NLHE tournaments with a special wrinkle!

We want PIFT events to have a different, more fun feel than other tournaments you can play in a casino.  We want it to remind you of playing around the kitchen table at home with your family and friends.  That’s why every tournament will include a twist or two such as, but not limited to: “ocean cards,” “first player in must limp,” “double flops,” “crazy pineapple,” or any number of possible rule variations with a joker or wild card in play… Just to give you a sample of what PIFT strives to be about.  So let’s keep it lighthearted, while still playing for a prize pool worth getting up in the morning for!

Most of our flagship events begin and end on the same day.

  • We recognize your time outside of poker is valuable. Nobody likes playing 12 hours on Saturday, returning Sunday, playing 3 more hours only to bust outside of the bubble.
  • Nobody likes having family or friends trying to schedule something with you on Sunday, with you having to reply "sorry I won't know if I can make it until late Saturday night, or maybe not even until Sunday afternoon."
  • Even I have had to skip tournaments I've wanted to play because day 2 or 3 conflicts with prior plans. Let's eliminate that! Either you can make it to a PIFT event that day, or you can't! No worrying about planning your social life around unknown TBD day 2's or 3's.

Our multi-day events, when scheduled, offer substantially shorter day 1's.

  • If and when we offer a 2 day tournament, we want our schedule for it to cater towards people who have 9-5 jobs and aren't accustomed to staying up until 2 or 3am after working a 40 hour week. This means our day 1 might begin at 6pm and end at midnight, and then have another 6 hours of play at most on day 2.
  • We aren't opposed to multiday tournaments, we just want to find a balance that better fits the lifestyle of a larger chunk of the community; and people who would prefer to not play 10 or 12 hours of poker in day 1.

Our tournament structure starts out substantially shallower than most high profile tours. Conversely, our blind levels increase slower at the beginning.

  • We want our tournaments to feel like the chips matter at all levels, while avoiding making the average stack size ever feel overly desperate. We acknowledge a player is more likely to bust in 30 minutes in our tournaments than some of the other local and regional tournament series. We are okay with that, because we recognize not everyone's life is the game of poker. You lead a busy, enriching life – we think that rocks!
  • We encourage out of town players to travel to our tournaments… Yes, even with our structure that makes it more likely you will bust in a few hours. If you do bust out quickly, you've got a lot of free time to have some fun exploring the town you just traveled to (or you can re-enter)!

Our tournament structure aims to reach the money quicker than others

  • I'm a poker pro, but even I would rather bust outside of the money in 3 hours, than 13 hours. I like being able to play a tournament on Saturday afternoon, and know if I bust before the money, I will have a Saturday night free – and the only way I miss getting to enjoy a Saturday night out is if I get in the money!

Once we do reach the final table, we roll back the clock to the beginning of the previous level

  • We recognize that a common tournament complaint is "we get so much play early on when there's no money at stake, but then once we get into the money, stacks are so shallow and it becomes an all in shove-fest when all the money is on the line." We want to fix this a little bit — while still succeeding at starting and finishing a tourney in one day. We admit it's tough to pull off both it being a one day tournament, and a tournament that has deeper play in the money, but that's our aim.  When the largest chunks of money are on the line, we want to give you a little extra time to play your game.

Every buy in has 1% withheld from the prize pool for charity donations.

  • Please click here to get taken to our "Poker For Good" page and read more about our charity aspirations.

Every event pays 15%+ of the field

  • We like it when you can tell your family and friends you cashed. You do too. Let's make it a bit more likely you do! The PIFT is of the belief that paying 10% or even less than 10% of the field is just too few people getting paid.

Yes, deals are allowed!

  • It's your tournament. You put up the buy ins. If everyone who's still alive wants to chop and make a deal, more power to you. We aren't going to tell our players what they can or can't do with their money.

All events allow a maximum of one buy in and 2 reentries.

  • 3 shots at it, we hope is enough to incentivize players to travel to our event, while still preventing you from having to go through the Mike Schneider's of the world 7 times in the same tournament. All things considered, we believe 3 bullets is the ideal number for the PIFT

As you can gather, we value transparency without the fluff.

  • That's why we're acknowledging facts like "our structure is quicker than others," "the more casual players' preferences have been ignored too long," or "our ideal player we are trying to reach is someone who simply doesn't want to spend every waking moment of their weekend playing one poker tournament." We will keep it real, and welcome all feedback from our players. Because like we've said, we want the Poker is Fun Tour to be the poker tour of the people.