If you’re a poker player looking for ways to up your game or just for a more competitive environment in which to test your poker skills, online poker tournaments at BetMGM could be the way to go. The best online poker sites like BetMGM host daily tournaments that offer you the chance to increase your endurance levels and hone your skills against like-minded players in a secure, competitive environment. With a wide variety of buy-in levels starting from less than a dollar, you’ll be sure to find tournaments that match your personal ambition as a player. 

Here’s a look at what you need to know, from the types of daily online poker tournaments you can join online, other elements that affect tournament play, as well as some poker tournament tips.

What Are Daily Poker Tournaments

How often you can play in poker tournaments depends on the type of poker tournament you play. One of the easiest types of poker tournaments to get into is the daily poker tournament.

Sometimes referred to as dailies, daily poker tournaments are poker tournaments that occur every day. While live poker rooms sometimes offer dailies, such as a 7 p.m. $50 No Limit Hold’em, daily real money poker tournaments are most often found at online poker sites. Since no physical space is required to handle the players, sites can offer as many dailies as the players want to take part in.

For example, most daily online poker tournaments at BetMGM occur every day at the same time. The variety of dailies includes buy-ins from $5 to $50, variations of No Limit Hold’em and Omaha, and formats such as turbos, knockouts, deepstacks, and six-max tables. Currently, more than 30 dailies are available on BetMGM Poker.

Multi-Table Tournaments and Sit & Gos

There are two main types of online poker tournaments you can play at BetMGM: multi-table tournaments (MTTs) and Sit & Go poker tournaments (SNGs). The difference between them lies in the timing and logistics of each format. 

MTTs have scheduled start times and multiple tables of players. They can range from dozens to thousands of players, and buy-ins for dailies usually range from low ($5 or $10) to medium ($25 or $50). Higher buy-ins are usually offered weekly and in special tournament series. 

SNGs don’t have officially scheduled start times. Instead, they start whenever a specific number of players register. A 9-player SNG will start as soon as there are nine players registered to play. That could be minutes or hours after registration opens, depending on the time of day and how many others play at that particular buy-in level. 

Just as there’s a poker tournament strategy for beginners, there’s a poker tournament strategy for both types of tournaments, but the SNG strategy is much more defined and straightforward once you learn how to play SNG poker tournaments. 

Multi-table tournament strategy can become quite intricate and advanced, depending on a variety of factors, from stakes to online versus live, and from early to late stages, just to name a few. But are MTTs better than SNG tournaments? That’s a personal preference for each player.

Buy-Ins for Daily Poker Tournaments

There’s a wide variety of buy-ins for daily tournaments, depending on the poker site you choose for your play. Most sites want to appeal to a variety of players, so the range of buy-ins suits a lot of different players. On BetMGM Poker, for example, the daily tournament options range from $5 to $50, with most falling in the middle.

A poker buy-in guide can help you understand the tournament buy-in process. For the dailies, buy-ins are fairly straightforward, but it’s important to remember that a portion of the buy-in serves as a fee to the website, while the majority goes to the prize pool. You can see the breakdown by simply clicking on the tournament in the online poker lobby and looking at the details. For example, on BetMGM, a $5 buy-in puts $4.50 into the prize pool and charges $0.50 for the site fee. And a $50 buy-in sends $46 to the prize pool and $4 to the site.

Full Ring Table or Short-Handed Play?

The number of players at a poker table changes the dynamics of the game. Depending on your skill set and playing style, you may prefer to play poker online at a table with more or fewer opponents. Daily tournaments don’t usually offer heads-up tables or four-max tables, but eight-max, seven-max, or six-max tables are very common. 

It’s a good idea to research how full ring vs short-handed poker games can affect strategy or the flow of the game, particularly if you’re a new player who is still learning the ropes with beginner poker tournament strategy cheat sheets. 

Here’s how the number of players affects the game or how you choose to play. 

• As a rule of thumb, facing fewer opponents at the table means having to play more aggressively. 
• Fewer players mean more hands played since a single round takes less time to get through.
• More players mean potentially larger pots but also potentially tighter play, depending on your position at the table.
• The strength of a hand goes down against more players as the chances of another player having a stronger or equally strong hand go up.
• Games with more players are more likely to have a “fish” (a weaker player). 
• If you like the idea of having one showdown after another, heads-up online poker may be the way to go.

Shootouts in Poker

Shootouts were common during the Wild West days of gambling, but today’s poker players conduct their shootouts with cards instead of firearms. Shootout tournaments are multi-level SNG events that run multiple single-table tournaments at the same time. Once each table has a winner, the winners match up for another round of single-table play. This repeats until the ultimate survivors meet for a showdown at the final table. 

As for poker tournament formats in daily lineups, shootouts are rare. They require a certain number of players, and that can be difficult to pull together on a daily basis. 

Rebuys

Apart from the tournament type and table sizes, online poker tournaments have other structures that can help you with your choice. One structure is known as a rebuy. This means you can pay for more chips if your poker tournament chip stack falls below a specific limit and within a designated period. 

For example, if you’ve joined a rebuy tournament with a 10,000-chip starting stack, and the tournament rules state that you can rebuy whenever you’re at 10,000 chips or lower during the first hour of play. If you meet those criteria, you can pay your entry fee again in exchange for another 10,000 chips. When the rebuy period is over, you can also pay a fixed “add-on” amount to add more chips to your stack.

While rebuys aren’t common in daily tournament lineups, it’s important to understand the concept of rebuys, add-ons, and chip distribution in poker tournaments.

Reentries

If you don’t successfully manage to navigate your way to the late stage of a poker tournament, reentry tournaments also allow you to purchase more chips, but unlike rebuys, you can only do so when your stack is reduced to zero. Another important difference is that rebuys allow you to purchase more chips and keep the same seat, but reentries give you a completely new seat, as though you’re a new player who just registered. 

One of the most common poker tournament questions pertains to this topic: Are there reentries? In the current state of poker, it’s generally the rule that almost all poker tournaments are now reentries. Unless a tournament specifically notes that it’s a freezeout, players can assume that the tournament allows reentries. The details of the number of reentries and the registration period during which they’re allowed can be found by clicking on the tournament and looking at the structure details. Knowing the poker tournament rules pertaining to reentries is important before deciding to play.  

Satellite Tournaments

Maybe you want to play in a high-stakes tournament, but the buy-in is too risky for your bankroll. The way around that is to enter a satellite poker tournament. The purpose of these low buy-in tournaments is to give you a chance to compete for a ticket to a higher-priced online tournament than you would normally be able to play.

Here’s an example of how it works. 

Imagine you want to enter the $50 buy-in daily online poker tournament. There will likely be online satellites or qualifiers to allow players to win their entry at a discount. On BetMGM, for example, the $50 Deepstack offers numerous satellites for just $5. Each satellite has a guaranteed number of seats available for the $50 tournament. Most satellites of this kind are turbo or hyper turbo structures, so they play very quickly, but they can be an effective way to stay within your poker bankroll while playing for more money than your usual buy-in level affords.  

Which Daily Poker Tournament Format is Right for You?

There are many types of poker tournaments, giving players a wide variety of options. In a daily online lineup, a poker site will typically offer mostly No Limit Hold’em, which is still the most popular variant, along with some Omaha tournaments for fans of four-card poker. You can also choose from a number of buy-ins, table sizes, and structures.

Your first consideration when choosing a daily tournament to play is your bankroll. Make sure to stay within your limits so as to preserve your tournament money for long-term variance.

Second, you should choose the format that best matches your skills. Do you make better decisions when under pressure to adhere to shorter levels, like in a turbo or hyper turbo structure? Do you prefer knockout or bounty tournaments that reward bounty prizes before the money bubble comes into play?

Finally, pay attention to the rebuy or reentry allowances for the tournaments. Note that in an unlimited reentry tournament, players may show a looser, more aggressive poker style in early stages if they know they can reenter. Consider the number of reentries you’re willing to pay, and play accordingly.

Play Daily Poker Tournaments at BetMGM Poker

You don’t have to look for the best daily poker tournaments in Las Vegas to enjoy good daily poker events, as BetMGM Poker offers a much more diverse and thorough lineup online every day. Simply register to play online poker on BetMGM by opening a new account. You’ll then be ready to play online poker for real money.