Online poker tournaments are fast becoming one of the most popular methods of gambling. The World Series of Poker is the top poker tournament in the world and it is possible to qualify for it at an online poker tournament. As a guide, the 2005 World Series of Poker prize money was $7.5m.

There are several types of online poker tournaments, including Rebuy, Freerolls and Elimination. Each of these tournaments ends with one player holding all the chips. Below is a brief guide to each of these online poker tournaments:

Rebuy Tournaments: Participants start with the same number of poker chips and the tournament plays out like a normal poker game until one player has all the chips. For a set period of the tournament however, the online players that lose can rebuy poker chips to get back into the tournament. This type of online tournament usually results in larger prize pools.

Satellite Tournaments: These are online tournaments where players have a chance to qualify for the main event. Once poker players make it through the online satellite tournament, they progress to the next tournament round and so on until the main tournament such as the World Series of Poker.

Elimination Tournaments: These online tournaments operate the same as the Rebuy Tournament, except there is no opportunity for players to rebuy and rejoin the poker. The winners of each online poker table compete against themselves.

Freeroll Tournaments: These online tournaments offer players free entrance and the chance of winning real cash prizes. A more detailed guide to this type of poker tournament is given in the site review below.

Online poker tournaments are rarely a quick affair and can take from around 2 hours right up to 6 hours, so make sure you have plenty of time spare. Reading other poker players is much harder in an online tournament that in a live poker situation. It is important therefore in online tournaments to take notes on other players and most sites have a notes system to facilitate this.

In every online tournament it is useful as a guide to calculate the number of chips it takes to reach the final.

The sites that are often acclaimed as the best for online poker tournaments include;

1. Poker Stars
2. Party Poker
3. Paradise Poker
4. Pacific Poker
5. Poker Room

These sites all offer regular online poker tournaments of many varieties, freerolls and often even seats to the World Series Of Poker.