Sit and Go Poker Tournaments - Fast and Wild

I belong to two on-line poker sites, Poker Stars and Party Poker. I also mostly play for fun chips which are free instead of money chips which you have to buy. I do this because it is great practice. It is also very hard to play in on-line money games in the United States because of laws passed which makes it very hard or downright illegal to play on-line poker for money.

I have to admit it is somewhat boring to play for play chips. But since I go to Las Vegas about twice a year now to compete in brick and mortar (hotel casino) tournaments usually at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, for significant amounts of money, I have found a new type of game on-line to strengthen portions of my tournament play. The result is that during my last stay at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, I won first place in one tournament and was "in the money" in the two other tournaments I entered. I did not lose any tournaments and went home with thousands of dollars in winnings above the cost of the expenses for both me and my wife in a deluxe suite at this relatively new and beautiful hotel.

What honed my skill on-line is what is called sit and go tournaments, in which you can play with a limited number of players. My end game was relatively weak as is the end game of many players. The reason is simple. How many tournaments do you play where you get to the final table? Even professional players have a hard time making the last nine players in a starting field of from several hundred to several thousand entrants.

Sit and go tournaments start with very limited numbers of player. Some are just two players head on. The ones I like the best are the nine player games in which only the first, second and third players are awarded chips for winning. I average winning first place in these games 60% of the time. It has made me an excellent finisher in real tournaments. I strongly suggest this game to anyone who wants to polish up their skills of ending a tournament as champion in real money games.

It is also a great game for people who just have an hour or less to play a tournament. Normal online tournaments take six hours or more of play before the winner emerges. Sit and goes are fast and full of action. Both Poker Stars and Party Poker offer free play in sit and go games.

Other sit and go games include six player, 18 players (two tables), 27 player (three tables) and so on up to several hundred players. I do not play in any sit and go tournament exceeding 45 players since the larger tournament are too much like regular tournaments which offer better prizes such as free entry spots into weekly real money games.

Sit and go tournaments come in all varieties from Texas Hold'em Poker, Omaha Poker, Hi-Lo varieties, Seven Card Stud, Draw, Horse, and many new hybrides which have evolved. They also start as soon as the tables are filled rather than on time boundaries as in regular tournaments. There are both moey based games and plau chip based games.

For the last five or more years, online players have done very well in the World Series of Poker. Try to think of the last brick and mortar pro who has won first place in the main event.

An old joke I heard was how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice... This is exactly what sit and go tournaments allow you to do.