Sit and Go Strategy
Sit and Go (SNG) tournaments are becoming very popular within the poker industry both online and within live venues, with some online poker players heading to their chosen online poker rooms solely to take part in some of the many sit and go tournaments that are offered by the site.
Sit and Go tournaments are designed to be small tournaments what feature a once your stacks gone, your gone too mentality and so with that comes the requirement for players to be able to study strategy surrounding the tournaments.
There are so many things that players can do right and wrong within a Sit and Go tournament that will see them go from being chip leader to short stack or even worse, short stack to spectator.
So to help you get to grips with have you should and should not be looking to do during your time playing one of these tournaments we have listed a number of points for you, giving you the chance to learn them and obey them, helping you to improve your strategy and more importantly your win rate.
Firstly we are going to look at what you should be looking to do duing your time at the Sit and Go tournament tables:
1. Hold a tight stance at the start of the tournament
Sit and Go tournaments bring together a wide range of plaiyers with various levels of playing ability and so without being able to know how your opponents approach a game you need to be cautious as you could run into a player who has a higher level of poker ability.
Holding a tight approach to the game at an early stage will mean that you are able to defend yourself against players who adopt an aggressive approach to their play.
2. Attack strong hands with the strength that they deserve
When your playing in the tournament you should be holding a defensive stance, folding hands that aren’t regarded as playable and keeping yourself out of problem hands but when you are given a strong hand, you need to treat it like that.
The chances of an oversized bet being called are low so you need to think about if you want to be able to keep some of the players involved, say if you were holding pocket aces, or if you want to see your opponents fold with say a small pocket pair such as a pair of 2’s or 3’s.
3. Ease into a more open style of play
Once the blinds in the tournament start to increase, you need to think about dropping the ultra defensive stance that you were using at the beginning of the tournament in order to start to increase your chip stack.
Failure to open up your play will result in you finding the blinds passing over you and your stack and reducing your chip count every time that they come around.
Note that we are telling you to ease into a more open style of play, opening up too much will result in you overbetting your hands and finding yourself trapped in hands should a strong player be present at the table.
4. Only limp or call raises with low to medium pocket pairs early in the tournament
Limping into hands when your early on in the tournament is fine as the blinds and bets tend to be a whole lot smaller than the later stages of a tournament due to the blinds increasing with each level that passes.
In the latter stages of the tournament you should be simply looking to limp into the game but be ready to fold your low pocket pairs to avoid over pairs and high betting patterns.
5. Raise pre flop with your premium hands
High pocket pairs need to be played as strong as they are intended to be so if you find them within your hole cards you need to be betting into the pot at a minimum of 3 times the big blind to discourage the likes of hands that contain an ace with a low to medium kicker.
6. If short stacked play ‘push or fold’
Should you find yourself in a situation that you are sat with a chip stack that is less than 10 times the big blinds you need to alter your betting methods to comply with the ‘push or fold’ rule where you either fold your hand or move all in, nothing else.
This method is proven to either scare opponents out of the hand or will get you more callers for your hand than a small limping bet would.
7. Think about your bet sizing
Unlike a real cash game your bets need to be tailored to fit the tournament rather than the chip stack that you are holding, so if you are going to place a bet into the pot you should be looking to bet a minimum of half of the central pot.
8. Avoid slowplaying
Slow playing is designed to be used within a real money situation rather than within tournament play so you need to act when your holding a strong hand because players are more likely to call a bet you make in order to try catch a further card to give them a hand that ranks.
Avoid breaking the mould that we have just created for you will help to improve your Sit and Go play and will help to increase your winning percentage as well as your bankroll.
