It may be that I've found the only spot in the country that you can
use comp dollars for low buy-in tournament poker. I've never seen it
anywhere else. Anyways it makes money but is very time consuming and
can be very frustrating.
They are not tournaments that I would put my money in but since I get
to play for free what the heck.
The higher buyin ones work like this. $800 in chips. The blinds
start at 5/10 then go to 10/25, 25/50, 50/100. So you start with 80
times the big blind. The rounds are fifteen minutes. The dealing is
not the best. The players are calling stations, which gets them
crushed in the live games but works to their advantage in the
tournaments. You get to see maybe 7 or 8 hands per round. This
means that about 15 hands into the tournament you are at the 25/50
leval and if you haven't played a hand your stack is now only about
15 times the big blind. At this point you are not far from move-in
status if you are going to play a hand.
There is not bet and take the pot. There is no bluffing these calling
stations until you are down to getting close to the money (3 to 5
places depending on the number of players) at which time they may
start thinking.
So the whole thing is a crap shoot! But I do manage to snag a payday
every once in a while.
More on comp dollars and tournaments later.