To join a game, click on it's name in the pending slam's list.

Once you are viewing the specific page slam, you will then see an "Slot Open" link available to you in the Current Slammers list. Click one of the available "Slot Open" links to join that slam.

Page Slams are started for particular categories of poems in the finished poetry section. You must have enough approved poems for a particular slam in order to join it. If you don't have enough poems you won't be able to click on the link to join the tournament. ALSO, these page slams cost Karma to join. If you do not have enough Karma to pay the cost of the slam, you will also not be able to join. Commenting on the poems of other members when you rate poems is a good way to automatically gain karma points.

After you join a slam the system randomly assigns poems of yours for you to slam with. You can rearrange these poems or choose new ones. Use the top Newest, Random, Latest and the Change Poem link next to your poem to change the poems you wish to slam with.

If there is a drawn match, or equal lowest scores (Death Match) or equal highest scores (Face Off, Head To Head) then the winner is chosen at random regardless of any previous rounds.

Page Slams are started by poets for a cost to their karma points. Karma is the currency of GotPoetry.com. The poet who starts the game is known as the "caller" and when he calls a game for say 5 karma points, it costs him 5 points to create the game. The poets can then join the game by paying 5 karma points. The karma goes into the game's pot. At the end, the winner receives 70% of the pot and the caller receives 30%.

Members and anonymous users can only vote once per poem per round. Poets are allowed to vote for thier own poems and for the poets they are competing against. The range to vote is from 1 to 10, so you should rate all of the poems in a tournament how you see fit. Votes by members are weighted higher than the votes by anonymous visitors.

Page Slam is a variation on Live Performance Poetry Slams.

If you know what a poetry slam is then this non-live version will make perfect sense to you. A poetry slam is a game show of poetry. Poets perform poetry for a live audience and they are scored by the audience on a scale of 1 to 10. At the end of the show the poet with the highest scores wins.

In the Page Slam, poets still compete against each other, but their poems are rated by the visitors to this web site. After the poems are read they are scored by the visitors on a scale of 1 to 10, just as in a live Poetry Slam. Each Page Slam consists of a certain number of rounds. Each round contains a new poem by each poet, but depending on the type of Page Slam being played certain poets may be eliminated according to score. These rounds can last hours days or weeks. At the end of all the rounds a winner is determined by either total score or total number of votes, again depending on the style of the Page Slam game being played. The winner receives a win towards his poet ranking and a portion of the karma points each poet contributed to join the game.