Variations on the game of poker have been played from the days of the Sung Dynasty in China to seventeenth century France. Over time, the game became more and more standardized, and eventually tournaments began to be held in order to determine the best players and to reward them quite handsomely for their efforts.

Poker tournaments are held in casinos all over the world, but perhaps the most competitive tournament is the World Series of Poker, which was first won by Johnny Moss in 1970. After being held at Binion's Horseshoe for over 30 years, Harrah's Casino bought the rights to the tournament in 2003, to be held at the Rio Hotel and Casino each year. Today, satellite tournaments are held in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, as well as in casinos all over the world.

Tournaments usually focus on only one poker variation at a time, with the most popular format being Texas Hold'em, where players get two cards that they use along with five community cards to make the best five-card poker hand possible. Other popular games include 5-card and 7-card Stud, Omaha and Omaha Hi-Low. Within each of these games, there are also different betting formats, such as no-limit, where at any time a player may bet all of their chips; pot-limit, where players may only make raises up to the amount of chips that have been previously bet; or a structured betting system, where the minimum and maximum wagers on each turn are predetermined and cannot be changed.

Because legal poker tournaments may only be held in licensed casinos, the bulk of poker tournaments take place in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. However, with the advent of the Internet, there are numerous legitimate online operations like Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Titan Poker, all of which allow the poker player to take part in the action from the comfort of their own home (see Resources below).

Naturally, the bigger the tournament, the harder it is to win. The easiest type of tournament to win is what is known as a "sit-and-go" which usually involves only one table of players, all of whom sign up for a tournament at a casino, and as soon as 10 players are ready to play, they all "sit" and then the tournament is a "go." Typically, these events are finished within 90 minutes, and monetary prizes are often awarded to the top two finishers, with the larger share going to the last person standing. Larger, multiple-table tournaments will have a larger payout, but can take much longer to complete. Assuming there are a large enough number of players who sign up to play, casinos will typically pay out prize monies to all players who survive until the "final table" and possibly even a small percentage of players beyond that final group.

There's no substitute for learning the game of poker and playing as much as possible in preparation for a tournament. While luck does play a huge part in winning any poker tournament, the fact remains that the players with the best cards do not always win, since bluffing is a huge part of the game. Discretion is often the better part of valor in a poker tournament. If you know there are only 10 players left, and only 9 will win a cash prize, you might want to sit back a bit and let the other players fight it out so that you can slide into a money position, rather than taking an unnecessary risk and missing out at the last possible moment.