Which table can I play?

At any point you're in one of two positions:

• Free to move up. You have enough for the next table's minimum buy-in. Play at your current table or move up, your choice.
• Trapped. You don't have enough for the next table yet. Keep playing your current table until you do.

You cannot play a table lower than the one you're on, unless you fall to it.

Buy-ins

You can buy in with anywhere from the table minimum to the table maximum, as long as your ladder bankroll allows it. Example: the table max is $50,000 but your bankroll is $30,000, so your max buy-in is $30,000. Buy in for more and the game simply won't count.

When should I move up?

You can move up as soon as you have enough for the next table's minimum buy-in. When you go is up to you.

• Want to climb fast? Move up as soon as you have enough.
• Want to climb safe? Stay at your current table until you have amassed enough buy-ins to comfortably join the next rung up.

Remember: once you go up, the only way to go down is to fall.

Play as much as you like

There's no game limit at your table: 1 game or 7, it's up to you. Its variants count as the same table (Newbie Corner II, III and IV are all Newbie Corner). And where a rung has several tables with the same buy-in, like Duel at Dawn, Fourplay, Old 'n Slow and Periodic, play whichever you like: one of them or all of them.

Ratholing (the 2-hour rule)

Rejoin a table within 2 hours of leaving it and Torn forces you to buy in with the exact amount you left with. If that's more than your ladder bankroll, the game won't count. Two ways around it: wait 2 hours, or join a different version of the same table (Newbie Corner II, III or IV all count as Newbie Corner).

My table has no players

You don't need to play a hand: sitting down is the climb. Sit down at the next table, cash out, done. You're past it and your bankroll is untouched. But this is at your own risk: you haven't gained any bankroll, so you arrive at a bigger table with the same money. The II / III / IV versions of a table sometimes have more players too.

Keep it updated

Games register when you leave the table, and the app refreshes on page load and when you hit Sync. So if you've just cashed out of Newbie Corner and sat down at Hobo Holdem, the app will say you're still at Newbie Corner until you leave. Going away for a while? Hit Pause ladder on your profile so nothing gets tracked while you're gone.

End goal: climb all 21 tables, from Newbie Corner to Oligarch, using only money won at the tables. Everyone starts at the bottom. First to the top wins.

Rules

• You play the tables in order, one at a time.
• No skipping. Games at higher tables don't count, even if you have enough to buy in.
• You can only buy in with what's in your ladder bankroll. This is tracked automatically; a buy-in bigger than your bankroll simply won't be counted.
• Within a table, buy in with anything from its minimum to its maximum.
• You can keep playing your usual poker games alongside the ladder. The system works out which games are part of the climb and ignores the rest.
• Taking an extended break? Hit Pause ladder on your profile and nothing is tracked until you resume.

How it works

1. Start at Newbie Corner: play poker as you normally would, bank as much as you can, cash out.
2. With enough for the next table's minimum, take a seat there. The climb registers when you sit down. Continue in this fashion.
3. Left a table with $0? If your bankroll still covers a buy-in there, sit back down; the buy-in comes out of your tracked bankroll.
4. If you can no longer afford your table, you drop to the highest table your bankroll covers.
5. Cash out with less than $500 in your bankroll (the lowest table's minimum) and that's a bust: this cycle of the ladder is over and you start again from the bottom.
6. Do as many cycles as you wish. Sign in and press Sync to update your climb.

Your climb starts the moment you sign up, so old poker history doesn't count. The app reads only your poker join/leave log entries. Nothing is stored except your ladder progress, and you can delete it anytime from your profile.

If the issue persists, send a message to Systoned.