Single Table Tournaments - Overview

Single Table Tournaments, also known as Sit and Go's, are a great source of competitive fun as well as a source of money and also a good way for you to start your online poker career. This is because, unlike cash tables you only pay a fixed amount of cash to enter the tournament, and unlike Multi Table Tournaments the games finish fairly quickly, especially in the case of turbo tournaments.

Single Table Tournaments are games of poker in which each player on the table starts with an equal amount of chips. The poker tournament is then played until just one player has won all of the chips.

Single Table Tournaments are very easy to take part in, you just choose a tournament that suits you and, once the required number of players has joined, usually 6 or 10, the fun begins. They're a very good way to carefully manage your bank-roll as normally the top three places get paid and the most you'll lose is your cost of entry into the tournament. If you're a good poker player, Single Table Tournaments offer you a very decent rate of return and the reason that they're so good for beginners to poker, is that you get to see a lot of hands at a relatively small cost.

The cost of entering a tournament is a buy-in as well as a fee. The buy-in contributes to the money in the prize pool and the fee is taken by the online poker room as a charge for hosting the tournament (normally around 10% of the buy-in). The size of the prize pool depends on the number of people playing in the tournament and will be paid out to the winners.

The tournament usually starts with you being dealt a card. The player with the highest card starts the game as the dealer. Your goal is to win as many chips as possible. If you lose all of your chips then you are out of the tournament. As the tournament progresses, more and more players are eliminated until only the tournament winner remains.

When considering which Single Table Tournaments suit you best, you need to first decide which type of poker you want to play, Texas Hold Em, Omaha or Seven Card Stud Poker, for example. Then the type of tournament, standard Single Table Tournaments with slow blinds and lots of starting chips should suit a more experienced poker player, but for a beginner poker player, we would recommend entering Turbo tournaments with a smaller amount of starting chips and rapidly increasing blinds. Another big decision to make is what stake level you should play at, with these varying from very low to scarily high levels where the big boys play. A rule you can use is that you shouldn't choose a tournament with a buy-in that is worth higher than a tenth of your bank-roll, that's the total amount of money you have to play with. This rule saves you from going bust if you have a run of bad luck. Finally you have to decide which betting structure suits you best, Fixed Limit Poker, Pot Limit Poker or No Limit Poker and then find that perfect table and take a seat.

When deciding which betting structure is right for you, the answer to this question depends completely on your style of play. Click here to look at our best betting structure advice page to help you choose what's best for you.

Want to learn more about Single Table Tournaments? Click here for Single Table Tournament Strategies and Tips.