An explaination

Hey there, friends and family and pretty much anyone that wants to read in on this ridiculous misadventure. I've created this blog not only to help ME keep track of my current progress, but also to help the people close to me to understand the poker world better.

So tonight I'll start small. I want to explain the two different 'types' of poker in which people generally make money:

Tournaments:
A tournament is what you see on TV most of the time. People pay money to be able to play, and are each given a certain amount of chips at the start of the game. The game is played until EVERYONE runs out of chips except for the last person who... wins. Money is doled out by what place you take, first getting quite a bit more than any of the other places. For instance, in a 9 person game, if everyone pays $10 to get into the game (for a total prize pool of $90) 3rd place gets $18, 2nd gets $27, and 1st gets the lion share of $45, which is half of the pot. 4th-9th place get ZERO.

Cash Games:
Cash games are quite a bit different than tournaments. In a tournament, if you run out of chips, you're out, and you can't play anymore in that particular game. In a cash game if you run out of chips, you can just reach into your wallet and buy more chips. You're allowed to cash out whenever you feel like it, or play for 30 hours straight, whatever you want. This is actually the sort of game people generally get 'addicted' to and can't stop playing, even after losing immense amounts of money. Lots of pros will play this sort of game because if they can get someone rich to play with them, they'll ALL have a pretty nice payday, even if the rest of the table has a bunch of pros sitting there. All they need is one 'fish' to make it worth their while. One thing I'd like to point out to avoid confusion: tournament poker IS played for cash, but it isn't a 'cash game'.

Now then, what sort of poker player am I? I play both types, but I generally like to play in tournaments. We'll see if I start playing more cash games as my poker skill develops. Anyways, hopefully this is a good first post, please, I welcome ALL comments! I love comments! I'd love to explain things that you're confused about, assuming it doesn't ALSO confuse me :P

Take 'er easy!

-Trike