Poker Tournaments – Single table and Sit and Go
Sep 14, 2011 Poker Tournaments
One of the most popular forms of online poker that you will come across is the single table tournaments and Sit and go tournament. Here is what single table tournaments offer
- Fixed entry price
- All competitors have same stack
- Set number of competitors
- Finishing position is the determinant for the prize pool
- Unlike multi table tournaments there is no starting point
- Games with two or more tables are also included
- Shorter games in comparison to multiple table tournaments, hence multiple games can be played
- There can be players from 2 to 10 for Single table tournaments
- There can be 2 to 180 players for Sit and Go tournaments. The difference between SNG and MTT is that in SNG you are aware of the number of players participating in the tournament.
The structure of blind varies on different sites. These vary as short blind levels with turbos to games of medium and longer length. Another variance of blinds could be decided by the hands, instead of time. For buy in most sites cater for all levels, varying from single table tournament for $1 or less up to $1000 or more. Additionally the number of tournament entries decides the payouts. This is available at the start of the tournament.
SNG tournaments only open when amount of players needed have signed up, most common being 6-10 players. Due to the fact that all players are present on a single table in these tournaments, the player is able to observe all the opponents.
The objective of SNG is to be the last one standing which means as the last player all the chips that were with other players would be now with you. You can exchange these chips for their monetary value.
Let me also discuss some of the useful SNG strategies for the beginners here. There are low blinds when the SNG tournament begins and there is a possibility that you jump in with poor cards. However the next player may just raise and if this happens you will be forced to call. This will lead to a flop and there will be nothing left with you that you can gamble on.
In the tournament if the opponent keeps re-raising you, you should not follow him and re-raise as poker is not about this. It’s better to be cautious and to fold if you are uncertain. You should not fall into the realm of “ego”; it is a long term strategy that poker should go with.
Just in case you are running out of chips in the tournament, maybe there needs to be some strategy alteration. The tight-aggressive table image needs to be done away with and you should go all-in with a strong enough hand. I am cautioning on this so that the blinds may not eat up the rest of the chips left. At the same time you should look at moving the players with small stacks fold, so that they are out of the tournament. So the key here is the “big stack bully” strategy.
