How to play poker

The Perfect Sit and Go Tournament for Beginners

Welcome back players of Pokerist.com for another edition of TheBluffCy’s Poker Strategies 101. As the title suggests this article is going to help you develop your Sit and Go (SnG) game, in order to become the perfect poker player in these tournaments. Although many people are not familiar with these types of tournaments due to the fact that you don’t really see them in real casinos, there a big thing in online poker, and many of the most successful grinders in the game today, either started off by playing SnG’s or are still playing them.

If you’ve never heard of a SnG tournament before let me give you a brief explanation of how they work. Unlike usual tournaments, frequently called multi-table tournaments or MTT’s each tournament has a specific number of players that must sign up before the tournament starts. This means that the tournaments have no kick-off time, it’s down to the players to decide when the action begins. Usually SnG’s are single table tournaments consisting between 6 and 10 players although many websites offer multi-table SnG’s that might consist of 30, 45, 90 or 180 players for example.

The reason SnG’s are so popular with poker players is that they have a very specific structure, giving them the opportunity to play many tables at once. In fact there’s poker players out there playing more than 40 SnG’s at the same time! Incredible isn’t it? I mean, most of you might find it hard to focus on one table, let alone 40. You’re probably wondering to yourself how they do it. Well I can give you that answer. Two 40 inch screen pc displays and a solid SnG system. Now although I might not be able to help you get those huge computer screens, I might be able to help you out with a system. Time to get down to the nitty-gritty!

To simplify the system you’re going to be using in these SnG’s were going to divide each tournament into 3 phases, according to the number of big blinds you have. For beginner players I will explain the concept of thinking of you stack according to big blinds. For example when the blinds are 10/20 an you have 1000 in chips in front of you then you have 50 big blinds. If the blinds are 50/100 and you have 3000 in chips then you have 30 big blinds. Simple, isn’t it?

The Early Phase (More than 25 Big Blinds)

In the early phase of the SnG tournaments you should focus on only playing premium starting hands. You should only be raising with AK, JJ,QQ,KK and AA whilst playing passively hands like AQ,AJ,99,66 etc. Some players also choose to play suited connectors in the early phase, such as J10 or 78 suited, because when you hit you have the opportunity to win a lot of chips, but it’s up to you if you want to play these types of hands or not. You should also be taking in account you’re position on the table when thinking about what hands to play and what not to, for more information about position you should read the first article in the poker academy. Your aim should only to enter a pot when you’re either getting a lot of value when you hit your hand (such as 88 hitting another 8) or you have the best hand pre-flop. When you find yourself in a hand such as AK where you have raised 3 or 4 times the big blind and have a couple of callers, always remember if you don’t hit, it’s not worth bluffing. Many new players make this mistake of bluffing in the early phase of the tournament and trust me the results are not good. It doesn’t matter if you lose a couple of hundred of chips, it’s still the early phase.

The Middle Phase (12-25 Big Blinds)

Things are starting to get a little bit tough and the pressure of the blinds has started to come upon you. But don’t worry; the key is to be patient. In this middle phase you should avoid calling with any hand and rather try to find yourselves in situations where you are raising pre-flop, confident that you have the best hand. I would advise you to stick to 10,10 as the minimum strength playing hand. Most importantly, with the middle phase comes another important play, which is an absolute MUST! If you are to become a winning SnG player, and that’s The Steal. Stealing the blinds, is a term used in poker, to explain how someone raises from late position with a marginal hand when everyone to act before him has folded, in order to steal the small and the big blind. The reason, as to why stealing the blinds is very important, is because with around 15 big blinds remaining in your stack and the antes and blinds eating off you, you must regain these chips. You should only attempt to steal the blinds when you are in the cut-off or dealer seat and when everyone has folded in front of you. In my belief, the ideal hands to steal the blinds with are going all-in with good hands such as A8 or better or suited connectors. Many instructional poker sites out there will probably disagree with me when I say go all-in with suited connectors, rather they will tell you that for example be prepared to push with hands such as K8 or Q9. The reason why I disagree with them is that when your stealing the blinds fails, and one of the players call you, you’re probably in a much worse position to his hand if you raise with K8 rather than 78, since there’s a good possibility he has a hand such as KQ or KJ, so you prepare to have two live cards in order to get lucky which puts you in a 38%-62% underdog rather than a 76% - 24%.

The Late Phase (Less than 12 Big Blinds)

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the late phase of the SnG tournament, but you still haven’t won any chips. There are still a couple of players to go before you win anything and this is where a lot of critical judgment comes into play. This is when stealing no longer becomes a skill that you use in late position, but actually stealing is the game. Whoever can steal the most pots usually wins. That is why you should try to steal the pot at every opportunity you can, but beware, the more you steal; the more likely it is that your opponent will call you. Although many players at the start may be afraid to put all their chips in the pot with a mediocre hand such as J7, especially when you’re so close to enter the paid positions, if you do not play like this, 100% you will be a losing player in the long term.

Players of Pokerist.com, I would like to thank you for reading yet another article on poker strategy, and I hope you are now on your way to having fun by playing the perfect Sit and Go strategy.