Sit And Go Poker Tips
Sit N Go tournaments are quickly becoming the most popular form of poker, especially in the online poker community because of their expedient nature.
Watch as I play and analyze a $3 Sit and Go on America's Card Room.Follow me on Twitch!twitch.tv/rollingrockdave33Follow me on Twitter! The typical online sit-n-go features a starting stack of 1,500 chips, an opening big blind of 20, and 10-minute levels. In this set-up, each player has 75 BBs. You can afford to play speculative.
Poker players simply lack the patience to get through thousands of players to get to the payday. Enthusiasts no longer want to spend 12 hours or more of their day at the felt. Plus, with so few players involved, it becomes easier to visualize the ultimate goal - taking 1st place. In this article, we'll share 10 Sit N Go Tips that should help you achieve that goal.
Sit N Go Tip #1: Time is Money
Sit And Go Poker Strategy Video
Choosing the right Sit N Go tournament is very important. Some SNGs are Single-Table events, while others may seat 3, 5, 9, or more tables of players. PokerStars offers some very lucrative 180 player sit n go tournaments.
The more players there are, the higher the prize will be, and the more players that will finish in the money. However, more players' means more time invested. Consider how much time you have to dedicate to this Sit N Go before selecting a large event.
Sit N Go Tip #2: What's Your Style?
The tournament structure is also very important. Regular SNGs start with large chip stacks and slowly increasing blind levels, giving skilled players a strong advantage.
Fast-paced tournaments, known as 'turbos', start with much lower chip stacks and fast blind levels, leaving Lady Luck to decide the fate of most players. Be careful to choose your SNG based on the playing style that best suits your poker strategy.
Sit N Go Tip #3: Managing your Bankroll
Your bankroll should also be factored into the decision. By using a proper Sit N Go poker strategy, you are likely to win at least 1 in 10 SNGs. Therefore, the general rule of thumb is never to enter a Sit N Go Tournament that costs more than 10% of your overall bankroll. This means if you have $150, don't choose a buy-in of more than $15. Learn more about bankroll management.
Sit N Go Tip #4: Go for the Win
Before taking to the felt, the number one goal any Sit N Go tournament player should aim for winning the tournament. Don't start out thinking, 'Okay, let's try to make the money and avoid losing our buy-in!' Wrong.
First place pays significantly more than second or third, so we always advocate playing to win, and if you don't make it, oh well. You are better off winning one sit and go than taking third place in two sit and go's.
Sit N Go Tip #5: Clean House
In the earliest stages of a Sit N Go, the first thing that will occur is the elimination of all the impatient opponents. I like to call this ‘Cleaning House', because it only takes a few minutes for this group to be dismissed to the rails. These are the players who push all-in on the first hand, figuring they will either double up for a big stack, or save the time and effort it would have taken to rack up a stack the usual way.
You have two choices: Sit back and wait for the impatient to drop out, conserving your chips for the big boys - or - double up your stack early by calling their tactless push. It's generally a bad idea to call if there are already several callers in the mix. You also don't want to find yourself on the rails. Only call with a big hand and good position if two or less opponents remain.
Sit N Go Tip #6: Here Fishy-Fishy
The next group to exit the tables will be the fish. These are the lousy poker players who wouldn't know a poker strategy if it came up and bit them on the nose. Fish are easily recognized as they will call just about any bet so long as it's not a push. They don't want to risk everything, but they can't resist seeing the flop if it's affordable. With a decent hand, call them back. You can easily use the fish to build your stack before the schools run dry.
Sit N Go Tip #7: Be Observant
Because Sit N Go tournaments are so much shorter than the MTT variety, you can rely on the occasional monster hand to boost your chip stack. Instead, your observation skills will take precedence. Learn the tendencies of your opponents, and when you find yourself successfully predicting their behavior, take advantage of it.
Sit N Go Tip #8: Feel the Eyes Upon You
If you're making an effort to read your opponents, you can only assume they are doing the same to you. Put yourself in their shoes and try to read your own behavior, as they would see it. You don't want to become predictable, but if they think they can predict you, you can turn that to your advantage by altering your normal strategy now and again. Learn more about online poker tells.
Sit N Go Tip #9: Middle Stages
The blinds are now increasing to a sizeable amount, putting a great deal of pressure on the short stacks. They will be using a tight, Push or Fold poker strategy, as should you if you are one of them. This means Push All-In with premium hands. Anything else should be folded.
For the bigger stacks, this presents an excellent opportunity to steal blinds. At this point, you're approaching the bubble, and should be very careful to ensure you're not eliminated just before reaching your goal. Steal blinds in position when the opportunity presents itself, but only play big hands otherwise. Learn How to Steal the Blinds.
Sit N Go Tip #10: Late Stages - On the Bubble
Once you burst the bubble, you can relax a little - only a little, though. You still want to win the Sit N Go, after all. Your strategy should depend on how many players remain. Generally speaking, the fewer players there are, the more hands you can play.
What were once marginal hands become more valuable. In a Multi-Table Sit N Go, there may be a full table of players, in which case you'll want to stick to a tighter poker strategy. A full final table will usually dwindle to half very quickly as the short stacks drop like flies. With a monster hand, take their chips as they fall - otherwise, be conservative and get as close to the big money as you can.
More General Sit and Go Strategy:
Sit-and-go tournaments are to this day one of the most popular formats of tournament poker. Thousands of such games are played at online poker sites every day all around the world thanks in part to how often they run and the fact it is possible to adopt an optimal sit-and-go strategy.
What is Sit-and-Go Poker?
Those of you new to poker may be wondering what a sit-and-go (or SNG) is, so we’ll fill you in with all of the details. SNGs are tournaments that unlike multi-table tournaments do not have a specific start time. Instead the action begins whenever enough players register and there are no more seats in the tournament to fill.
The most common sit-and-go tournaments are either played heads-up (action begins when two players register), six-max (kicking off once six players buy-in), or nine- or ten-handed or “full ring” (these start when nine or ten players have entered). These SNGs are often called single-table tournament sit-and-go (or STT SNGs).
Another popular variant of SNG is a multi-table tournament sit-and-go (MTT SNG). Like their single-table cousins, MTT SNGs begin when all of the seats in the tournament are full, and they pay the same number of players each time they run.
Blind levels are either standard speed, turbo, or hyper-turbo, with each format requiring a slightly different SNG strategy. Here CardRunners instructor Collin Moshman talks through various strategy issues while playing several SNGs at once:
Why are Sit-and-Go Tournaments Popular?
As touched upon earlier, one of the reasons for the popularity of sit-and-go tournaments is the fact they run so frequently. Mathematical variance has a major influence over poker players’ bottom lines, and one way to negate it is to play more poker. As sit-and-go poker tournaments run all day and they are relatively simple to play several at once — especially once you’ve learned basic sit-and-go strategy — it is possible to play dozens of SNGs in a single session.
Another reason for players liking SNGs is how they make it easy to plan how long a session will last, as well as to manage how much they could win or lose during that session. Sit-and-go tournaments that are similar in size and have the same blind structure usually take the same amount of time to complete, give or take a few minutes, which allows for a more structured session than is usually possible with regular multi-table tournaments.
What is a Winning Sit-and-Go Tournament Strategy?
Although one of the great features of poker is that a player can choose almost any playing style and still win, there is a very structured sit-and-go strategy to adhere to if you want to win consistently. With the number of payout places and amounts being the same for every SNG of the same size, it is possible to make a mathematically correct play based on what is known as Independent Chip Modeling, or ICM, when the tournament reaches the bubble stage.
The most common sit-and-go strategy is to play tight during the early stages when the blinds are small, then increasing the aggression as the blinds increase and the stack sizes become shallower, often with an all-in bet once the effective stack is down to around 10 big blinds. The act of folding most hands and then moving all in — leaving little room for postflop play — is known as “push-botting.”
While this sit-and-go strategy is employed by many SNG regulars, there are some players who prefer to play a loose-aggressive style in the early stages in an attempt to build a large stack in time for when the bubble approaches. This SNG strategy can lead to more outright victories, but comes with its own risks and pitfalls.
Sit-and-Go Strategy: ICM on the Bubble
Independent Chip Modeling (ICM) is one area you need to learn in order to perfect your sit-and-go poker strategy. ICM allows a player to assess the risk-versus-reward in certain spots of a SNG, namely on the bubble and once everyone is in the money, by calculating a player’s overall equity in a tournament.
By performing ICM calculations, it is possible to conclude whether or not it is correct to make an all-in bet or to call an all-in bet. If the stack sizes are set in a certain way, it can be correct — in terms of equity --- to fold a hand as strong as to an opponent’s shove even if calling would usually see you add more chips to you stack.
By the same token, there are some situations where the correct sit-and-go strategy is to move all in with any two cards, regardless of how weak they are.
ICM calculations can be quite complex, so it is best to do some research and study before or after you play poker. The good news is that similar situations arise all of the time in SNGs, so it is worth committing some of the more common scenarios to memory. Here Tony Dunst explains a little further the importance of ICM considerations in tournament poker:
Practice Makes Perfect
When learning any skill, be it playing the violin or sit-and-go strategy, it is important to practice, practice, and practice some more. If you drive a car, cast your mind back to when you first started to learn how to drive and how you struggled to remember everything that you needed to do in order to drive down the road safely.
Now consider the last time you drove — I am willing to bet you didn’t consciously think about changing gears, checking your mirrors, and other nuances associated with driving. That’s because those things have all become second nature to you.
Practice enough at the poker tables and you’ll soon have a winning sit-and-go strategy similarly committed to memory, and will be able to draw upon it without really thinking about it.
Sit And Go Poker Strategy
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tournament strategysit-and-go strategyonline pokerICMIndependent Chip Modelstarting hand selectionaggressionCollin MoshmanTony DunstRelated Players
Tony DunstCollin Moshman