PokerStars Sit'n'Go Steps Tournaments

Steps Tournaments are a relatively new, and comparably uncommon, way to win a seat in a major event, like the World Series of Poker Main Event. Steps tournaments are offered at a few online poker rooms, the most famous being PokerStars.

A Steps Sit'n'Go has major advantages for poker players. First of all, they are incredibly inexpensive if you start at the first Step. Second, as a Sit'n'Go, you do not need to whittle your way through hundreds or even thousands of competitors to emerge victorious. You will, however, need to win each step to take down the top prize.

For each SNG step you win, you are awarded free entry to the next Steps tournament, and so on. Coming in below 1st place, but high in the ranks, will often award a “try again” ticket. For instance, finishing 2nd in Step 1 will award a new Step 1 ticket so you may try again for free.

To better explain exactly how Steps SNGs work, we'll use a real example. Below is the PokerStars WSOP Steps SNG schedule, awarding a $12,500 Prize Package to the 2009 WSOP Main Event.

WSOP Step 1: Entry fee $7.50, 500 FPP or a WSOP Step 1 ticket.
1st Place: WSOP Step 2 ticket
2nd Place: WSOP Step 1 ticket
3rd Place: $1.50

WSOP Step 2: Entry fee $27.00, 1,750 FPP or WSOP Step 2 ticket
1st & 2nd Place: WSOP Step 3 ticket
3rd & 4th Place: WSOP Step 2 ticket
5th Place: WSOP Step 1 ticket

WSOP Step 3: Entry fee $82.00, 5,125 FPP or WSOP Step 3 ticket
1st & 2nd Place: WSOP Step 4 ticket
3rd 4th & 5th Place: WSOP Step 3 ticket

WSOP Step 4: Entry fee $215.00, 13,500 FPP or WSOP Step 3 ticket
1st & 2nd Place: WSOP Step 5 ticket
3rd Place: WSOP Step 4 ticket
4th & 5th Place: WSOP Step 3 ticket
6th Place: WSOP Step 2 ticket

WSOP Step 5: Entry fee $700.00 or WSOP Step 5 ticket
1st & 2nd Place: WSOP Step 6 ticket
3rd & 4th Place: WSOP Step 5 ticket
5th & 6th Place: WSOP Step 4 ticket

WSOP Step 6: Entry fee $2,100 or WSOP Step 6 ticket
1st Place: $12,500 Prize Package to 2009 WSOP Main Event ($10k buy-in + $2,500 expenses)
2nd & 3rd Place: $1,500
4th & 5th Place: $1,000
6th Place: $500

PokerStars has Steps SNG tournaments to various live poker events, not just the World Series of Poker. Players can win a series of Steps to launch themselves into the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, the European Poker Tour, Asia Pacific Poker tour and others.

PokerStars also presents major online poker events with Steps SNGs on the menu. These include the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and the newest addition, the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP).

The greatest part about Steps satellites is that a relatively good SNG strategist can buy into Step 1 and stay in the running for quite some time without actually having to win the tournament outright. Simply finishing high enough awards a ticket to retry the same step, or drop back a step, but keep going.

The next time you're looking for a fun, inexpensive way to play tournaments with a big prize at the end of the rope, find out if your online poker room offers Steps SNGs. If not, head over to a major poker site like PokerStars or PKR, and try your hand at the available Steps Satellites.