Correct sit n go play !!!

Most strong online players use this widely accepted strategy , i read some of it from an online page , my common sense allowed me to play something close to it and a strong online friend of mine coached me into playing what they call the best sit n go strategy .

Im gonna share with you cardchatters, what is a good strategy to build a bankroll and play a solid sit n go game. Keep in mind this mini guide is directed towards 9 or 10 players 1 table sit n gos, it can work for multi tables, but some small adjustments would be need it . I Hope you enjoy it, and for the experts out there, this will just be a reminder of what your subconsciousness has already stored . The advice you are about to recieve is pretty simple yet very logical and strong .


---------------------Early Stage------------------

You will be playing only a little amount of hands. At this stage you will play TIGHT, and when i say tight i mean tight . The hands you will be playing will be :

____________________________Monster hands__________________

AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AKo = these will be your main weapons. You will raise with them from any position to 3x BB .

You will play as follow, with AA you cant fear a lot, you will be way ahead or way behind with them , i usually put my money in with them, unless the board shows an obvious straight or flush possibily, or if the board pairs and i know my opponent was calling or betting on that card, i might fold .
These hand is usually best in small pots .

KK is a little like AA, but with an obvious difference, if an A falls on the flop , this is as far as we go. If your opponent checks and you got a good read on him and know he checks when he does not have a hand you can bet ( more on betting later ) , If someone bets into you, this is a fold most of the times.

QQ, just like stated above, if its top pair, bet it strong, If an A or K falls on the flop you need to be very carefull , as you might have been outfloped , follow the guidelines of KK.

AKs and AKo . These are a little trickier since its a drawing hand ( its not made, needs flop help ) When you flop top pair,you will most likely have top kicker, so with top pair on a ragged board play it aggressively. If you flop K with A kicker, there is no overcard to you, as an A would give you 2 pair, and if you flop a pair of A's , you got the best pair with top kicker . Once again keep in mind the board and pay close attention to opponents, just because you floped TPTK ( TOP PAIR , TOP KICKER ) it does not mean you can not fold .

____________________Medium hands________________________

These mediums are weaker and more vurnerable than our monster hands but are still very strong with a good table read and position . These hands are JJ , AQs, AQo .

I usually open with them with 3x BB raise, and prefer to be on middle and late position .

When raising with JJ, if a A K or Q flops, this is as far as we go, if you got a read on a opponent heads up and his weak bet, if its multi way pot dont even think of continuation betting unless you got a good read on the board, you are problably beat, and thats why these are medium hands, 3 overcards can hurt it.

AQs and AQo, raise 3x . When you flop your A , you have top pair and second best kicker, with is good but when its the opposite, you flop a Q for TPTK, your Q is more vurnerable, K or A can crush it , and you need to be more carefull , if you hit your Q and a K or A flop, be very catious.


_________________The trapping hands______________________

1010,99,88,77,66,55,44,33,22

Some of my favorite, they usually win huge pots, especially at the low limit Minis ( we will refer to sit n go's as minis )

With these pocketpairs, you will usually limp and you can a small raise and a 3x bb raise if its not a huge chunk of your stack . The reason is simple, when you hit your set, the bigger hands will most problably pay you off greatly, top pair just cant let go , and if you miss your set, you usually fold and move to the next hand. The reason we play them is for the huge implied odds ( You would need 8-1 to make the call correct, but since if you hit you will recieve so much money in return , the investment is good, this is called implied odds, not what your paying to enter the pot, but what you figure to make if you hit your set )

Remember if you dont hit your set, its an esay fold unless its top pair, then you can bet and feel where you are.

This will be all for early tournament play. The blinds in the beggining are just to small to steal , and entering the pot with marginal hands just isnt profitable because with hands like KQ,KJ, A10 , you are looking to hit strong, almost miracle like flops, sets on the flop, 2 pairs , hitting straights or flushes. With the above hands you are coming in with a strong made or almost made hand, and figure to make just as much, if not as much, by playing this tight, solid style . In the early stage we are looking to double up and take command of the Mini.

---------------------------Middle Stage----------------------------

Once the low blinds are gone , and where at the 50-100 blinds, the fun begins . We turn on the aggression motors. You will be playing the above hands the same strong way , plus you can now add more hands to your repertoire. When you are coming into a pot, you will do so by raising to 3x BB , for 2 reasons, we are taking control of the pot and we are stealing blinds . This is how we kept our healthy stack growing as premium hands wont come every other hand and we cant let the competition catch up . The best place to steal is near the button and if its folded to you . If someone ahead of you limps , you need to be a little bit more precatious, but if its folded to you, you almost always attempt a blind steal . We need to be aggressive, we need to be losse, we need to bully and tight is not in our vocabulary anymore . One important factor that will help you here is, players noticed you where ultra tight in the beggining and now your coming alive, they will think you are still playing the strong hands, and this solid image will help you with stealing . When we are near the bubble, this style will ensure 2 things, ethier we bubble or have enough chips to take first place, we dont care about third, we should see third as a losse and second, well second just doesnt cut it. The money is in first place, and we ethier put ourselfs to win it all, or just go home. This is the mind frame you will need, the mind of a ASSSASSIN looking to destroy its prey .
Hands that i reccomend for steals are any face cards. any Ax , any suited connector, any connector, any suited gapper and pocket pairs. These hands all have potential and when we get called, we dont want to be in a pot with a weak , no potential hand. these hands can flop strong draws with we will play aggressivly . We dont want to attempt steal with hands like K2, Q7, J4, these hands just dont play well together.


_________________________Final Stage____________________


Hopefully you payed attention to the table, you will know with of your opponent is the most dangerous, you will recognize betting patterns and tendencies. Experience from your part is very important here but always keep in mind, the most aggressive player here will usually take first and we clearly want that to be us. First off , you will enter most, if not all pots by raising , and you will play the flop accordingly. Some important things to keep in mind is, you and your opponent are going to miss the flop a lot of times, as much as 66% of the time. So you can not be scared to bet after you miss your flop and raise after a opponent trys to get tricky, once again we depend on our opponents read. Other then this, there is really no more advice to be given here, if you followed this guide you should be first in chips or second, and you will be making a lot of blinds steals that will contribute to growing your stack



______________________Points to keep in mind_________________



* You will NOT SLOWPLAY UNLESS ITS A BEAST HAND. No slowplaying, you just cant afford it especially if flush or straight possibilities are showing.

* When betting for value or bluffing ( Im not sure if everyone will aggree ) you will always bet half the pot . This will create a pattern that no one can crack , are you bluffing or betting for value . They wont be able to tell and we want them to have guesses , not accurate reads. If an opponent calls, no matter what he calls with, he doesnt have the correct odds to chase ,not for his straight, not for his flush, not for anything, so by betting half the pot always, you cut down a opponents call odds to 3-1 with makes it profitable for you most of the time. Even if your oppoent did have the odds to chase, it will not happen often enough to make betting 1/2 pot bad .

* You will bet strong draws, when i say strong draws i mean open ended straight draws, flush draws, open ended straight flush draws and if these draws got overcards its even better. We need to stay aggressive, but if someone shows aggression , you will evaluate the situation and chosse the correct course of action .

* Be a bully, when you have a chiplead, you need to bully everyone around, do not give them time to breath, you have been shortstacked before and you know the feeling, keep being aggressive in the middle and final stages.

* Concentrate on the game, recognize the weak players, the tight ones and the losses ones, this is very important . You want to steal blinds from the tighties and bet for value and trap the aggressive opponents.

* You will need dicipline , being this tight can often be boring , but it will pay in the long run .

* When you get good on playing 1 table, you will add 1more table until you can Quad table. This will cut down variance, make the good cards come faster and add to your money . Ofcourse, you can only do this once you master playing 1 table at a time.

* The ideal ITM% you would need to be solid is 30 to 40% . Keep detailed records, if you cant beat your current level, evaluate what you are doing wrong, maybe drop down a level . Remember work on your game and fix your leaks .

I guess this is all i could think off, if anyone is interested, i can watch you play and tutor you, tell you how I would play each situation and help you improve. This type of approach to poker is good for building a bankroll, especially at the 5.50 minis with are very soft and thus great builders. Any doubts , suggestions or feedback, you can leave it here, pm me or contact me at :

MsN: TiteritoClasico69@hotmail.com
YaHoO: SexyAceJoker
AIM : SexyAceJoker

Card Player also has a very good article about SAGE, the Sit And Go Endgame System: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...250&m_id=65582

It applies in a heads-up situation in which the blinds are large compared to the stack sizes, which is typical in heads-up SNG play. The article says that "most players grossly underestimate the need to jam early and often" and advocates pushing (or calling) all-in with more hands than one might expect, based on mathematical calculations of power indexes for each hand. It's referred to as an "eqilibrium strategy" which can't be beaten (in the long run, I presume), assuming the person using it doesn't deviate from the formula but his opponent does.

Interesting reading if your mind isn't boggled by all the math. The main point I took away from it is that rather than monkeying around with standard raises in a heads-up situation, it's often more benficial to keep the pressure on your opponent by playing for all the beans when your hand is a likely to have an edge.

I offered the standard raise in the end considering the blinds are still low. I dont play turbos since there is a special skill required to play them that i still havent cracked . Once the blinds are big i know its push and fold, but while their small ( as it usually happens in regular heads up ) its better to play solid, imaginative poker rather then straightfoward push or call . Although its a nice article what you sent there, thank you . I didnt have knowlege of it, although i employed those methods because someone taught them to me lol

Thanks for that post sexyacejoker. I'll try your strategy and see if it pays off. All posts on playing better poker are much appreciated. Cheers!

Thanks for the awesome post. I've been needing to work on my SnG skills a lot and yeah the turbo games are off in their own little world that I don't have a freaking clue what the hell is goin on in those beasts. I lost like 70% of my bankroll playin turbo SnG a few days ago and spent the last few days playin cash games buildin it back up. I'd be in with the best of it and everytime someone would call all-in with some crazy 10-1 or 15-1 draw and suck out cuz it seemed like EVERYONE was goin on these insane all-in draws. I dunno if I was just unlucky or what but I'm terrified of those things now. It really just seems like turbo=gambling to me. Anyway gettin a bit off topic but thanks for takin the time to write all this out for us on the forums! Peace.

Great info, keep it comin!

very nice info.....will use this in the future


thanks,
MavsFan