Flight Tournaments Explained With WPT Global
Poker has so much going for it (fortunately). It takes barely any time to learn the rules, doesn’t in any way require loads of money to play yet offers many opportunities to win life-changing sums and, thanks to the internet and the ever-evolving wonders of technology, can be played by would-be poker geniuses around the globe from the comfort of their sofa or, of course, just about anywhere.
Those just getting to grips with real money online poker might initially feel a little overwhelmed at the sheer scale of the poker menu in front of them, but it doesn’t take long at all to familiarise ourselves with the set-up and how to go about enjoying an optimal online poker experience.
An everyday part of the game that anyone who has even modest ambitions about achieving success in online poker tournaments will come across is so-called Flight tournaments, and here we’ll have a brief look at the mechanics using the popular WPT Global’s set-up.
Flight Tournaments: How It Works
As well as standard, one-off tournaments that have, say, 100 players and take a few hours to complete, there are also bigger events that require more time and might therefore be split up into numerous initial phases, with play ending when the field has been cut down to a certain percentage of players, or after a specified duration or pre-determined number of levels have been played out, and then those who have survived all go through to the next (single-section) phase.
So, WPT Global, for instance, has ‘big’ (and big money!) tournaments with Flights in the form of several Day 1 sections that serve as qualifying rounds which filter and subsequently funnel through ‘survivors’ into an effectively condensed Day 2 or, commonly, Final Day, and this will ultimately be played to a finish.
What tends to happen is that once a Flight has a specific percentage of players remaining (typically 10%-20%), it automatically stops, and that top X% from each Flight will qualify for the second phase or final day.
Note that players usually take with them however many chips they have at the end of the Flight to the next stage of the event, so it’s normal to see a wide range of stack sizes starting Day 2, for example, as some might have amassed enormous stacks in the Flight while others scraped through with short stacks.
As for prizes, there might be a portion of the overall prize pool set aside to be paid out at the end of a Flight, but it’s often the case that no prizes are awarded as the aim of this set-up is to narrow down the field in order to make Day 2 more manageable from a time perspective.
Flight tournaments, then, are a means to qualify for the final phase of an event. To make tournaments maximally accessible, WPT Global will host numerous Flights, and it’s possible to enter more than one for the same event in order to keep plugging away until a place in Day 2 has been achieved. It’s even possible to qualify more than once, in which case your biggest stack is taken to the next stage (and any other chip stacks are removed from play).
And there you have it! If you’re going for glory in big events, you’ll often have to battle your way through Flight tournaments to get your chance at the business end of proceedings. Have fun at the tables, and good luck.
Meanwhile, you can find the latest online poker bonuses and offers in our dedicated info section...
So how is the prize distributed? Based on total entries? Or total qualifiers to the final day?