By Guy Downs
From Nettbetter.com
Here we’ll look at some of the basic concepts involved in
proper Sit and Go tournament play. In the next installment of this
two-part series we’ll explore some additional ideas that should
help to improve your results.
One nice thing about Sit and Go’s—and, for that matter,
all tournament play—is the fact that a player can usually
expect strong results after only having mastered a couple critical
ideas. Here we’ll look at three of those concepts, and explore
how they should inform your play.
Concept 1—Don’t ‘gamble’ early
on the tourney.
What we mean by this is that you shouldn’t go all in, or
commit the majority of your chips, on those hands where you believe
you only enjoy a marginal edge. This is because the best thing that
can happen if you win is that you double up, while the worst thing
that can happen is that you bust out. If you bust out, you’ve
lost your buy-in. But if you double up, you haven’t guaranteed
yourself of doubling your money (i.e., coming in third).
Consider this- we each put twenty bucks in the pot, and we agree
to flip a coin for the full forty bucks. In a case like this we’ll
both expect to break even over time, since half the time I’ll
lose, and half the time I’ll double my money. Make sense?
Of course it does. But now let’s extend this logic to a Sit
and Go. For example, let’s say it’s the second hand
of the tournament and you have 7c 7d. It’s folded to you,
you raise to $50, and now the next guy goes all in. All fold to
you. Now, because of some quirk in the software, your opponent’s
cards are exposed and you see he has the As Ks. Even though you’re
a mathematical favorite to win the hand, you’re only favored
by a few percentage points. Thus, you’re basically in a ‘coin
flip’ situation. Which means you should fold, even though
you know you’re a favorite. Why? Because if you lose you’re
guaranteed of losing your buy in, but if you win and double up you’re
not guaranteed of doubling your money since you could still bust
out before you finish third. Thus, even though you’ll win
about half the time, you’re not getting ‘even money’
or better on your bet, which makes calling here a –EV play.
Situations like this come up all the time in these tourneys, and
you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor if you learn to spot
them. Another example would be flopping top pair with a good-but-not-great
kicker (e.g., holding AJ on an A96 flop, or JT on a T75 flop) when
an opponent who has at least almost as many chips as you moves all
in. As long as you still have most of your original chips left in
front of you it’s usually a good idea to get away from these
hands and look for a better spot for your money.
Concept 2—So long as you have a decent sized stack,
and the blinds haven’t yet escalated, don’t be afraid
to take flops with some marginal hands—especially in late
position.
One problem that winning limit players have in the tourneys is
that they don’t take enough flops when the pot hasn’t
been raised. In a normal ring game you wouldn’t limp in on
the button with a hand like A7o, or Q6s or 74s, even if only a couple
players have yet entered the pot. But in a no limit Sit and Go’s
these types of hands are usually worth taking a flyer on if you’re
in the cut off or on the button. The reason for this can be seen
in the fact that you’re getting huge implied odds before the
flop—which means you can get away from your hand if you miss
the flop, but can often double through if you hit the flop hard.
With a hand like 6h 3h, you’re only paying ten or fifteen
bucks to see the flop. But if you get all the flop (by flopping
two pair, a straight, or trips) you can frequently bust one of your
opponents. Another bonus is that if everyone misses the flop you
can often steal it with a small bet (by which we mean a bet that’s
sized at about ½ to ¾ of the pot). To borrow from
Vince Lombardi—‘in limit poker the button is everything;
in no-limit it’s the only thing’. Position is so important
in no limit that you can take flops with all kinds of wacky hands
on the button provided that it doesn’t cost you much (relative
to your stack size) to call.
Concept 3- Get aggressive in the middle stages of the tournament.
As the tournament progresses the size of the blinds begins to become
significant. This means that it becomes essential to take some risks,
since you simply can’t wait around for the nuts. So long as
your stack is at least moderately sized, you should be making more
than your share of blind-steal attempts, even with hands that wouldn’t
appear to warrant it. Of course you can’t try this if someone
else has already limped in, but so long as everyone has already
folded you shouldn’t be afraid to take a shot at the blinds
with some fairly weak hands (for example, hands like J8s, or 97s,
or K9o). When the tournament gets into the middle and late stages,
most players make the mistake of folding too much in the blinds.
When the tournament gets into the late stages this phenomenon no
longer exists, since you’re usually down to four handed (or
less) and everyone is ‘on the lookout’ for blind steals.
But in the middle stages most players are still entertaining dreams
of sneaking into the money, which means they don’t want to
lock horns with crappy hands. Obviously you’ll have to pattern
you blind-steal play after your opponents—if they’re
loose cannons, for example, you can often just wait around and break
them once you catch a real hand. But the typical Sit and Go player
starts getting real risk averse after about five orbits or so, which
allows you to help yourself to their blinds. |
