Single Table
SINGLE TABLE
Single table tournaments, also called Sit ‘n Go and Fill and Go, are tournaments that starts as soon as one table is full of players (usually nine or ten). This is unlike multi-table tournaments that have a set schedule when they start. STTs provide an excellent opportunity for players to train for every type of tournament because it gives you experience sitting at the final table. In multi-table tournaments, the seats are replenished after a certain amount of people have been eliminated (except at the final table). But in STTs, the entire game plays the same as if you were at the final table since nobody’s going to fill the empty seats.
STTs are convenient because they don’t last for days games usually run between 45 to 60 minutes. (If you don’t have even an hour to spare, you should play in a speed tournament, which take even less time to play.) Also, there are so many STTs tournaments that start every minute on any given poker site, you don’t have to wait long for a game to start. This is where it’s a good idea to sign up with a poker site that’s busy, such as Poker Stars. They have tournaments of all sizes running constantly throughout the day.
To sign up for an STT, go to the tables list in your poker client and sign up for a table that has the game and limits you want to play. Once you register (you’ll pay your buy-in and fee to the casino), you wait until the table fills and play starts. You’re allowed to leave the table and get all of your chips back if the game hasn’t started yet. Once the game has started and you want to leave but still have chips, you have to forfeit them.
The person who gets all of the chips is the winner. They normally get 50% of the prize pool, 30% goes to the player in second place and 20% to the player in third.
Poker Stars is a popular site with STTs starting all the time and their buy-ins range from $0.10 to $500.00. What an exceptional deal: ten cents for about an hour of tournament play! They also have free tournaments if you don’t want to spend any money at all.
Check out our section on strategy to pick up tips on playing better STTs.
