Buying In

In a poker tournament, each player pays the same amount of money to get a seat in the game (the buy-in) and then a fee will be charged by the poker room to play. A fair fee is generally 10% of the buy-in. Because every player drops the same amount of money to get in the game, everyone starts with the same sized bankroll. When selecting a tournament, the buy-in might be the most important aspect for you to check. Obviously you don’t want to play above your means, but at the same time, if it’s particularly cheap to play, some of the players might act too recklessly and make your playing experience erratic.

Re-Buys

Some tournaments allow ‘re-buys’. A re-buy allows players who have lost all, or some, of their chips to pay their way back in to the game. The amount of chips you get with each re-buy, the total number of times each player can re-buy, and how far into the game you are allowed to re-buy are all factors that vary from game to game. If a tournament does not allow re-buys, it is called a ‘freeze out’ because once you lose your chips you are out of the game permanently.

A re-buy game is crazy compared to a freeze out game. As long as players know they can re-buy, they will play very aggressively and go all-in without hesitation. To compete against these players, you need to fight fire with fire. If you can’t stomach this outrageous playing style, you might mistakenly abandon your stronger hands faced with huge pots when you were actually against weaker, but more aggressive opponents.

Table Size

Most tournaments will start with nine or ten players at each table. As players get knocked out, the remaining players will be shuffled around to keep all of the tables as full as possible. More often now than in the past, we are seeing tournaments with tables that seat only six players (short-handed tournaments). Short-handed tournaments allow you to play some of the weaker hands because the particularly strong hands will appear less often for you and your opponents.

Blinds

The size of the small/big blinds will start relatively low compared to the size of your chip stack. For a standard game where each player begins with 1,500 chips, blinds usually start at 10/20 (small/big). As the game goes on, the blinds will increase on a regular basis, and the rate at which the blinds increase will determine the pace of the tournament. In an online game, the blinds typically increase every 10-15 minutes, while 20-30 minutes would be more appropriate for live poker tournaments. By the end of the game, the big blind should be about the same size as a single player’s starting chip stack. Generally, large blinds that increase often allow for faster play. If you are not aggressive enough to keep up with the ever-increasing blinds you may bleed too many chips to remain competitive.

Once you have learned about the different types of poker tournaments, you will be able to go through a whole list of different games and pick out the best ones for you. Carefully selecting your poker tournaments is important for every player, but if you are new to the game it can make the difference between winning big and going bust.

Overview of the Sit & Go Tournament

Sit and go poker tournaments are a great way to get experience with tournament-style poker play for a small buy-in. The typical buy-in for sit and go tournaments is usually pretty cheap (as low as a dollar) and then there is a fee, generally equal to 10% of the buy-in. Each player will start with the same number of chips and, unlike cash games, everyone plays until they are beaten. There is no walking away from a SNG table until you either have all of the chips, or none of them.

Typically, in a 9-10 player game, the top 3 players get paid out in the end. The first player usually gets 50% of the prize pool, second place gets 30%, and the remaining 20% goes to the third place player (although the percents can vary). Shorthanded sit and go games only start with 5-6 players and in turn, only the top two players win the prize pool.

Basic Sit and Go Strategy

SNG tournament strategies reflect general tournament play. The basic idea is to play tight early in the game to avoid getting knocked out while the pots are small. As the game progresses, and the blinds increase, you should get progressively more aggressive to make sure you can cash in on the richer pots. Playing tight early doesn’t mean you should sit every hand out though. In the early stages of the game you should play strong hands to win chips where you can, all the while making the impression of a conservative player. By playing smart to start, you can easily steal the big pots later in the game and ensure one of the top (paid) spots.

As sit and go games progress, not only will the blinds go up, but also seats will become empty one by one. This narrowing down process allows SNG poker games to offer great practice for the final table of a normal poker tournament, but for a much smaller price.

Typical Opponents

Most of the SNG players you will encounter are either recreational players, or low-level pro’s trying to put together a bankroll. If you find yourself in a cheap SNG game, most players will probably be very inexperienced. Compared to the other tournament structures, SNG is probably the least competitive. If you play well, you should be able to clear a high return on investment (ROI), and gain valuable experience that will carry over to some higher stakes tournaments.

Step Tournaments

A step tournament gives small-game SNG poker players a chance to aim for larger payouts. Each player starts off at ‘step 1’ in a SNG poker game with a small buy-in. The top two players from this game, will move on to a ‘step 2’ SNG game with other players who have moved on from step 1 games. The top players continue up the steps until the final game (4th or 5th step) where the winners receive cash prizes from the entire prize pool, which was created from all of the step 1 buy-ins.

Sit and go poker is one of the fasted growing segments of online poker, and is a great way to experience the excitement of a tournament’s final table. Whether you are new to the game, or trying to build a bankroll for professional play, you owe it to yourself to give sit and go poker a shot.