Full Tilt Poker Steps Tournaments

Tournament Type:	Sit & Go
When:	When full
Blind Levels:	Turbo – 3 Minutes, Regular – 6 Minutes
Starting Chips:	Super Turbo 300, Turbo and Regular 1,500
Buy-in:	$1.10 to $2,100
Interesting Fact:	Win a Step 7 and you win a $12k package to a live tournament of your choice or cash.

Step tournaments at Full Tilt Poker are Sit & Go’s where you can start with a small buy-in and work your way up the ladder into bigger steps, multi-table tournaments, live tournaments or big cash payouts.

Step Tournament Buy-Ins

Full Tilt Poker offers seven step levels. The buy-ins are:

• Step 0 – $1.10
• Step 1 – $3.30
• Step 2 – $8.70
• Step 3 – $26
• Step 4 – $75
• Step 5 – $215
• Step 6 – $635
• Step 7 – $2,100

You can use steps 3-6 for entry into any similar buy-in tournament or Sit & Go on Full Tilt Poker. You are not allowed to “cash out” along the way into tournament dollars.

Step Tournament Types

Step tournaments are offered in No Limit Hold’Em and Pot Limit Omaha (except Step 7). You can play with regular blind levels (6 minutes), turbo blind levels (3 minutes) or super turbos (3 minutes and 300 chips). You can play a 9-handed, 6-handed (Steps 1-6) or four player heads-up shootout (Steps 1-4) Sit & Go’s.

At each step level a minimum of 1 person advances to the next step (often 2) and each step offers tickets for the same level or a lower level for some players if they fail to advance. For example, in 9-handed Sit & Go’s, tickets are awarded at each step as follows:

• Step 1 – 1st and 2nd win a Step 2 ticket; 3rd, 4th and 5th win a Step 1 ticket.
• Step 2 – 1st and 2nd win Step 3 ticket; 3rd and 4th win a Step 2 ticket; 5th wins a Step 1 ticket.
• Step 3 – 1st and 2nd win a Step 4 ticket; 3rd and 4th win a Step 3 ticket; 5th wins a Step 2 ticket; 6th and 7th win a Step 1 ticket.
• Step 4 – 1st and 2nd win a Step 5 ticket; 3rd and 4th win a Step 4 ticket; 5th and 6th win a Step 3 ticket.
• Step 5 – 1st and 2nd win a Step 6 ticket; 3rd and 4th win a Step 5 ticket; 5th and 6th win a Step 4 ticket.
• Step 6 – 1st and 2nd win a Step 7 ticket; 3rd wins a Step 6 ticket; 4th and 5th win a Step 5 ticket; 6th and 7th win a Step 4 ticket.
• Step 7 – Prizes vary based on the current live event being offered or cash.

Step Tournament Strategy

Play should be tight in the early levels. In the middle stages look to take the blinds from both large and short stacked players. The bigger stacks, if they have enough chips to cruise into the next step are looking to only play monster hands. They don’t need to win every chip at the table. When you reach the redo bubble (after the next player is eliminated a same step ticket is locked-up), start picking on the shorter stacks that appear to be just folding their way into a redo ticket.

Once the redo ticket is locked-up, open up your game and gamble it up. You have nothing to lose at this point if you are in a chip position not to advance to the next level. Take your chances shoving a wide range of hands.