Let’s Look At Some Skills For Sit N Go Tournaments
Sit N Go poker tournaments are a unique animal. When the blinds are small you want try to avoid a big pot unless you have a big hand and are willing to risk your tourney. An example is a hand like 99. If you don’t hit a set you have to be ready to get away. These are dangerous hands to raise (or even get involved in) from early position early in a SNG.
In SNG’s a lot of players waste too many chips early with hands like small pocket pairs. However, these can be raised and make big profits in cash games. The way a single table event works, makes it better to play these hands in small preflop pots. You seldomly will hit your set post flop and it won’t cost you too many chips.
As the blinds get big in relation to your stack, you need to play aggressively. Whenever you can, you must try to steal the blinds. These tourneys become a game of chicken, steals, and resteals. If you don’t get involved, you will find yourself with too small of a stack. You might get called and knocked out even when you finally get a good starting hand.
At some point, the blinds get so big in relation to your stack size, that an all in bet is your only option. You can do this in part for variation, but once you bet, you shouldn’t be folding. This is when you need to risk losing so you can have a chance to win.
If you know your opponent is tight, you can push more often, because you will get enough folds. Your opponents stack size is a factor here also. If he has a big stack and can afford it, he will make more calls. The middle stacks want to protect their chips more and can be “trusted” to fold often.
When you’re on the bubble, your play is determined a lot by stack sizes. For example, you might push all in to try to knock out a short stack. You could fold the same hand pre-flop to the big stack to save chips also. Naturally, you would have to fold to a big raise.
In this situation, you’re usually looking to push all in, but you cards aren’t the only factor. Often you will want to go all in with any hand, if your stack threatens everyone enough. If someone your betting at has a lot of chips, he will call you more often, so you need better cards.
When you have the chip lead, people will fear you and you should take their blinds often. The players with mid sized stacks are easy prey. They fear getting eliminated before the short stack goes out.
The problem here is you want to get to the money before losing your stack. The monster stack will knock you out, while the shorties will gamble with anything to survive. This is not an easy place to be in.
So, here is a list of ideas to get you started. Each one of these topics is a story in itself. Learn as much as you can about how you want to play in each situation and develop your own style to beat the SNG games. GO win some tournaments.
So these are most of the basics specifically for the SNG games. You could write an entire article on each of these ideas. Develop your knowledge and skills in these areas, and maybe you will be beating the Sit N Gos. Happy hunting.
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