Why Sit & Go Poker Tournaments Are So Profitable

One of the biggest innovations brought about by online poker was the introduction of the Sit & Go poker tournament. Single table poker tournaments had been around for years, but mainly in the form of satellites to a larger buy-in tournament. The Internet changed all of that by creating a global player base, so instead of a casino waiting hours for a lone Sit & Go tournament to fill up, online poker rooms, with their instant access and huge player base, are able to start Sit & Go tourneys at a variety of different stakes in a matter of minutes -mere seconds on some of the larger sites.

It wasn’t long before solid poker players started realizing the profitability of these single table tournaments. The beauty of the Sit & Go is that it attracts new players, and poker players who are willing to gamble.

New players like the set buy-in amount -they know exactly how much they are risking-while the gamblers like the instant action -if they are catching a bad run of cards they are one click away from a whole new tournament-without having to wade through a large multi-table tournament. The beauty of the Sit & Go is that most people are active when they should be sitting back, and are sitting back when they should be active.

As I said, gamblers like S&G’s because they can try to double up quick or just enter a new tournament. Therefore you have people taking huge chances early on, and you can just sit back and watch them bust each other, or if you’re lucky enough to catch a big hand early on you can be the beneficiary of an early double-up.

And new players have a tough time realizing that stealing the blinds and all the other concepts they have a cursory knowledge of are relatively unimportant until the mid-stages of a Sit & Go. There standard 2.5-3x raises give you great implied odds to set-mine and bust their over-pair or Top Pair Top Kicker. So you get the best of both worlds, gamblers playing crazy hands and new players letting you into the pot cheaply with their big hands.

Even better for you is when the tournament gets down to 4 or 5 handed play, and these players start tightening up to get in the money -in a standard 9-10 man S&G the top 3 places are paid. Here you can increase your activity and build a good stack while the other players try to squeak into the money. 3^rd place in a S&G is basically your money back and this is not what we are playing for -you’ll gladly take it if we get knocked out in 3^rd place, but you shouldn’t be trying to fold your way into 3^rd place.

Stay tuned to RuffPoker.com for more on Sit & Go’s including strategies and important odds and probabilities you need to be aware of.