As well as the various betting structures, there are also two distinct forms of poker. The first is the ring game (or cash game) in which a player’s chips represent the real money amount that they bought in for. Ring games vary in table stakes, from as low as 1c/2c blinds online or as small as $50 in real live poker rooms around the world today. Depending on the casino or online poker site the player is then usually given a stack of chips equalling the monetary value the player has bought in for. Tables usually have a set minimum or maximum buy ins, when a player drops below a certain monetary point they have the option to reload/top up their stacks to the table maximum. With a ring game style a player can come and leave at their leisure, you can pick up your chips and cash them in whenever you feel like it.

The other form of poker is tournaments. This style of poker is the more famous style of the two. Often seen on TV with such shows as WPT – World Poker Tour, WSOP – World Series of Poker or many other well produced poker shows.

Tournament poker is different from ring games. All competing players during a tournament start with the same amount of ‘tournament chips’. The blinds start off small increasing at certain levels to add pressure to the players and to hopefully get a result from a tournament at a certain time frame.

In poker tournaments players buy an entry for the same amount as all the other players, they are given a chip stack which does not represent a real dollar amount, rather the chips are their form and means of eliminating and gathering more chips by using their values to bet with. Tournament poker is a game of survival, and when players lose all of their chips, they are eliminated from the tournament. The aim is to be the last person standing with all the chips in play. Most tournaments are paid to the top 10-15% of the original starting fields.

Buy-ins to these tournaments can vary from $50 in a live tournament to $10,500 for the WSOP main event. However online sites such as Poker Stars can provide tournament buy-ins for as little as $1 working there way up to the high roller levels. Also for those new players that are not yet comfortable to play for real money as yet a lot of poker sites including Poker Stars offer freeroll tournaments where the buy-in is free but you have the chance to win real money.