You want to take part in the tournament. First thing to decide is whether you will play for real money or for play money.

Why play in tournament poker? Say you are good enough to make a living playing cash games, especially with the all day, all night, every day and every night availability of online poker rooms to give you action.

Most online players will be used to just playing cash games. In these games they win as much as they can, and then logout. Tournament play is a completely different animal and requires a different approach then cash games.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, and there is more than one way to make money playing tournament poker as well. Is there more than one way to win tournament poker, though?

One of the most exciting aspects of championship poker in the last few years is the "everyman factor," the fact that the game really could be won by anyone. There was a time that the barrier to entry to big time events (and thus, big time money) was pretty high, events like the World Series of Poker costing thousands to join, even ten thousand for the main event. Now that qualifiers are so prevalent, the question becomes, "how do I make the most of them?"