The time you can spare for a game of poker, live or online, can be a decisive factor in which type of poker tournament or game that you wish to play. Many of us have work or family commitments that will prevent us from playing Multi Table Tournaments (MTTs) that can drag on and on for what will feels like forever. And that’s before we get anywhere near the money.
With so much to do away from the table or virtual felt, it would be useful to know exactly how much time you can spare for a poker tournament. Roughly speaking, so long as you are playing a simple cash game, the average poker game can be one to three hours long. Also, a player can leave the poker table at any point they like during the game as long as it is not in the middle of a hand.
Poker tournaments can run for up to five days, although strictly speaking, the World Series of Poker Main Event begins its preliminary rounds in early July and runs for nearly two weeks. On average, however, a poker tournament can last anywhere from between 20 minutes to 12 hours. This really all depends on variables such as the amount of players and also the sizes of the starting stacks.
Smaller tournaments where there are less than 100 people can often be over in a single day. Whereas a single tournament, especially in live games, often lasts longer than a day, even with an average playing time of between 8 – 12 hours a day.
Poker Game Time Duration
| Poker game | Online Duration | Live Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Tournament (up to 1,000 people) | 8 – 10 hours | 8 hours up to a few days |
| Turbo tournament | 4 – 6 hours | 5 – 8 hours |
| Cash game | 1 – 2 hours (but can stand up after a single hand) | 1 – 3 hours (can leave the table at any time) |
| Sit & Go (turbo, spin, 9 players) | 45 minutes | 90 minutes |
You cannot really set a time limit for a game of poker, as there are so many different variants out there. The length of a poker game depends on what type of poker it is that you are playing or going to play. For a poker home game with friends, you might want to allow yourself anywhere from between 45 minutes or up to several hours.
There are no definite rules that dictate quite how long the average poker will last. Different games, last different lengths of time, but we are able to make rough estimates.
How Long Do Cash Poker Games Last?
The cash game is the most flexible format in poker. This is true whether you are playing in a casino, at home or online. In cash games, players bet with cash or cash that has been converted in to chips. If you are playing with chips, then those chips will have an assigned cash value and when you cash out, which you are free to do at any point, you will receive that value back.
You can enter a cash game at any point simply by paying the table’s buy-in which is essentially the money you are bringing to the table and is referred to as your stack. If you are playing in a live environment, you might have to wait a short while for a seat at the table to become available. Blinds are mandatory and fixed for the duration of the game and if you bust and lose all of your stack, you can rebuy your way back into the next hand and continue playing at the table.
In some cases, there may be a cap on the number of times you can buy back in for some games, limiting the amount of times that you can buy your way back in, but you can always go and find another table to play at.
In all, how long the average cash poker game is entirely up to you. The average game between friends lasts for about 1 – 3 hours, but your games can easily be shorter or longer than this if you prefer.
How Do Poker Tournament Games Work?
Unlike a poker cash game, a poker tournament will usually finish when one player has won all of the chips left on the table. There are numerous factors that will affect the time duration of a poker tournament length, and these are the size of the field, as in the amount of players that are taking part, as well as the size of the starting stacks and how many initial big blinds the starting stack covers.
How much the blinds increase at each level and also the number and duration of each blind level will all also have an impact on time length. When you lose all of your chips you will be out the tournament and, most of the time, find yourself frozen out of the rest of the event.
There are, however, some tournaments that do allow rebuys, but you should know that this is often only for a limited amount of time after which, when expired, busted players will be locked out for good.
Sit and Go’s
There are, for those that want it, single table tourneys often referred to as sit and go’s which begin as soon as the required number of players sit at the table, meaning that there is no fixed start time to these events. These are single table tournaments which can include anywhere from between two and ten players but is very often six. Buy-in levels vary, at some online poker sites, anywhere from between 20p to $1,000.
A twist on this is another single table format poker tourney where buy-ins are spun to deliver random sized pots. There is an element of lotto style gambling here as a minimum buy-in of 25¢ can be spun into a prize pool of $2,500 and a maximum buy-in of $1,000 at the same poker site can be spun in to a pot worth $1 million.
Generally speaking, sit and go tournaments can last for anything between 20 minutes up to 90 minutes. Unless it’s a turbo game, allow yourself allow up to 90 minutes if you are planning on playing a single table tournament.
Multi Table Tournaments (MTTs)
As the name suggests, multi table tournaments take place on several tables all at the same time. As the field gets whittled down and more and more players get knocked out, those that are left get moved to other tables to even out player numbers. Eventually, as the amount of tables reduces, we will have reached the final table where the last few remaining players are battling it out for the pot.
Again, the length of time it will take to find a winner depends on the tournament’s structure. In the case of online poker, the poker room’s website might provide information on the approximate time duration.
If not, you could gain a general idea by taking the number and length of each level and factoring any scheduled breaks and how long they are set to last. For example, let’s say there are ten levels each worth forty minutes, and we throw in three 30 minute breaks then we could be looking at an eight hour long tourney.
Of course, the more players that enter, the longer the tournament will be, and you could find that a tournament with a large amount of entrants could last for as long as up to 12 hours.
Many of the leading online poker sites offer faster multi table tournaments, where levels can come along every ten minutes. However, there could be up to thirty levels, which means that you still might be looking at around five hours or so. Again, turbo MTTs, where the levels are shorter, or the blinds increase by more, will speed things up considerably.
Conclusion
The length of an average poker game will depend on number of factors not least the type of game that you are playing. It will also depend on blind sizes and levels as well as the amount of starting players. In a sit and go single table tournament, give yourself up to ninety minutes, while a multi table tournament generally lasts for several hours and sometimes even days.
Finally, with a cash game, how long the time length is is entirely up to you because you can come and go as you please.