Sit and go poker, explained

How a sit and go works

The name says it: players sit down, and when the table is full, it goes. Online, that means you register for a game of a given size and buy-in, and the cards are dealt the moment the last seat is taken. Everything else follows standard tournament rules:

• Equal stacks. Everyone pays the same buy-in and starts with the same number of chips. Tournament chips have no cash value — you can’t cash out halfway.
• Rising blinds. The blinds go up on a clock, so the stacks shrink relative to the blinds and the game must end.
• A fixed payout. The prize pool is the buy-ins (minus the site’s fee on real-money sites). A 9-player game commonly pays three places, often split 50/30/20; a 6-player game often pays two.
• Freezeout. Most SNGs have no rebuys: bust and you’re done. The game ends when one player holds every chip.

A home tournament is the same format with friends instead of a registration list. On FizzPoker the host picks 2–9 seats and a blind speed, shares a private link, and presses start once everyone is seated. There’s no buy-in and no prize, so there are no paid places — the whole table plays for the win.

Strategy for each phase

SNG strategy is mostly about stack depth: how many big blinds you and your opponents have. Each phase is named for how many players are left, but how deep the stacks are when it arrives depends on the blind structure and the table. The times below are the simulated 9-player game on 10-minute levels at a relaxed pace, as in the chart above.

Early — 9–7 players, the first 16 minutes or so

Stacks start at 100 big blinds and the blinds are tiny compared with the chips in play. Nothing you win now is worth risking your tournament for. Play fewer hands than you would in a cash game, favour position, and let the loose players knock each other out. Small pairs and suited connectors are worth a cheap look in position, hoping to hit big; don’t go broke with one pair.

Middle — 6–5 players, until about minute 40

The table thins out and the blinds start to bite: by minute 40 they are 150/300. While the stacks are still deep this plays much like the early phase. As your stack falls toward 25 big blinds, stealing the blinds becomes a real source of chips: open-raise from late position more often, especially when the players behind you are short or cautious. With roughly 15–25 big blinds, re-raising all-in over a late opener is a strong weapon, because it wins a sizeable pot without a flop.

Bubble — 4 players left, then 3

With three places paid, the fourth-place finisher gets nothing. That makes survival worth more than chips, and it changes who should gamble. The big stack can raise almost any hand, because the medium stacks can’t afford to call without a very strong hand. Medium stacks should tighten up and let the short stack bust. The short stack has to shove to stay alive — waiting to blind out usually costs more than a risky all-in. The next section shows why, in numbers.

Heads-up — the last 2, from about minute 68

Two players left means you’re in the blinds every hand, so almost any two cards are worth playing from the button. Raise most hands on the button, defend your big blind widely, and bet when your opponent shows weakness. Once the effective stack falls below about 10 big blinds, move to all-in or fold. The heads-up poker guide covers the ranges in detail.

Why chips aren’t money on the bubble

In a sit and go that pays three places, doubling your chips does not double your prize. The Independent Chip Model (ICM) turns a stack into an expected share of the prize pool: your chance of finishing first is your share of the chips, and each lower place is worked out the same way from the players left. Here are four players on the bubble of a 9-player game (90,000 chips in play), paying 50/30/20:

The big stack holds 40% of the chips but only 33.6% of the prize money; the short stack holds 10% and is worth 13.3%. Chips you win are worth less than chips you lose.

What that means for a call. The big stack shoves and the second stack (27,000) must decide. In chips, calling for the whole stack needs 50% to break even. Under ICM, winning lifts that player’s share to 40.5% while losing ends their tournament with nothing — so the call needs about 73% to break even (ignoring the blinds already in the pot). That is why medium stacks fold strong hands on the bubble, and why big stacks keep shoving at them.

In a winner-take-all game — like a FizzPoker table, where only first place counts — ICM gives each player exactly their share of the chips, so the bubble pressure disappears and a chip is a chip until the end.

Sit and go vs. tournament vs. cash game

If you have an evening rather than a weekend, a sit and go gives you the full arc of a tournament — deep stacks, blind pressure, a bubble and a heads-up finish — in one sitting.

Turbo, hyper and regular speeds

Sites label sit and gos by how fast the blinds rise: regular, turbo and hyper-turbo, from longest levels to shortest. The exact minutes differ from site to site, but the effect is always the same: shorter levels mean fewer hands at each blind, so stacks reach push-or-fold sooner and the cards decide more of the result. FizzPoker’s four speeds show the trade-off on one ladder (9 players, simulated):

Going from 10-minute to 5-minute levels cuts the typical 9-player game by about 39% — and the hands dealt by 46%, so far more of the game is played short-stacked. Three-minute turbo levels cut it by about 57%. Pick turbo for a weeknight game that fits well under an hour, fast for a quick game at the end of the night, slow if your group likes to play deep, and normal for everything in between. The tournament length estimator covers every table size from 2 to 9.

Play a free sit and go with friends

A FizzPoker table is a free single-table freezeout: everyone starts with 10,000 chips, the blinds follow the ladder above, and the last player with chips wins. Tables of 2–4 need no account. With a free account the host can open 5–9 seats and fill empty ones with bots from Level 1 to Level 5, so a short-handed group can still play a full-table SNG.

When the game ends, Rematch deals the same table again — same seats, blinds and bots — in one tap, and a shareable recap card shows the winner, the standings and awards like biggest pot and bad beat. For a regular group, a free league turns your sit and gos into a series: members-only tables and all-time standings ranked by players outlasted, so every finish counts, not just the wins.

After the game, signed-in players can review their decisions with the Fizz Score — an advisory, post-game second opinion that labels each graded decision acceptable, inaccuracy, mistake or blunder by its estimated cost as a share of the pot. It’s a good way to check your push-or-fold calls once the game is over, and the Stats tab adds classic numbers such as VPIP, steal and big-blind fold to steal, plus ranked coach’s advice with a concrete “try this” rule for each. Read about GTO and how the review works.

Questions people ask

Keep going

• Free poker tournamentsFreezeout tournaments with a duration estimate.
• Blind structure calculatorA blind schedule that finishes when you want.
• Heads-up pokerTwo-player rules, blinds and a hand-strength chart.
• GTO pokerGame theory optimal, explained with a live chart.