Even Money Tournaments and Ring Games

PokerStars has even money tournaments, sort of.  For their 2¢ and 10¢ buy-in sit n go tournaments the payouts equal the buy-ins.  For tournaments above 10¢ buy-ins, the house payout is less than the buy-in.

The buy-in is the entry fee that each player pays to play in the tournament.  Sometimes, in bigger sit n gos there is a buy-in fee plus another fee, whatever the case, thinking terms of the online site, they neither gain or lose from these tournaments. Just 360 players are allowed to register and with the rapidly escalating blinds these sit n gos finish fast.

For these tournaments to be even money, a participant should play no-limit hold 'em fairly well.  The players who play below average will be long term losers. In addition to improving from experience, learn from books, dvds, websites and observing others.  Think in the long term, because the effects of luck are diminished then.  Expect to have long losing streaks and some winning streaks.

Ring games where the pot, at PokerStars is below 20¢, has no rake.  The rake is only a penny for 20¢ but it adds up: saving a nickel a day adds up to over $18 in a year.  Games that have just one to four players have pots that frequently stay below 20¢.  In addition, playing heads up is a usefull skill to have when moving up to small stakes where the play is more aggressive, there is more bluffing and the number of opponents decrease instantly.  Heads up is tough against aggressive and loose players who play well after the flop by folding and bluffing in the right mix.