A Beginner's Guide to Single Table Tournaments - Chris "Fox" Wallace

Single table tournaments (commonly referred to as STT's or SNG's) can be a huge source of income for an online player, and all it takes is a quick strategy lesson to beat the lower levels. For anything below the $50 level this guide should give you a significant advantage over the field.

How single table tournaments work:

A single table tournament is played 10 (or sometimes 9) handed and almost always pays the top 3 places. The top 3 are paid 50%, 30%, and 20% for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. The tournament starts when the table is full and takes between 30 and 90 minutes to finish depending on the structure of the blinds. The entrance fee for a single table contains two amounts: the buy-in and the tournament fee. Usually stated in that order, with a plus sign separating them i.e. $20 + 2 or $30 +3. You pay the total of both numbers, with the first, bigger number going into the prize pool, and the second, smaller number going to the house. If the second number is more than 10% of the first number, the tournament should be avoided. It simply isn't worth playing when you have to pay the house such a high percentage.

How to play in a single table tournament:

30% of the players make it into the money in this sort of tournament, compared to around 10% in a big multi table tournament. When such a large percentage of the field gets paid it's much easier to make it into the money and patience is very important. Survival is key. You don't need to get a great run of cards or completely outplay your opponents like you would need to do in a big multi to get paid. A good single table player will make it into the money about 45% of the time and will actually win as often as 25% at the lower buy in levels with a good structure. The structure of the tournament can affect these figures greatly, but we'll discuss that in the advanced guide.

With the wild play of your opponents (you'll be amazed at how badly they play) and almost a third of the players getting paid you'll want to be cautious during the first few rounds and play only the very best hands. You will very rarely bluff, because your opponents won't fold often enough to make it profitable--they simply aren't smart enough. The blinds are so small that they won't be worth stealing even if you are on the button, and they aren't big enough to hurt your stack much. While you wait patiently for a good hand, your opponents will be knocking each other out and when you finally get a good hand they will probably double you up.

You will be routinely folding AJ at this stage of the tournament, but if you can see a flop during the first level in late position to no raise you should often do so. Hands like suited connectors or small pairs are a good candidate for this, because you will often double up if you hit your hand, and it's only costing you 10 or 15 chips to see a flop. Remember that this applies only to the last few positions and only if there has been no raise. If you are raised with a speculative hand simply muck it, it hasn't cost you much. The same advice goes for playing on the flop in the early levels; if you don't hit the flop hard with your speculative hands simply let them go, you have very little invested but a lot to lose. Since you will be playing few hands, and have little else to do, you should make sure to use this time to study your opponents.

By the time you get to the 25/50 level, a number of people will be knocked out. A few more will be short stacked. You should have notes on all the remaining players at this point, while they will probably not have even noticed that you have been playing so tight. They're too busy pushing all their chips in the middle to pay attention to the quiet guy. If there are one or two other tight players at the table you should have recognized them by now and you can stay out of their way.

If you should happen to get a very large stack--three times your starting chips or larger--you'll want to protect it, avoiding pots with other big stacks and waiting for the smaller stacks to get knocked out.

Also around the 25/50 or 50/100 level, you will see your opponents start to tighten up. Maybe all the wild players have been knocked out, or one or two of them has secured a large chip stack that they want to protect. This is when you switch gears and get into a more aggressive mode of play. The blinds are now big enough to hurt you when they come around, and big enough to be worth stealing from your opponents. With your notes you should know who you can steal from and who you can bluff out of a pot on the flop. If you haven't made a big hand and doubled up in the first part of the tournament you can now carefully steal pots from your opponents to get yourself up to a reasonable level.

During this middle stage you will have to adopt the old "stick and move" mindset. Take a shot at stealing a pot or the blinds, but if your opponent plays back at you it's time to be done with it. Wasting any more chips bluffing at a pot when your opponent has shown some strength will eat away at your stack quickly. You will only bluff when the time looks right, and only steal the blinds from late position against players who will surrender them. When you find the right players to steal from abuse them endlessly and keep the pressure on, backing off any time they reraise you.

Toward the end of the middle stage--when you get down to 4 or 5 handed and the blinds are getting large--you'll need to play close attention to your stack and the stacks of your opponents. If there are four of you left and one player is very short stacked you'll want to avoid confrontations with the other big stacks until the short stack is busted and you are in the money.

Once you have reached the money things change a great deal. Some players will be happy to have made it that far and they will become loose and aggressive when just a few hands before they were rock tight. You'll need a strong hand to play with these players, and when you get one, you'll usually want to get all your chips in before or on the flop. Once again, you'll want to play close attention to stack sizes and pick on the little guy or the timid player rather than a maniacal big stack. That maniac big stack will be more than happy to double you up when you get a monster hand, so there's no need to mess with him until then.

The things you need to know about winning once you get into the money will be covered in the advanced guide to single table tournaments, but for now play carefully, and pay close attention to your opponents. If your opponents are gambling a lot then you wait for a good hand and if they are going to let you steal from them go for it, the blinds will be very high and stealing will be very profitable. It will do a great deal of good to work on short handed play and develop an understanding of how different hands play all in preflop as well.

A few helpful tips:

I tell my students to have the table in the middle of the screen and the notes window for each player open next to them; it makes note taking easier and reminds you to do it constantly. At sites that use the chat box for notes (like UB or PokerStars) try to keep yourself taking notes during every hand by watching how many players you currently have notes on at the table. Watch the better players closely to see if they are changing gears like you are and remember that they are not to be messed with unless you have a real hand.

If you have less than five times the big blind you should move all in any time you are going to play a pot. If you raise less than this you are committed to the pot anyway and you would rather take the blinds without a fight so moving all in is the right move. Also try to remember that it takes a better hand to call an all in raise than it does to make one, so be the aggressor, not the caller in the later rounds.

Good luck in your single table career, many an online pro has built their bankroll in them. We'll have a listing up soon of the structures and quality of players at different sites that should help you choose where you can make the most profit.

For now we recommend PokerStars and Paradise Poker for the lower buy-in tournaments, and you may find that a few of the newer sites like Full Tilt and BoDog provide good structures as well. UltimateBet has an excellent structure and very small buy-in tournaments, but you will find the players much better in the single tables there than at most other sites. Sites on the Party network have terrible players and the single table tournaments can be very profitable, but your results will vary a great deal because of the terrible structure.

We recommend reading Sklansky's Tournament Poker for Advanced Players and The Theory of Poker to increase your success in single table tournaments. Practice will definitely improve your success quickly, and making a profit in single table tournaments usually comes faster for beginners than it does in most other types of poker.