sit and go

[Heather Jenkins]

Hey guys just wanting some tips on sit and go, im very used to torny play but want to improve my game. any tips?

[bennymacca]

Hey guys just wanting some tips on sit and go, im very used to torny play but want to improve my game. any tips?

single or multitable?

i play a fair few of both. what ones are you talking about?

[Heather Jenkins]

single i have kind been playing like i would a normal final table but have been told this is wrong so want to improve

[bennymacca]

ok, here is a basic strategy for sit and gos that should get you started. bear in mind that i am not an expert or anything, but i have played a thousand or so for an ok ROI, but i can still definitely learn more.

people can argue this a lot, it is probably wrong in more detailed terms, but i think its ok for strategy in 5 minutes.

1. 90% of your play will be preflop shove or fold.

1. be EXTREMELY tight when you have more than about 15bb. i am talking QQ-AA, AK. thats it. the key reason for this is that you gain a lot of equity by folding because you can just sit back and allow the other guys to knock themselves out. maybe you can try and see some cheap flops with pocket pairs to set mine, but in general you should be extremely tight.

2. when you have about 8-15bb, look for spots to steal the blinds. this is pretty key to the mid and end game stategy

3. when you are in the button or small blind and you have less than 15bb, you should be shoving at least 50% of your hands.

4. pay attention to game dynamics. i.e if you are second in chips and the chip leader is on your left, you should tighten up. but if the short stack is there then you can open your range up a lot. usually the larger the effective stacks are, the tighter you should play. if you have less than 5bb then just about any 2 cards is good enough to shove, especially in the button or small blind.

5. be careful about calling too wide when its 30% or more of your stack. better to conserve your chips.



so in short.

play tight when the blinds mean nothing to you, and loose when they are more than 10% of your stack. "loose" generally means shoving more but not calling more.

[AJG]

Some additions to benny the cunt's good advice: (u say u no expert benny the cunt?? u clearly know alot more than 90% of the players out there playing these games )

Other than 'Play Tight', I would say to also play hands where you have no tough decisions post flop. In position suited aces/connectors can be played early and small/medium pairs (as benny the cunt said), even to a raise - if you dont flop a set/flush/straight then instafold... But when you do, there are usually players willing to stack off with AJ on a J high board (AJo should almost always be folded preflop in a SnG) or with the 2nd nut flush and you are getting implied odds to play them.
*** You want to avoid easily dominated hands like AT or K9s... they are just trouble, even if you only need to call after a limp just fold them. This alone will increase your ROI significantly. ***

I think benny the cunt is talking about the end game (or close to it) being purely push/fold. You cant really play that way from hand #1. but... ALMOST NEVER LIMP OR CALL PREFLOP. This is a huge leak in most SnGs. Either open raise, reraise or fold. As I said above, call IN POSITION (and early on) with pairs or (preferably high) suited Aces/connectors, but only continue if you flop a set/flush/straight. (or a huge draw)
Early on, you can also play these hands from EP but you still need to raise them, and fold to a 3bet.

It also depends whether you are playing turbos or not. You cant wait for QQ+, AK in turbos. Also if you are too tight, you will get no or very little action when you do raise preflop... Certainly if I see a player raise and his stats are something like 7% VP$IP and 5% PFR, even only over this game, he aint gettin much action from me without a very big hand.

Another tip, is when not involved in hands, if your site has player search, use it on your opponents and mark the multi-tablers, these players will be much tighter (usually) than the others, and will also almost always give up on the flop if they dont hit... can be very valuable information.

Also, forget about "Playing to win" or "Playing to cash" or whatever, like you might in a MTT. You want to get to the bubble (ideally not as the short stack) and then make positive tournament equity decisions. For example, on the bubble you are facing a push and you have AQo. Now AQ might be ahead of most of your opponents range, but it should be mucked like 72o. As benny the cunt mentioned, you often have better equity (in the tournament) by folding.
It is an odd situation where sometimes +ve chip EV decisions can actually be -ve tournament EV decisions.
So get to the bubble, even if you need to fold some strong hands to do so (many players bust in the mid game on PPs TT-77, fold them!), as this is where most mistakes are made. And the other wierd thing here is that ANY mistake by an opponent makes you money, over time.
It will usually be push fold poker here (as benny the cunt also mentions), and you usually need JJ+ (no AK) to call a push, even from the blinds, but can push quite wide. If your opponents are too loose in calling, sure you will lose a 70/30 or flip now and then, but over time you will make far more than you lose. And if your opponents push too tight - you also make money
The reason you can push wide, is beacause alot of players know they need premium hands to call, and most of the time they dont have them, and usually at this stage just the blinds is a significant addition to your stack (especially since the others will most often be taking your blinds)
SnG's are games that make money over time, and you need to make decisions which will yield the greatest return over time, not neccessarily in that particular hand/game.

I would recommend you download a program called SnG Wizard. It imports your hands and analyses whether in any given situation your best move is to push, call or fold. And you'd sometimes be surprised (like above i said fold AK to a push unless its a micro stack pushing) at the advice. It also has a module, where it creates random bubble situations and asks you push or fold? then tells you what the mathematically correct play is (and why), so it acts like a trainer of sorts for these situations. And it has a 30 day trial period (and integrates seamlessly into HEM if you use it)

sitandgoplanet.com also has lots of articles worth a read...
If you are serious about these games, you must understand ICM. Even if you dont plan to use it, many of your opponents will, so it will afford you insights into their game.

Also, given how few hands you actually play for most of the game, open up atleast 2 games, otherwise they are boring as...

SnG's can be great games for your BR. And unlike most poker, when you get to 4 or less players (in a SnG that pays 3) and effective stacks are around 10BB or less, there IS a mathematically best play, and turning math into money is great!

GL!

[bennymacca]

I think benny the cunt is talking about the end game (or close to it) being purely push/fold

yeah obviously in the first level you shouldn't be open shoving. but anything around 15bb or less is an open shove when i play.

It also depends whether you are playing turbos or not. You cant wait for QQ+, AK in turbos. Also if you are too tight, you will get no or very little action when you do raise preflop... Certainly if I see a player raise and his stats are something like 7% VP$IP and 5% PFR, even only over this game, he aint gettin much action from me without a very big hand.

99% of my SNG experience has been in 6max turbos, and even in these i still fold TT in the first level (sometimes i can't bring myself to fold jacks, but if i am playing properly i do)

in the first level you should be playing QQ+, AK and thats about it.

when it gets to the 25/50 level i might add a few more hands in from late position. similarly with the 40/80 level.

when it gets to the 50/100 level i will open my range massively. this switch in gears works really well a lot of the time, especially if you still have around starting stack, because usually you can get from 1300-1500 to around 2k before they even know what you are doing.

Another tip, is when not involved in hands, if your site has player search, use it on your opponents and mark the multi-tablers, these players will be much tighter (usually) than the others, and will also almost always give up on the flop if they dont hit... can be very valuable information.

this is true. i play 8-12 tables when i am playing SNGs, which is about as easy as playing 6 cash tables because i very much do play fit/fold post flop, and mostly just jam preflop.

i probably jam with a few more big blinds than a lot of people do, although from what i have been reading, the "standard" shoving amount is creeping up.

it used to be 10bb or less and its a shove, but now 15bb is standard, and sometimes even up to 20bb. the reasons for this is because you give up so much equity in making a standard raise and getting called, then someone calling your cbet. this play is extremely effective in cash games and in tourmaments, but in SNGs it is pretty bad because their ranges for stacking off are typically a lot wider so cbets dont work as often.

You want to get to the bubble (ideally not as the short stack) and then make positive tournament equity decisions

yep, this pretty much sums it up. i reckon you could fold every hand, even aces until you got to the bubble and you would just about be a profitable player.

personally, i dont even mind if i am the short stack - people fold too often in these bubble situations that you can steal the blinds and build your stack very quickly.



another thing i will say is that they are a pretty big grind - if you want to play single table SNGs seriously, you want to be putting in LOTS of volume. be cutting out just about all postflop poker it is pretty easy to play 10 tables at a time, and i would recommend playing as many as you are comfortable with. if you are single tabling you will get tilted by how many times you get 3 outered you will lose interest very quickly.

[bennymacca]

a further thing is that SNGs are BORING. this is due to the mainly push/fold nature of them. there is basically never any interesting postflop scenarios.

most of my roll aside from the 888pl tourneys has come from 6max SNGs, but they are just super boring, so before long i am back playing 6max or heads up cash games. i really need to sit down and just grind these for 3 months or so, get a couple hundred a week out. i reckon i would get a good roll going if i did this.

[bennymacca]

this is a pretty good starting point

http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/sitandgo/ ... ategy.html

[AJG]

Yeah they are a real grinders game...
Except for those who just play them recreationally...
But isnt it great just to be able to turn math into money??
That said, it pisses me off to see other players doing silly things on the bubble, cos they are screwing with my equity to!

It took me a little while to get my head around the fact that, say I fold or don't push a hand, where I should have done the opposite, and it is (eg) a $1 tournament equity mistake, that it is a real $1.... Not just some abstract conceptual thing...

I prefer the turbos too. Even 6 minute blinds its gonna be an hour+ each game... too long for me.

Problem I find with more than 6 tables though, is when u get HU (or even 3 handed in the 9 player games) on more than 2 at once. Action is just too quick. Found my rate of coming 2nd increasing and 1st decreasing! This especially happened when I used to always keep 6 (or however many) going, ie bust and start another straight away.
Now I play them in sets - although if I bust on a cooler hand or something early I will open another.

How do you find this benny the cunt? Or how do you manage it?
Also, how long does it take to get 8+ going on 888? I havent really played them much there, but the traffic level is low, esp compared to the big 2. And they only have 1 of each listed in the lobby, until that starts up...

Not having a good week atm....
Variance has bent me over and isnt being very nice... Although I have noted some truly horrible calls on the bubble that have probably contributed to. (like calling a push with 44 when there is micro stack about to hit the blinds!)
over 35 games without a cash (just from late last night and this morning)
my previous longest run was around 15!

Edit: drought BROKEN!
Amazing sometimes how good a single win can feel...
I suppose its a bit like sex, when its been a while it tends to feel extra good

[bennymacca]

lol because of this thread i decided to load some games up on tilt, and proceeded to get smashed - aces cracked twice early on in 3bet pots, once by T7o and once by 46c. ended up about $25 down after 16 $6 SNGs. couple of bad plays by me as well, but i did run pretty bad also.

Action is just too quick. Found my rate of coming 2nd increasing and 1st decreasing! This especially happened when I used to always keep 6 (or however many) going, ie bust and start another straight away.
Now I play them in sets - although if I bust on a cooler hand or something early I will open another.

How do you find this benny the cunt? Or how do you manage it?

my rate of firsts definitely does drop a bit. i haven't thought about it too much, but now that i think about it, there are heaps of times where i am breakeven for the session, and then when i am finishing off i tend to make the money in 3 or 4 at a time. maybe i should only play 6 tables and see how i go.

Also, how long does it take to get 8+ going on 888? I havent really played them much there, but the traffic level is low, esp compared to the big 2. And they only have 1 of each listed in the lobby, until that starts up...

i cant play 8+ on 888, no table ninja. but i usually play 6 at a time, and it doesn't usually take that long to fill - you can usually get 6 of the 6max SNGs going.

is you are liking SNGs, some of the softest games in the history of the internet have to be the $2.90 20 man nitro SNGs. they are 4max, you get 800 chips to start, and the blinds go up every 3 minutes.

if you love a shove fest then you will love these. super high variance of course, but the play is horrible. and they usually fill up pretty quickly.

i have found that the $5 ones are significantly tougher than the $2.90 ones. i think this might be due to the fact that the $2.90 ones are in the "beginner" tab of the 888 lobby.

these fill up pretty quick as well, easy to get 6 going if you dont bust out really early of one of them. quite often i would play 4 of the nitros and then load up some 6max ones as well.