All popular types of poker and their rules: MTT, cash, spins, SNG

Translated with the help of AI. We apologize for any errors and would appreciate your help in correcting them.

The desire to learn how to play poker is commendable. The world of card games is fascinating and unlike any other entertainment. The thing is that the result here does not depend on luck, but on your skill. And Poker University students confirm this regularly, winning four, five and even six-figure dollar amounts in tournaments.

Which poker format to choose for yourself is not an easy question. Much depends on your character and the availability of free time. Therefore, we offer a detailed overview of all the disciplines that are popular today with a description of their key features.

1. Multi-Table Tournaments (MTT)

Tournament – a poker event in which X person participates, each contributes an equal amount to the total prize pool, which is distributed between 10-20% of the prize places (depending on the number of participants). The main prize money is received by the participants of the final table or the TOP 3 winners of the tournament. The opportunity to win good money with a small investment attracts fans and makes tournaments the most popular type of poker in 2023.

For example, Bounty Builder $44, $60K Gtd

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Features of multi-table tournaments

1. Same starting stack. For example: 10,000 chips. Beginning of blinds with 50-100 chips and gradual growth every 10 minutes
2. Play in different stacks (relative to the number of BBs). Stacks: up to 10bb, 11-16bb, 17-25bb, 25-40bb, 41-80bb, 81bb+
3. It is not possible to leave the game before the end of the tournament
4. Different tournament game formats (turbo, progressive knock-out, deep stacks, phase tournaments, satellites and different 6-7-8 max tables)​​​​

Multi-table tournaments are a fascinating form of poker. You constantly change the stack size, which affects the game strategy. At Poker University, you will get a maximum of useful information about the game in MTT. There is an opportunity to undergo free poker training.

Different tournament formats 

Freeroll and   
freebie freeroll are free-to-play tournaments. In them, you can practice without investing and win a part of a small prize fund. Freeroll games are available in almost all poker rooms. Playing them makes sense for gaining experience and building up your starting bankroll if you are not ready to make a deposit with your own funds.

Freebies are a type of freeroll where participation is also free, but after losing all the chips, you have the opportunity to make a rebuy (buy more chips for money).

In such MTTs, the level of competition is higher, since оpponents are less likely to perform random actions. Due to the money that players voluntarily contribute to the prize pool, it turns out to be higher than in regular freerolls. Many free tournaments are held in the Russian room of PokerDom. Not only for Hold 'em or Omaha, but also for an exotic online poker format — Chinese pineapple.

Freezeouts  
This is a sports format of tournament poker, in which everyone has an equal chance of success. After losing all the chips, you are eliminated from the event and there is no way to return to the tournament. Most tournaments come with a re-entry format to increase the total prize pool and payouts for the first places.

Re-entry   
The most popular MTT format in poker rooms today. Unlike rebainers, where you can get a double stack, which will give an additional advantage, here players are in more equal conditions. After losing all your chips, you can return to the game by logging in again. This is for a limited period of time. The amount of chips you will receive is fixed, and does not differ from the starting one, as well as the buy-in. In some tournaments, the number of re-entry can be limited to two, three, five entrances. However, in most events, you can make an unlimited number of re-registrations both immediately after departure and at any time while the tournament has a late check-in.

Knock-out 
Another type of multi-table tournament. 

In knockouts, the prize fund is divided into two parts:

• Occupancy prizes are the classic payouts you receive after flying out of a prize zone event. The closer to the first place you leave the tournament, the larger the prize will be credited to the account.
• Knockout prizes are a separate prize pool, payoff from which is made for each knocked out player. Due to the prizes for the “head”, the game is more aggressive, since everyone wants to get additional money here and now.

In classic knockouts, the knockout prizes are unchanged: from the very beginning of MTT to the final table. Therefore, at the beginning of the tournament, the value of the prize money for the "head" is significantly higher than in the final stage. These tournaments are dying out, as in 2016 a new more interesting knock-out format was invented — with progressive knockout prizes.

Progressive knock-out and Mystery bounty 
Progressive knock-out is a tournament with 2 prize pools. The standard prize pool for the occupied places in the tournament and the prize pool of rewards for knocking players out of the tournament, the knockout is the situation in which you won all the chips from the opponent. Progressive – means that rewards for knocking out players increase over the course of the tournament. This happens according to the formula:

For example:

The leader of online poker in the average online poker room GGPoker in 2022 launched a new format of knockout tournaments — Mr. bounty. Their feature is a random reward for knocking out an opponent. In this, the MTT format is somewhat reminiscent of spins, where it is possible to hit the jackpot — the resulting knock-out for a knocked-out player can be unexpectedly large. In large tournaments, up to three large prizes are usually drawn.

Rebayniki
Tournaments with rebuys imply the possibility of buying more chips. 

This can be done in several cases:

• Even before the start of the tournament - you get at your disposal a double stack, which allows you to creatively approach the draws, feeling the stock of chips in front of amateurs.
• When your stack drops below the starting stack, it is an analogue of a double rebuy at the start of the MTT. You can make 1 rebuy at any time when your stack drops below the starting mark.
• After losing all the chips - in this case, the poker room gives you two options: make a single or double rebuy.

After the end of the rebuy period (this time period usually coincides with the time allotted for late registration or lasts a little longer), players are given time for the addon. This is the last opportunity to buy more chips. The cost of the addon is the same as the buy-in to the tournament. However, you get more chips for the addon.

Joke outs Tournament format,   
when players sit at 6-max tables and play among themselves until 1 table winner remains. Then the winners of each table gather in a new table and play among themselves until the winner is determined, and so on. Typically, this format takes place in hyper-turbo mode. 

Satellites
Tournaments in which tickets to other more expensive tournaments are played instead of cash prizes. Usually, a victory is considered to be the fact of selection to the next stage of the satellite or already to the initial event.

For example:

1. In the satellite for $5, tickets for the tournament for $55 are raffled off.
2. The prize fund is 100 tickets. When 100 players remain, the satellite ends, all 100 winners receive an equal prize – a ticket to the main tournament.

2. Game cash format

Cash is a game for cash when the amount of chips in the stack is equivalent to real money. A feature of the game at cash tables is a free schedule. If in tournaments you are tied to the start time of the event and in the middle of it you cannot leave the table (blinds will be removed from your stack), then everything in the cash is much more democratic. They wanted to play a few hands and sat down at the table. You feel tired — you interrupted the game session.

1. There are constant blind levels in the cache cash. This means that starting the game with mandatory bets of $0.5/$1, even after a few hours the level of blinds will remain the same.
2. You play immediately for money without any additional success factors other than the earned chips here and now.
3. Many beginners start with cache because of convenience, but gradually move to MTT for great excitement, interest and fun of the game process.
4. The key indicator for determining the success of a particular player in cash is the number of big blinds won for a hundred hands (bb/100). ​​​​​​It is worth paying attention to the indicator when the base of hands has several thousand (or better — tens of thousands of hands). At middle limits, the figure of 7-10 bb/100 is considered successful. It means that on average, for 100 hands played, you win 7 blinds of the working limit.
5. In the cache, you will not win an amount in one cash session that greatly exceeds your investments. However, if you do the right things in the hands, you will get a fairly stable profit. 

Fast poker (zoom)

Fast poker is a cache format for those who do not like to sit waiting for a new hand. Immediately after you click on the “fold” button, the client of the poker room transfers you to another table, where a new hand begins. At the fast poker tables, you can play much more hands than in traditional cash. But the possibility of a quick pass makes its changes in tactics, as оpponents play stronger starting combinations.

In different poker rooms, the name of fast poker has its own:

All-In or Fold

A kind of poker for lovers, since it is difficult to get into a confident plus here due to the high variance. 

In each hand, you will have only two options:

Depending on the type of poker chosen, the street where the decision is made differs:

1. Holdem — preflop
2. Omaha — flop

Sit and Go (SnG)

This format is as similar as possible to tournament poker. Most Sit and Go does not start on schedule, but as soon as the required number of participants is registered in the lobby.

• For example, a single table SnG for 9 people will start when nine poker players register in it. In most SnGs, you can't win a lot of money in one tournament because of the small number of participants.

However, they can be played as a sure plus if you actively multitable (play at several tables at the same time).  SnG tournaments can also be seen as a good practice of the game at different stages of MTT, including heads-up, which you will often get to. This is a great format for starting a poker player's career, since it does not require perseverance for a long time and teaches the game for chips and prizes, which allows you to quickly move into tournament poker.

Sit and Go Single Table

The classic format of SnG tournaments. Due to the small number of participants, tournaments gather quite quickly. 

The most popular formats are:

Multi-Table Sit and Go (MTSnG)

The main drawback of these tournaments is the long waiting time for the start, since you need to wait for the required number of participants (45, 90, 180, etc.) to register in the lobby. Most MTSnGs are held in a turbocharged format, which is not the best option for beginners. Therefore, it is better to refuse to play them, choosing MTT with a low AFS (number of registered players). Such tournaments are similar to MTSnG, but the results will be much better if you make a game grid of small tournaments for 100-300 people. This is a profitable option for learning and developing in poker from scratch. The most suitable rooms for this are: Chico (Tigergaming, Betonline, Sportsbetting) and RedStar. 

Double or Nothing

An interesting format that was popular a few years ago in the 888poker poker room. This is a SnG for eight people, where exactly half of the participants — four — get prizes, receiving two buy-ins at their own expense, minus the rake paid. PokerStars has an analogue of donations — Fifty50. Here, the scheme for distributing prize money is different. Exactly half of the participants also get into the prizes, but for this you get back only your buy-in for rake. Further prizes depend on the stack with which you completed the tournament. A certain amount on each limit is paid for every 100 chips.

3. Spin and Go

A popular format for hyper-turbo tournaments. In the classic version, there are three players at the table with a stack of 500 chips. Before the start of the "spinA", the luck wheel rotates, which determines the prize pool of the current tournament. The minimum prize pool is double buy-in, and the maximum is determined by each poker room.

Example of the prize pool in Spin&Gold tournaments in the GGPoker room at low limits

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The probability of winning the jackpot is indicated in the corresponding section of the site of each poker room. It is extremely small. On average, 1 in 1,000,000. But, this opportunity attracts many amateurs to the tables. However, due to the incredible dispersion, even professionals often fail to play "spins" alone in a confident plus.  To break the dispersion, players unite into teams, where they share prize money by EV. In general, this type of poker does not teach skills that are suitable in the future neither for cash nor for tournaments. Therefore, in terms of development at the start of his career, he is quite useless. "spins" are chosen only if you want to play this particular discipline and develop in it, or a little half-hooked.

"spins" for 6 people

Some poker rooms have upgraded the classic version of "Spin&Go", increasing the number of participants to six people. Variance in such tournaments becomes even higher, and the minimum prize increases to x4.

Flip "spins"

Especially for lovers of ludomania, the "Spin&Go" flip format is available on some sites. It implies that all participants in the tournament go to the all-in until the winner of the "spin" is determined. Nothing depends on you in such "spins", so there is no point in considering the type of poker as a source of income. 

4. How to make money playing poker

In every format of modern poker, there are poker players who have made it a source of constant income. Somewhere it is easier to do, somewhere it is more difficult. Poker University offers you the path to becoming a professional MTT player from the lowest to the highest limits.

You get several training options to choose from:

Free poker training 
By becoming a member of our loyalty program, you get free access to video courses, special documents and methodologies for working with educational materials. Gradually, you can become a high-income professional without spending your own money on training.

Buying Video Poker Courses
This is an opportunity to access the materials of interest here and now. It is not necessary to buy a whole course — you can order individual videos or a section of the course. 

Discounts on training per game 
When you register in certain affiliate poker rooms from our site, you automatically earn internal currency — U-points for playing for money. For it, you can partially or fully pay for video courses. Exchange rate: 1 U-point = $1.

Studying free content
A lot of free educational materials appear on the site: articles, VODs, poker streams. This is useful content for players of any level: from beginners to professionals. Students of the school receive a special document with a structured list of materials for study free of charge. Please contact your school manager to get it. 

Individual workouts 
This is the fastest way to achieve the desired result fast. The school employs not only a professional poker coach Alexey Exan13 Lebedev, but also a poker psychologist who will help you find your emotional balance.