From the commoner’s point of view, these factors are important too because of the significance they bear towards the money-making potential of the game. We all know that – with few exceptions – big money is not made at low limit cash tables. High stakes maybe, but low stakes cash games require an extra special approach to be lucrative and that is multi-tabling.

If you’re just a regular player looking to generate some extra cash you’re not going to find multi-tabling particularly entertaining or fulfilling, and you will probably not possess the funds to break into high-limit games. What’s the answer for you? Tournaments.

Why tournaments?

Before you even sit down to a poker table, you already run into a few hindering factors you  might not even be aware of: few recreational players ever play properly bankrolled, and we can’t all be professionals can we? A great many poker websites out there promise to turn you into a pro, but statistically, the vast majority of online poker players are recreational players.

The poker rake has a huge yet subtle impact on your bankroll. In cash games, you pay rake on every hand you play, in proportion with the size of the pot that goes down.

Interestingly enough, you even pay rake when you don’t win, but that’s a different story. Anyway, in a tournament you pay a one time fee (registration fee), and no matter how many hands you play from there on, you don’t pay any more rake. Being under-bankrolled is not an issue either.

In tournaments everyone starts with an equal number of chips. The differences that will surface later on will be all due to the difference in skill (and sometimes luck) between players, and thus they’ll all be a 100% fair.

Last, but certainly not least, one doesn’t have to win in a poker tournament to walk away with some cash. He/she merely needs to make it to a money position. Even the last such position practically guarantees an almost double return on the tournament’s n initial costs.