Sit and Go (SNG) Poker Strategy
Developing the correct Sit and Go strategy(also known as SNG / Sit n go strategy) is a crucial part of learning how to win Sit and Go tournaments.A lot of people play sit and go’s as an ‘extra’; they treat them as their pie after the dinner, they know nothing about the sit n go strategy and tips provided on this page. You, as an online poker professional, must be aware of that and take advantage of this fishy approach. We hope our sit and go tips and strategy will help you improve your single table tournament poker skills on the internet and in live tourneys as well!
Top Sit and Go Strategy Tips
** Slightly loose play is correct in the early stages of a sit and go. You can limp in with all sorts of hands when the blind are REALLY low (first 2 blind levels) to see if you can catch a monster and outplay the fish. After that you should really TIGHTEN UP for two reasons: you don’t want to risk your stack at the beginning of the SNG + you can have a look at your opponents this way.
** Play aggressive. If you have a decent hand, don’t slow play it in single table tournaments. If you get caught there is no backdoor like in cash game where you can re-buy: in a tournament you’re in or you’re out.
** Put people all-in more often. Based on the ‘gap concept’, a theory constructed by David Sklansky, which says that the hand to go all in with can be a lot worse than the hand you need to call an all in. In the end, of course, it’s all about poker psychology but he is definitely right. Don’t make it hard on yourself – if you think you got the best hand and there is something in the pot up for grabs, than take it. But be careful: most fishes will call all-ins just like they would call normal bets!
** Around the bubble you should LOOSEN UP: most people are really excited that they are near the prices so they really don’t take risks anymore. As you have learned, always play to the contrary of the other players. So while you were tight as they were loose in the beginning, you should now be loose AND aggressive for they will be tight and passive. Go ahead and bully them around, pull off some semi-bluffs when the time is right. There is another reason why this change of gears is correct: the blind levels are often pretty high now (certainly when it’s a turbo sit and go) and you must therefore play more hands. The gear changing in sit and go’s is way more radical and instant than in cash games. In cash game poker, you change gears to eliminate possible betting and playing patters that opponents may have picked up when you have played your own game for a while. In sit and go’s, however, the changing of gears only serves one primary, proximate cause and that is to adapt to the changed situation.
** In Sit and Go’s pot odds, implied odds and other poker mathematical factors are less important when implying sit and go strategy especially when you are in an all in situation. Survival, containment and aggression is what counts, odds are for longer term/cash game play. This is why we wont give you any mathematical sit and go tips but this one: don’t value it as high as in cash games!
More General Sit and Go Strategy and Tips
** Then there is the ‘Gap concept’ (D. Sklansky, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players): calling an All-in should be done with far better hands than pushing an all-in. As a result, you have to be the aggressor more often than the caller.
** If you managed to reach the last 3 (meaning in the money), congratulations! Now it comes to this: most people go wild after they reached the money. They think, ‘hey I already got money, so I can just gamble for more now!’. Well this is not your kind of thinking: you are a pro and you want to make the right play and most money all the time. So what you do is you EXAMINE your opponents: you just look if they get REAL aggressive now (then you should let them play each other off, you should be patient). If this is not the case, you should be even MORE aggressive right now than you were around the bubble.
** If you play heads-up, try to find out everything about your opponent that you hadn’t figured out before: this means betting/time patterns etc. Play VERY AGRESSIVELY, the most aggressive you can be: intimidate and irritate him, bet and raise everything and hope to catch him at the right moment.
** Although sit and go play can be systemized to a certain level – as sit and go’s are like movies (with a clear beginning, middle part and end phase) – poker is not a systematical game but a situational game. Always keep this in mind and do not fear to play outside the system when the table momentum asks you to!
** Keep up your motivation. If you only play sit and go’s, poker can become boring, especially when you are not in a good flow. Therefor, take some free hours, or a day off. Enjoy something else, or if you really are a fanatic poker player, play a multi table tournament once in a while or a cash game. It will juice up your sit and go game as well!
** The Best sit and go tip we can give each and everyone of you is that you must be patient and disciplined. Don’t rush things, and don’t think after you bubbled 3 times in a row: ‘i lost my skills’ or ‘when is this system finally going to pay off?’. Remember, in sit and go’s luck still plays a 30% role. In the end, skills will outline the difference in winning and losing between players, but the end may very well be preceded by a bad streak. Just keep that in account.
