When it comes to online poker, there are two basic distinctions between types of play. There are regular "ring" games where nine or more players sit around a table and play as long as they want with varying buy ins, and then there are tournaments. Tournaments are a completely different style of poker, and they require an alternate strategy in order to be successful.

While ring-style poker is not bound by any time limits, tournament style decidedly is. Tournaments are set to last for a pre-determined amount of time, and the way that they speed up the elimination process is by raising the blinds. Perhaps we should look at the nature of tournament blinds and buy ins.

For tournaments, instead of getting a dollar-to-chip value for your buy in, the player instead pays the tournament fee and receives a pre-determined stack of "fake" chips. This stack can be around 1,500, for example. Everyone at the tournament starts out with the same stack size so that the playing field is completely level.

The blinds for each tournament are also pre-set. They may start off quite small, say $1/$2, or even smaller. The trick with a tournament is that these blinds quickly double in size. Tournaments at VIPpoker.com for example, increase the blinds every 15 minutes. This makes game play very exciting as players are forced to make "moves" or risk losing their stack to the increased blind sizes. For exciting online poker tournaments, sign up at VIPpoker.com.