Depending on your personal financial circumstances will depend on how many buy-ins you have at any one level before moving up to the next. The average number of buy-ins is 20, however, some people play with 10-15 or 30-40 and higher.

Over the past several years of playing poker online, I have found 20 buy-ins to work very well as it allows your game to grow and get ready for the next level up. Streaks of 10 buy-ins, winning and losing are common due to what is called variance; however the largest streak over 10’s of 1000’s of SnG’s for me has been about 15 buy-ins. So knowing what I do now, 20 buy-ins works quite well.

Here is a guide using the 20 buy-in rule and the most common SnG buy-ins.

* Less than $50: play $1.10 SnGs
* $50 – $125: play $2.25 SnGs
* $125 – $225: play $5.50/$6.50 SnGs
* $225 – $450: play $22/$24 SnGs
* Above $700: play $33/$36 SnGs
* And so on…

Obviously if you are doing this for a living, you will need to withdraw money at stages and this may cause you to go down a level or 2 from time to time.

There is nothing wrong with going down a level if you are having a bad run on a new level. This is all part of the game and part of the experience.

There are many different kinds of Sit and Go games to play on a variety of sites. The different types are mainly:

• Heads up
• 6 – handed
• 9/10 handed

And they also come in Limit, No Limit and sometimes Pot Limit.

Most people starting out play Holdem but you can find all types of games, such as:

• Omaha
• Omaha, Eight or better (hi/lo)
• Razz
• Stud
• Stud, Eight or better (hi/lo)
• HA (Mixed game with Holdem and Omaha)
• Horse (Mixed game with Holdem, Omaha eight or better, Razz, Stud and Stud, eight or better)
• 8-game (Mixed game same as Horse, but includes NL Holdem and PL Omaha)

These games also come as turbo’s or normal speed, with a varying range of starting stacks. You can play for any amount of money, from $0.25 to $1000’s.

Another variation is that you can have a “normal” pay-out structure paying the top 2 or 3. There are also “Double or Nothing SNGs which pay out half the runners double your buy-in minus the tournament fee. Full tilt also have what is called a Matrix SnG which gives you 4 games against the same opponents. They pay out for each individual SnG and also for a total points scored based over the 4 games.

As you can see there are many possibilities of which type of Sit and Go to play, and what works well for someone, might not work well for someone else.

Please find an overview of our recommended poker sites and their respective bonuses below.

You really want to only play premium hands in this stage, and only commiting your chips when you know you have the best hand. When raising your premium hands, make sure you raise enough to keep most of the bad hands out of the pot. Normally a pot-sized bet or 3-4 times the big blind is about right. A continuation bet on the flop is almost a given, even if it hasn’t connected with your hand, because chances are it hasn’t connected with your opponents either. An example of a time when not to continuation bet is if you raise 4 times the big blind pre-flop with pocket queen’s and you are called by 2 or 3 people. The flop comes out A-K-K. Chances are you are beat here, not all the time, but with that many callers there would be a decent chance.

When in late position or in the blinds with a suited connector, suited gapper, or small pair, it may be worthwhile to limp in for a chance of hitting a big flop. Try not to put too much of your chip stack in with these hands though, unless of course you hit the flop really hard.

One big advantage of these early stages of the Sit and Go is that you will be able to find out how the other people at the table play and make a mental note of how everyone is playing as it may help later in the tournament. For example, if you see someone raising a lot of pots and one hand you might get to see of theirs is K-8 offsuit, you may be able to make marginal calls against later in the SnG when it counts more, but laying a similar hand down to someone you’ve seen play only a few hands.

Let’s face it, the last thing you want to do is come 4th in a 9 player Sit and Go where the payouts are for the top 3 players! But on the other hand, that’s what the other couple of players are also thinking right?

This is where most players tighten up because they want to make the money. Now the aim of playing this SNG is to come first right? And since everyone will be playing really tight, this is the best time to play aggressive! This will get you the chips you need to win. Now you will come across other players that are also playing agressive. The best way to work with a player like this is to either play back at them and re-raise some of their raises or just stay out of their way. Typically if there is another player on your tabble in the bubble period of the SnG, then you have more of a chance to bubble out if playing in the same pots as them. This is only because they will call you with a wider variety of cards and sometimes they will hit if they are behind.

One crucial point to make is that it is fine to raise with a marginal hand, like 89 suited, but it isn’t OK to call a raise. Raising at this time of the game will most likely get everyone else to fold, unless you opponents pick up a monster or are really short on chips and have no other choice but to call.

Just by picking up a few blinds, your stack size should grow quite well due to the normal level of the blinds at this stage of the game.

Hopefully, you will now be able to get past the dreaded bubble and get into the money positions of the Sit and Go.

Now the second part, and the most important, you are after that first place prize.

Typically, 2nd gets 30% and 3rd gets 20% of the payout so there is not much difference but 1st gets 50%! A big difference. So your aim here is to play aggressively smart, much the same as how you did on the bubble.

By playing smart poker all the way through, you should be able to get in the money 60-75% of the time. You will get bad beats along the way of course – especially at the lower levels – but that’s poker and if you can’t handle that, then poker might not be for you!

Playing too loose – A player that sees a flop every 2 or 3 hands in the first couple of rounds is playing way too many hands and will normally bust out very early in the Sit and Go. Tighten up in those first couple of levels!

Not concentrating – If you watch TV, chat to friends/family, cook or something similar whilst playing, you are surely doomed because you aren’t paying attention to what is happening! If you are playing SnG’s, play them. Don’t do anything else.

Overestimating draws – In the first couple of levels of Sit and Go’s I see way too many people make this common mistake. There is no need early on to go all in on a draw.

Over betting pots to steal – I see this happen way too often, mainly in the lower levels. It’s the first level and the blinds are 10/20. It gets folded around to the small blind and they go all in to win the 20 in the big blind. Guess what? The big blind wakes up with a big hand and doubles through the idiot! Don’t let this be you.

Changing gears at the wrong time – Don’t play aggressively too early and don’t play too tight for too long. Learn when to play tight and when to change up and start playing more aggressively. By learning the right gears at the right times is crucial to placing in the money more often.

Playing heads-up too quickly – When it comes time to heads up play, it doesn’t have to be over in the first couple of hands. Play heads-up correctly and make the right decisions.

Playing outside your bankroll – This is a big mistake a lot of players make when first starting to play Sit and Go’s. Let’s say you deposit $100 and start playing $20 or $30 SnGs. Sure you might go on a hot streak straight away and win some money but more times than not you will lose and be left with nothing.

Don’t stop learning! – Players that tell you that they know everything about a particular form of poker are lying. I’ve been playing for over 5 years and I learn things all the time. One of the best ways of continually learning once you are a winning player is to review your poker hand history. You really want to look at what caused you to finish on the bubble or why you might have been knocked out early. By finding out these mistakes or “leaks” in your play, you will become a more profitable Sit and Go player.

One of the best investments you can do for your poker career is purchase a bit of software that keeps these records up to date without you thinking about it.

Here is a generic starting hand guide for SnGs depending on what part of the tournament you are playing. This is general reference guide
for playing optimal A-B-C poker. Combining these with your read of specific players you should be able finish on the podium
more often.

* “s” means suited.

Note: Due to fewer players, early and mid positions combine.

Note: Due to fewer players, all positions are considered equal.

If you are used to playing 1 Sit and Go, then try playing 2 at once. If you are used to playing 2, try 3, and so on. When I first started out, the hardest part was going from 1 to 2 tables at once.

Why should you multi-table Sit and Go’s? Simple – To improve your hourly rate and win more money! Now be careful though, the more tables you open, the less “tells” you will pick up on the players playing so your win-rate will drop, but hopefully not by much if you take it 1 table at a time.

If you are serious about playing poker for a living, you really need to be playing at least 4 tables at once. Let’s take an example.

Just say you are playing $10+1 Sit and Go’s and getting a Return On Investment (ROI) of 20%, whilst playing 2 tables at once. This means that for every 100 SnGs you play, you will make $220 profit. The amount of time per SnG you play would be approx 30 minutes. Based on this, your hourly rate is $8.80/hour. Not bad but lets take this up a notch.

Now let us play the same $10+1 Sit and Go’s but this time we are plying 4 at once. They still would take the same average time but your ROI would possibly move down to 17% because you aren’t paying as much attention to each table. So over 100 games your profit would be a bit less at $187 but it has taken you half the time to make that money so your hourly rate goes up to $14.96 per hour! Starting to get the idea?

Ok. Now suppose you move up again to 6 or 9 tabling. Respectively, you can assume your ROI will lower again to 15% and 13%. Based on the same Sit and Go’s taking the same amount of time as the other examples. 6 tabling will get you a profit of $165 or $19.8 per hour and 9 tabling will earn you $143 at around $25.74 per hour.

Now these are loose figures based on general assumptions made around the internet on what ROI half decent winning Sit and Go players expect to return and that your average time playing a Sit and Go is indeed 30 minutes. But what we have learnt from this is even though your ROI goes down, Your hourly rate goes up. Some people aren’t going to get past 4 tables before their ROI suffers bad enough to be worth playing more and others are going to get to 20 tables and still be increasing their hourly rate.

So now you know the benefits of multi-tabling Sit and Go’s!