Playing single table tournaments in online poker is a great way to build your poker bankroll. Each tournament seats nine or ten players and pays the final three players. The single table tournament concludes in the same as a multi table tournament, when one player has all the chips.

When playing online sit and go's to build your bankroll, I highly recommend you play these tournaments to earn an hourly rate, and not a return on investment for single tournament victories. Over the long run single victories mean very little to your bankroll when multiple victories or cashes versus the amount of times you bust out of the money can add up to a significant profit. Finishing in first place in a $5 SNG online will pay you $25, or roughly five times the buy-in. Now, if you were to play ten sit and go's an hour (for a $50 investment) then you would just need to be able to win two out of ten of these sit and go's to break even. If you are to win two of those SNG's, and place third place ($10) in one, and second place ($15) in another - you have effectively made yourself $25 an hour just for having a bit of fun and playing some online poker! Now do that for four hours a day and you have made $100 a day which equals $2800 a month just by playing a few SNG's online and risking only $5 at per tournament.

Sit And Go Strategy

When playing online sit and go's (or sng's for short) a lot of conventional thought goes out the window. You are playing primarily against another opponents stack size and not so much against their possible hands. At the same time, you are also playing for survival - and can easily find yourself in situations where most opponents left in the game only have 4-5 big blinds. Knowing that in advance, the best strategy is to take advantage of players that don't understand how to shift gears as the tournament structure progresses.

Early Strategy - Tight is right here, we want to keep most of our stack and wait for big hands to double up. The blinds are not yet worth stealing and there is a very real chance that 3-4 opponents will bust out in the first few orbits, leaving us shorthanded to play for the win. We will let those players go broke playing marginal hands while you wait for a monster, and build a tight table image.

While playing tight early, play close attention and try to label opponents who you think might fold in the later blind levels. Having a tight table image with the respect of your opponents will help you steal blinds later on. Most sit and go players don't know they should be shoving and calling a lot "lighter" with stacks of 2,500 and blinds of 200/400 (six handed) than they should be with the same stack and 50/100 blinds. The relative difference in expected value, based on your stack size and amount of big blinds dictates that you play and call more aggressively - but the opponents who don't realize that add greatly to your fold equity. These are the types of players that shoving Queen Ten makes great sense against, because if they call you are likely facing a 60/40 situation even though they will probably fold 75% of their hands.

Middle Strategy- This is generally a good time to play by "feel" and look for good spots to steal blinds. By now the average stack has 15 big blinds or less, and there should be significant action at the table - use your table image to your advantage and start playing more aggressively. Start re-shoving all in with hands like Ace Queen or a pocket pair of nines or better to a pre-flop raise in front of you. If your opponent wakes up with Aces or Kings it is just a cooler and you can simply move on to the next sit and go tournament. Now is a great time to confuse your opponents while they think you are a tight/weak type of player that folds big hands pre-flop. Your fold equity will be high versus most opponents who simply want to fold and try to "make the money" so take advantage of that.

Folding middle pairs, and hands like Ace Jack or Ace Ten suited is still wise until we reach four or five handed play. Looks for good opportunities, play selectively aggressive, and rely heavily on your previous reads and your well designed table image.

Bubble Strategy - Bubble strategy can be highly situational, but in general aggressive poker is winning poker here (as always). There is a famous saying, "In order to live you must be willing to die" and that definately holds true here. In order to play optimal winning sng strategy here, you need to be raising, re-raising, and shoving all in with a very wide range of hands here. Simply put, luck can and will be on your side from time to time and maximizing fold equity give your hand extra value - so long as you are the one raising. Be willing to bust with almost any ace, any pair, or any two face cards at this point of the poker tournament. As we know, first place pays proportionally better than third place does so that should always be our goal - especially when trying to maximize your hourly profit without focusing on specific return on investment.

You should however, use great caution in some situations during the sit and go bubble. If an opponent shoves all in ahead of you, you should call with only the absolute best starting hands - because the sheer size of the blinds will induce and invite the blinds to call more frequently due to simple pot odds. Letting other players do battle is still a winning strategy here, especially if you can hold on to a reasonable stack of chips while doing so. While we are playing for the win, getting in the money is very important here as well - after all we did make it this far. Use good reads, raise and re-raise with big hands - don't ever limp at this level and consider open shoving all in, but do it selectively while making your first objective to just make the money.

In The Money Play - Good job! You played patient early on, aggressively later, and you made the money! Now, all that seperates you from a profit of one times your buy-in and four times your buy-in is two other players. The average stack is usually around 3,000 here with blinds of 300/600 - so playing like a maniac is the proper strategy. Raise any two cards from the button, re-raise any Ace, pair, or face cards and open shove all-in with Ace Ten or better. You must take, and win, a couple of flips but do your best to bully the table around and represent big hands. You should be playing almost no post-flop poker and pounding any edge you think you might have pre-flop. If your opponent doesn't leave after busting to you without thinking that you are a donkey, you probably did not play this part of the single table tournament properly.

Hands to go to war with here include:

Any ace with a kicker seven and up, any king with a kicker 8 and up, or any two face cards. Play hands like small pocket pairs very aggressively here and while I suggest avoiding post-flop poker, be willing to shove any flopped draw here to maximize your value. The way I play (and win) most of my sng's is by folding all my hands early, and shoving all my hands later on.

Later on, we will add some more articles that go a bit deeper into the mathematics of when to shove and when to call based on your stack size in these single table poker tournaments, so check back often for our fresh new poker content - Good luck at the tables!