinds. This is called
being "Blinded-off".
When you register for a tournament, you must accept
this risk in order to play.
As noted above, if you get disconnected,
your player will continue playing and be Blinded-off
until all your chips are gone. You also have the
option to set your game into this mode manually
by clicking the Blind-off check box in the upper
left area of the display while you're in a tournament
game. This affords you the option of leaving your
machine for a while during the tournament. But be
warned: blinds will still be taken when your turn
arrives.
While rare, it is possible that a
technical problem will stop or abort the poker tournaments
in progress. As of this writing, the software was
in Beta tests and the only option was to reset the
poker tournaments and refund all players with their
buy-ins. The full release will resume either at
the hand preceding the problem, or even at the same
point in the game.
When you register for a poker tournament
on 3D Poker Room, you must accept the following
rules and conditions:
If
you are disconnected or leave the game, your character
will continue playing by folding each hand and
paying the blinds.
While
in an online poker tournament, your account cannot
play in another game.
You
can only be registered for one tournament at a
time and can only register for a tournament while
not in another.
Once
the tournament starts, you cannot withdraw or
receive a refund for any buy-in, re-buy, or add-on
used -- unless the tournament is aborted by the
house.
Site
hosts can revoke chat privileges if deemed appropriate.
