Buy in
The buy in is the amount you put on the table to join a game: in a cash game the chips you sit down with, and in a tournament the fixed entry that buys your starting stack.
The two are not the same kind of number. Cash game chips are money and can be picked up at any time, while tournament chips cannot be cashed out at all and only ever convert into a finishing place.
A tournament entry is usually written as two parts, such as 100 plus 9, where the first goes into the prize pool and the second is the fee the house keeps. Comparing events on the first number alone hides how much the second one costs over time.
an example
your cards
You enter a tournament for 50 plus 5 and receive 20,000 starting chips at blinds of 25 and 50, which is 400 big blinds. The 5 is gone whatever happens, and the 20,000 chips are worth exactly your share of the prize pool and nothing else.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find buy in in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
MTT
A multi table tournament is an event where every entrant starts with the same chips, the blinds rise on a clock, and pla ...
Rake
Rake is the fee the house takes for running the game: a share of each pot in cash games, or a part of the buy in in tour ...
Cash game
A cash game is a game where the chips are money at their face value, so you can join, leave or reload at any time and th ...
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Knowing the word is not the same as seeing it.
The full order of play, from the blinds to the showdown.