Just as all cards dealt to players in corresponding seats are identical, all of the board cards at every table are the same. Furthermore, all blinds and player positions are identical at every table. However, once play begins betting patterns and decisions vary. In fact, a wide variety of decisions and actions at each table are possible. This is where the skill factor is paramount in Duplicate Poker. Your objective is to maximize your winnings and minimize your losses on every single hand. Hence, every hand is important. There is no such thing as a good hand or a bad hand. In standard poker, any player is capable of winning a pot and accumulating chips. But the Duplicate format measures your results versus the players sitting in corresponding seats. It takes skill to win, not luck.

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To ensure that players have an equal chance to win a session, each player starts off with the exact same number of chips. Furthermore, each player is able to bet the same maximum or minimum number of chips on every round of betting.

The two key factors that determine who wins or losses in Duplicate Poker are:

- Your decisions on every round of betting, and

- The composition of your opponents sitting at your table.

Some tables do manage to draw lesser-skilled opponents. In some cases, this bias is overcome using a round-robin format. This means players in the competition compete against the same opponents over the duration of the tournament or session.

Advantages of Duplicate Poker
By definition, Duplicate Poker is a "skill" game. It is comparable to a game like chess, which encompasses no luck whatsoever. Because the cards in various seats are identical, there are no random occurrences other than the unpredictability of one’s opponents and their decisions. Other than the composition of your opponents at your table (which no one can predict), there are no uncertainties in Duplicate Poker.

The skill-based nature of Duplicate Poker also adds to the pleasure of playing the game. For example, if your pocket aces lose, rest assured that everyone’s aces in the competition also lost. That means, your results are measured by how you did with your chips when compared to the other players. This gives Duplicate Poker a more challenging element. You must always consider bet sizes, making calls, and raising. The best poker players utilize these skills which is why Duplicate Poker is such a promising learning tool for regular poker.

More on the Duplicate Poker Format

MAKING THE CUT

There are several unique factors which determine success in Duplicate Poker, particularly in tournaments. One is called "making the cut". Since all players start each deal with enough chips to play until the end of that deal, you seldom get eliminated from an event by running out of chips, as you do in regular poker. Rather, players are eliminated by cutting the field approximately in half at the end of each session.

In large tournaments, the first session (consisting of a pre-determined number of deals) is usually played only for a carryover score. Everyone advances to the second session. After the next session, your ranking at the end (measured by the overall size of your stack) determines whether you advance.

Half of the players in a given seat position are eliminated from the event based on their stack size at the end of each subsequent session. So, to continue playing, you need to have a larger stack size than about half the players in your seat position, who are the players you are really competing against.

CARRYOVER

A second concept is that of the "carryover". At the end of a session, you are awarded some additional chips. These are called “carryover chips,” which are based on how your chip count compared with the other players in your seat position after a given session. The carryover chips are added to your chip count at the beginning of the next session. It is a way to reward the best players of the previous round.

If you have the best result (measured by the most chips), you are ranked number one for your seat. You advance to the next session with the maximum carryover amount. For each position below the best result, a smaller number of carryover chips are awarded, with the lowest-ranked advancing player in that seat position.

If all of this sounds a little confusing, don’t worry. Playing Duplicate Poker online makes it easy to gradually learn the game. The poker site automatically does all the calculations and lets you know your ranking, as well as if you advance to the next level. There is even a “hand history” feature which allows you to go back and look at how each of your opponents played their hands (which were also dealt to you) which you can compare. This makes Duplicate Poker a fabulous learning tool for all poker players.