Sole table competitions or sit and go as they're also known can earn some decent cash with no thought before play.
I personally love playing the free online poker sites and also the low stake (up to ten dollars) sit and go websites.
I have my methods on how I play these different games which I will share.
Solid and Tight early on.
By playing this way you must play a decent hand near the start of the tournament.
Your place at the table is critical- Paris from twenty two through ninety nine, I call and then up to three times the big blind.
A bigger raise and I fold them.
Larger pairs like 1010, JJ, QQ, KK, and AA of course call for a raise on a short table.
Get ready to call an all in whichever of those cards are shown- cards such as Queen/Jack, Queen/King, King/Jack & & Ace/10I play similar with tiny pairs & fold to raises higher than three times the big hand.
Now the hands that can get you into trouble.
I will explain to you in this next part some of the cards which may leave you in despair.
Ace/Jack, Ace/Queen & Ace/King- you really have to understand when it's best to fold these cards.
Don't get me wrong they're brilliant cards when there's just a hand full of opponents remaining, however during the opening they're no good to any pair.
It's an important strategy knowing when to put these cards down in the early stages of a free poker tournament.
One tactic I believe works well is showing my cards when I win- pulling out these double kings etc shows the other players I haven't blagged once; well this may change once we get down to the final three as I wont be showing any cards then! By doing this you will get the opportunity to have some great robberies.
Your opponents have only ever seen your victories and therefore have no reason to start doubting you now.
As you just played the best cards at the start you have opened the door for the 'bingo' players to put themselves out.
The odds are by being strong and rigid the chance will fall for you to knock a few opponents out yourself.
The whole idea in any tournament is to win, however making the money in SNG's much easier.
In most cases top 3 pay with 3rd usually paying back at least your buy-in.
So making the money is critical to successful SNG play.
Another factor in play is a pet peeve of mine.
I cannot count the times I have seen a table fold to a dead seat.
There is nothing like seeing a deadhead getting free chips.
The key factor here is PAY ATTENTION.
You have to be in the game and not on vacation.
Add with this there are always the common sense fundamentals when playing for money.
I'm one of the old school and being in my fifties I have seen the game evolve in many forms over many decades.
To quote one of mu idols "No limit holdem can be taught in half an hour but can take over a lifetime to master".
To this I'd add, when you start or if you're already familiar with poker but struggling - go and practice on micro/low stakes or free online poker site tournaments.
There are some great ones out there and you can play loads with little or nothing at risk and in doing so really build your confidence and skills before starting to risk it bigger.