Fun Sit & Go Poker Tournaments for Real Money

In the first few years after the poker boom started in 2003, most online poker sites offered very basic types of sit & go tournaments. The majority were simple nine or ten player tournaments where the top three players got paid. These are still the most popular types of sit & go tournaments, but now there are a lot of options for players who want something different.

To keep players interested and coming back, online poker websites had no choice but to broaden their sit & go selection for real money players. Sit & go’s are now offered in a wider variety of poker games, player pools, blind structures, and payouts. Here are some of the most fun, real money sit & go tournaments now available.

Real Money Double or Nothing Sit & Go Tournaments

Double or nothing sit & go tournaments have become popular at a lot of online poker sites. Most of them consist of 10 players, and the top 5 double their buy-in. For example, the payout in a £5 double or nothing is £10 – no matter how many chips you end up with. Once the table is down to five players, the tournament is over. Double or nothing tournaments are especially fun for new players and players with small bankrolls. New players should make the money more often than they would in standard SNG’s where the top 3 get paid, keeping the bankroll replenished and spirits up. Players with small bankrolls can build (or rebuild) their bankrolls slowly and consistently, while earning VIP points along the way.

Since stack sizes don’t matter and every payout is the same, the general strategy for double or nothing sit & go tournaments is to play more conservatively than you would in a typical SNG where the top 3 get paid. All you need to do is make the money, so there isn’t a need for a monster stack. If you do make the nuts and take down a couple of big pots, you can often fold the rest of the way and play in another SNG while the first one plays out.

Bounty Sit & Go Tournaments

In real money bounty sit & go tournaments, players receive a bounty for each player they knock out. There are a variety of bounty sit & go’s, but the most common pay ½ of a players buy-in fee as the bounty. For example, a £10 bounty sit & go will usually have a bounty of £5 on each players head. The rest of that players buy-in goes into the prize pool to pay the top 3 players.

Bounty sit & go tournaments are a lot of fun because even if you don’t make the top 3, you can make money. If you knock out two players, but finish in fourth place overall, you’d make your buy-in back, minus the tournament fee. If you knock out a couple of players and make it into the money, you’ll make a profit.

Bounty tournaments are usually played much looser than standard sit & go’s because players are more willing to call an all-in bet. It’s very important that players pay attention to how each of their opponents are playing. If a player has shown the ability to be all-in with a weak hand, you have to be more willing to be all-in against them. If you aren’t paying attention, you could easily call a tighter player who is only willing to be all-in with strong hands.

Always consider your stack size before shoving all your chips in. For example, if the average stack is 1800 and you shove with your entire stack of 435 chips, you’re almost guaranteed to get called by at least one opponent, if not more. When your stack gets smaller, you need to play stronger hands, and preferably in later position when nobody else has raised pre-flop.

Steps Sit & Go Tournaments

Steps tournaments are a great way to make a small amount of money go a long ways – and possibly win a huge payout at the end. These are generally single-table sit & go tournaments where winning players move up to the next step, getting them closer to an eventual, large prize. For example, you might start at step level 1 for $5, winning a seat into a step 2 tournament with a higher buy-in. If you win step 2, you’d move on to step 3, and so on. Winners move up to the next step, while lower finishing players stay at the same step, move down steps, or get knocked out entirely.

Since many steps tournaments let 2nd-6th place finishers repeat steps for free, players can play in a lot of these sit & go’s on their original buy-in. These are a great way to practice your sit & go tournament skills, and possibly make a lot of money as well. Top prizes are often well into the thousands of pounds in cash, or free seats into much larger tournaments. For example, there are steps tournaments where players can win seats in the WSOP Main Event, WPT or EPT live tournaments.

All in or Fold Sit & Go Tournaments

All-in or fold sit & go tournaments are essentially poker-on-crack. Players only have two options pre-flop, which are to shove all their chips in the middle, or fold their hand. These are surprisingly popular tournaments, but we don’t recommend them. There is little, if any strategy in them, and luck plays way too large of a role in the results. If you like fast-action tournaments, consider playing turbo or super-turbo SNG’s instead. They go much faster than regular sit & go’s, but skill plays a much larger role than all-in or fold SNG’s.