Atlassino Academy · Poker in the room · Lesson 11

Tournaments: buy-in, structure and M

A tournament buy-in is split before the first card: part to the prize pool, part to the room. Here is how to read that split, the structure, and M, the orbits your stack covers.

  • About 18 minutes
  • Illustrated hosts: Leo and Maya
  • Last checked 27 October 2026

You pay the entry to a poker tournament. How much of that money ends up as prizes?

The short answer

Never all of it. The entry, the money you pay to play, is split before the first card. In the bases of a 2024 tournament at Casino Rinconada, run by Enjoy, about 90.9% of what the entries brought in was for the prize pool and about 9.1% was the casino’s, and the prize pool itself went half to prizes by place and half to bounties, the rewards for knocking other players out. After that, a tournament is a clock: the blinds, the two bets forced before each hand’s cards, rise at every level, and M, your stack divided by what one orbit costs, counts how many orbits the stack covers without playing a hand. An orbit is one full trip of the dealer’s button, the marker that moves one seat each hand, round the table.

One entry split three ways in the 2024 bases: almost half to prizes by place, almost half to bounties, and one part in eleven to the casino.

  • 45.5%Prizes by place.paid to the players who finish in the paying places.
  • 45.5%Bounties.paid to the players who knock others out.
  • 9.1%The casino.its right to the seat.

The split printed in the bases of one tournament from October 2024, an example and not a tournament on today’s schedule, with the shares rounded.

If you play only cash games, this lesson can wait; the poker room and its buy-in are lesson 7.3.

Leo, in the dealer’s place, sweeps an open hand round an oval poker table to trace one round of the button, while Maya, the plain white button beside her, counts a row of four chips with a fingertip; two more empty tables stand blurred behind.
Leo smiling, explaining with an open hand.

Leoformer dealer · rules and maths

When I dealt tournaments, the first line I read on a tournament sheet was never the prize. The first line I read was the one that splits the entry, because that line says how much of the money in the room ever comes back to the players.

The second thing I watched was the level clock. The blinds go up on the clock whether anybody plays a hand or not, and a stack that looked deep at the start can be short a few levels later without losing a single pot.

Whose rules a tournament follows

In a tournament the players, signed up in advance, compete against one another and knock each other out, round after round, until only one of them is left. The game itself follows the rules of the national catalogue of games for that game, plus the tournament’s own rules, and the casino has to send its tournament rules and bases to the regulator at least 5 days before the tournament.

The bases of each tournament are where its money and its structure are written down. In the bases of a 2024 tournament at Casino Rinconada, run by Enjoy, the rules of the catalogue for Texas hold’em applied, and the decisions of the tournament director were final; any agreement between players was banned, and nobody could play on another person’s behalf.

Where the entry goes

In a tournament the players play against one another, not against the house, and the casino is paid out of the entries. In a cash game the casino takes its commission from the pots instead, as lesson 7.3 shows.

The 2024 bases print the split to seven decimals; rounded, 90.9% of what was collected went to the pool shared out by the payout table, and 9.1% was the casino’s right to the seat. Of the pool, half was for the main prizes, by finishing place, and half for bounties. A bounty is the reward a player receives for knocking out one or more other players.

Add the entries up and the arithmetic shows. Take an example tournament of 30 entries of 11 units each, split the 2024 way: whoever finishes where, the prizes and the bounties add up to the pool, so the players as a whole get back less than they paid in, by the casino’s share. The 2024 bases also set a minimum for the prizes: if the entries did not reach it, the casino added the difference, in promotional chips.

  • Paid in by 30 entries of 11 units.330 units
  • Paid back as prizes by place.150 units
  • Paid back as bounties.150 units
  • Kept by the casino.30 units

An example field in betting units, with no minimum for the prizes, and not a forecast of any evening. In the 2024 split, one part in eleven of every entry stays with the casino, and our arithmetic turns the printed shares into those parts. Amounts are in betting units, not pesos: a unit can stand for any amount, and the arithmetic is the same at any scale.

Chips, levels and the ante

For the entry you get a starting stack of tournament chips: in the 2024 bases, 20,000 chips each. Tournament chips have no value: they are for that tournament only, valid at its tables, and cannot be exchanged for money.

The blinds rise at fixed steps called levels. In the 2024 bases the bet limits went up every 20 minutes, and every break lasted 15 minutes. The tournament had an ante, an extra bet that goes into the pot before the cards in addition to the blinds: it was always equal to the big blind, and only the player due to post the big blind put it in. How a hand is dealt and who posts the blinds is lesson 7.2.

A tournament also needs a field. The 2024 bases asked for at least 16 players signed up, or the tournament would not be played; tables and seats were drawn at random or given by the director, who could move players between tables to keep them balanced.

M: how many orbits your stack covers

M is your stack divided by what one orbit costs: the small blind, plus the big blind, plus the ante. Over one orbit every player pays each blind once and, at a table where the big blind puts in the ante, the ante once, so M counts how many full orbits the stack could pay for if you played no hand at all. A reference work describes volume 2 of Harrington on Hold ’em as introducing the M-ratio; the formula on this page is our own arithmetic.

Your stack divided by what one orbit costs, the small blind plus the big blind plus the ante, makes M.

Your stack10,000tournament chips
One orbit1,000small blind 200 + big blind 400 + ante 400
M10orbits the stack covers

M can carry a fraction, and the full orbits are M rounded down. At blinds of 75 and 150 with no ante, the same stack gives an M of 44.4, which pays for 44 full orbits.

Keep the same stack and let the levels rise, and M falls even though not a single chip has been lost.

  1. Level 1 · 25/50M 133.3
  2. Level 2 · 50/100M 66.7
  3. Level 3 · 75/150M 44.4
  4. Level 4 · 100/200 + ante 200M 20
  5. Level 5 · 150/300 + ante 300M 13.3
  6. Level 6 · 200/400 + ante 400M 10
  7. Level 7 · 300/600 + ante 600M 6.7
  8. Level 8 · 400/800 + ante 800M 5
  9. Level 9 · 500/1,000 + ante 1,000M 4
  10. Level 10 · 600/1,200 + ante 1,200M 3.3

An example structure, not any casino’s: the same stack of 10,000 tournament chips met at each level. At the first level with an ante, the cost of an orbit jumps.

M is counted in orbits and never in minutes. M tells you how much room the stack has; M does not tell you which hands to play, and nothing on this page does.

Who is paid, and in what order

At the end, the player holding the most tournament chips takes the first prize, the next the second, and so on down the paying places. How much each place gets comes from the payout table the bases attach, and the amount of the prizes depends on how many players signed up.

The payout table of the 2024 bases is a picture in the copy we read, with no text we could check, so the shares of each place are not on this page. Ask for the table of the tournament you play at its desk before you sign up.

Re-buys and late registration

A tournament that allows re-buys lets a player who has lost every chip pay the entry again and start over, and late registration lets players enter after the first level has begun. In the 2024 bases re-buys were unlimited but had to be made within the first 9 levels, each for the same chips the player started with, and late registration closed when the re-buys did, at the end of level 9.

  1. One entry.11 units
  2. One entry and one re-buy.22 units
  3. One entry and two re-buys.33 units

An example entry of 11 units, not a suggested one: every re-buy is the whole entry again.

Maya with a hand on her chest, speaking gently and seriously.

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

A re-buy is a new entry, the whole of it. How many entries the evening gets, re-buys included, is a number for home: fixed before you sign up, and not changed at the table.

A tournament prize is not income. On one evening, the cards decide far more of what happens than skill does, and the casino’s share is paid whatever happens.

If it stops being fun

If gambling stops being fun, the SCJ self-exclusion applies in every casino in the country. Minimum entry age: 18 (age of majority under Law 19.221; Law 19.995 bars minors from gaming rooms). The casino may ask for an official ID. More on responsible gaming.

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Practice: how many orbits?

Each step of the practice run is one level of an example structure: a stack of tournament chips, the two blinds and, from the first level with one, the ante. You work out either M or the number of full orbits the stack can pay for without playing a hand, and the answer shows how much an orbit has grown since the first level.

Nothing is bet here. The chips are tournament chips in an example structure, not any casino’s levels, and no money is involved.

The practice table needs JavaScript. Here is one level from it, with the answer.

An example level with an ante

With 10,000 tournament chips at this example level, what is your M?

  • An M of 12.5 That is the stack divided by the big blind alone. Every orbit also takes the small blind and the ante, so the stack pays for fewer orbits than that.
  • An M of 6.3 That counts the big blind and the ante and leaves out the small blind, which every orbit also takes.
  • An M of 8.3 That counts both blinds and leaves out the ante of 800, which goes in once every orbit at this example level as well.
  • An M of 5 One orbit costs 2,000 chips: the small blind of 400, the big blind of 800 and the ante of 800. 10,000 chips divided by 2,000 chips gives an M of 5.

One orbit at this example level costs 2,000 chips; at the first example level an orbit cost 75 chips. The levels keep rising whether you play hands or not, so a stack that does not grow covers fewer orbits at every level.

Every level in the practice run is worked out the same way: one orbit costs the small blind, the big blind and the ante, and the stack divided by that cost is M.

How the practice run works

Where the answers come from. Every level is three numbers from an example structure, the small blind, the big blind and the ante, and a stack; one orbit costs the three numbers added together, and the stack divided by that cost is M, worked out when the page is built. The wrong answers come from the same numbers, and each one is a named mistake: the stack divided by the big blind alone, by the small blind alone, with the small blind left out, or with the ante left out.

One strip, and no rounds. Every square on the strip is one level of this lesson, and all of the squares are there from the start. Your first answer fills the square it belongs to. This lesson has a single level, so when its squares are full no next level begins by itself: the summary of the run appears in its place, with no button in between. Practising a level you got wrong turns its cross into “fixed in practice” and does not change the count, because only first answers count.

Your progress stays in this browser, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Check yourself

Maya with a finger raised and a knowing look.

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

Three quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.

A question marked “New situation” asks you to use the lesson on a case it did not show.

1In the 2024 bases of the Casino Rinconada tournament, how much of what the entries brought in was the casino’s?

Show the answer

Answer: 9.1%, one part in eleven. Every entry is split before the first card, and the bases print the split.

  • Half of it Half of the prize pool goes to bounties; the casino’s share is far smaller.
  • 9.1%, one part in eleven That is the casino’s share the bases print; the other 90.9% was for the prize pool.
  • Nothing: all of it went to the prizes The bases keep 9.1% of what is collected for the casino, as its right to the seat.
2Under the same bases, a player loses every chip in the fifth level. What can that player do?

Show the answer

Answer: Pay a new entry and start again with the starting stack. A re-buy is a whole new entry, paid in money.

  • Pay a new entry and start again with the starting stack The bases allowed unlimited re-buys within the first nine levels, each for the same chips the player began with.
  • Borrow chips from another player at the table Tournament chips are for that tournament only; what the bases offer a player without chips is a re-buy.
  • Nothing: the tournament is over for that player Re-buys were allowed in the first nine levels, for any player left without chips.
3A stack of 12,000 tournament chips at blinds of 400 and 800, with an ante of 800 put in by the big blind. What is M? new situation

Show the answer

Answer: 6. The ante belongs in the cost of an orbit: the player in the big blind puts in an ante equal to the big blind each hand, so over an orbit every player pays it once.

  • 15 That is the stack divided by the big blind alone, with the small blind and the ante left out.
  • 10 That counts both blinds and leaves out the ante, which goes in once every orbit at this level as well.
  • 6 One orbit costs 2,000 chips: both blinds and the ante. 12,000 divided by 2,000 is 6.

Back to the question we opened with. In the 2024 bases, about 90.9% of what the entries brought in went back to the players, half as prizes by place and half as bounties; the other 9.1% or so stayed with the casino, and no finishing place brings that part back.

Tournaments, help and further reading

18+ across Chile · Play responsibly · self-exclusion and the regulator are further up this page

Further reading

How it’s worked out

Numbers, readings, sources and hosts

Where this happens. Every tournament on this page is played at a table in a casino you can walk into. The rules of the game are the national catalogue’s; the money, the chips and the levels of a tournament are in its own bases, and the bases on this page are those of one tournament held on 14 and 15 October 2024, an example and not a tournament on today’s schedule.

Numbers. The shares of each entry are the ones the 2024 bases print; that 90.9% and 9.1% are ten parts and one part in eleven, and that half the pool is 45.5% of an entry, is our arithmetic. The example field and the re-buys are in betting units, not the entry of any tournament. M is the stack divided by the small blind, the big blind and the ante added together, and the full orbits are M rounded down. Every figure carries a machine-readable key and is recomputed by the same engine on every build.

What is deliberately absent. The payout table of the 2024 bases is a picture without text in the copy we read, so no share of any place is printed here. The bases’ table of levels is not reprinted: every level in the illustrations and the practice run is an example. There is no advice here on what to play at a given M. How a hand is dealt, the blinds and the button are lesson 7.2. The poker room, its waiting list and the buy-in of a cash game are lesson 7.3. Tilt and when to leave are lesson 7.13.

Sources. Every claim on this page carries a button with the sentence it rests on, the publisher who wrote that sentence and the date we read it; the sentences are in Spanish, as the catalogue and the bases print them. The note on where the name M-ratio comes from rests on a reference work; the book itself was not read.

Hosts. Leo and Maya are illustrated characters. Their backstories, a former dealer and a former floor supervisor, are written for the course: neither is a real person, and neither speaks for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from their experience.

No promise. In a poker tournament the players play against one another, and the casino is paid its share of the entries whatever happens. Whatever skill counts in a tournament counts only against the other players at the table, and on one evening the cards decide most of what happens; nothing on this page makes the casino’s share smaller, and nothing here says how a tournament would end.

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