Why play Tournament Poker?

One of the most exciting forms of poker is multi table tournaments, or mtt as they are often shortened to. Whist being fun is obviously a good reason to play mtt poker, but are there any other favourable attributes to tournament poker?

Many new players begin their poker careers playing tournaments thinking they are simple, without actually realising they can be extremely complex indeed. Rather than seeing this they see tournaments as being in their comfort zone in that they know exactly how much they need to spend to enter, how much they can potentially win and roughly how long they will have to play in order to win that money. These are all valid reasons though not the most common reason people play mtt poker.

A popular reason for playing poker tournaments is the chance to turn a relatively small sum of money into something far more substantial in just a few hours of play. Most tournaments pay out around 15-25% of the prizepool for the winner of the tournament and this can range from $100 for the low buy-in tournaments all the way up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the large buy-in events. The chance to win a massive amount of money is often enough to lure anyone into playing poker tournaments.

However, apart from the money and the excitement, one of the most popular reasons people play mtt poker is the challenge and the ability to lay claim to being the best in that particular tournament. Many players simply enjoy the battle of wits that comes up all the time in tournaments and trying to out move their opponents and take their entire stack is enough to keep them buying into more tournaments every day. There is also more kudos attached to being a winning tournament player than being a winning cash game player, with plenty more sponsorship opportunities available to successful mtt players.