Guide to $3.50+.30 Short Stack SnG's on Full Tilt (or other site)

I wanted to write a guide on these SnG's because they can be very easy to beat. They are extremly soft if you can just have patience. The reason these are such a lucrative SnG is because with patience and well-timed aggression you can have a very nice ROI. And the pay out is $13.65 for 1st and $7.35 for second. They are still high variance games, but the lack of skill in the opponents you are facing gives you a big edge if you follow this guide.

5-6 Players
First off, you are playing a short stack tourney, meaning you are starting with 10 BB's. You have 300 chips to start and the blinds start out at 15/30. So, hopefully it goes without saying, but you are either shoving or folding at the beginning of the SnG. DON'T LIMP EVER!!! I hope you received that "EVER" part, it's important! This is absolutely horrible in this type of game, even in the small blind with marginal holdings and everyone else has limped. What hands do you want to shove with? I prefer any PP and A9o+. In the beginning of the tourney suited cards really don't matter. And these starting hands you are shoving with will be called, and beat sometimes, by KJ, KT, QT (or pretty much any two paint cards). Don't see this as a reason to start shoving with those hands! You have no room for manuevering in this tourney, so toss the marginal hands in the muck and wait for better. It is completely possible to fold your way into the money in these low stakes SnG's, as most of these crazies playing with you are willing to get the chips in with ATC. Calling hands will include AJ+ and any PP. If there is a shove and another caller in front of you, only get your money in with high PP's (QQ or better), otherwise, just fold and wait for a better spot.

4 Players
Once you get down to 4 players you can open your range slightly but you are still in push/fold mode. I like to start including any suited aces here, but that's about it. When it gets down to 4 players, hopefully you are in 1st or 2nd place, but this really doesn't matter. Don't start trying to push hands like KJ, KQ, QT through if you don't have at least a 3 to 1 chip lead over second place. It's just not worth it. If you find yourself in last place with 4 people left, then now is the time to button down. Go back to the beginning starting hands and fold everything else. More than likely, you will either catch a good hand and double up (which normally will put you in 1st) or others will go out putting you closer to the money.

3 Players
With 3 players left it starts to get interesting. With a good chip lead (3 to 1 or better) you want to be pretty aggressive, especially in position. Now is when you want to start using raises instead of shoves as a weapon. Don't do it every time, because it can be very exploitable, but vary your raises between min-raises, 3x raises and shoves. Try not to get into the habit of only min-raising with 67s and shoving with pocket K's. Pay attention to the other players and their habits. If someone is raising everytime in blind on blind situations open up your shoving range. If they are folding to any re-raise, make a note of that and try to exploit it with decent hands. Don't play maniacal! You are just asking to lose if you are raising every hand or calling every raise. While being in the lead here is nice, sometimes you will find yourself in 3rd place. Again, you need to buckle down and try to stay out of the way of the other players. You need to go back to the starting hands from the beginning of the tourney and only get your chips in when you either have a good hand or when you find yourself so low that you have to make a move. When you are down that low, any suited connector or any two paint cards are good to call a raise or shove in a good spot.

Heads Up
Here is just luck of the draw. With a sizeable lead, you want to be aggressive but not stupid. In 2nd place, you want to be aggressive as well. Once again, NO LIMPING! I'm shoving with any two paint cards, any PP, and any Ax hand. Once the chips are in, the board will determine the winner. I'm calling a shove or shoving over a raise with any PP and A9+.


I hope that someone can get some use out of this guide. I love the action in these games and they can be very amusing to watch as well. Have fun and don't worry about bad beats in these. They are going to happen and that's just part of it. Just make a note on any player who makes a bad decision and go on. Good luck!

Here is why I make A9+ my starting hand requirement and also why I say to shove and not limp or raise.

In this first hand of the tourney (blinds 15/30), the guy with A7 opened with a 3x raise. The guy with A4 re-raised to 150. The guy with AT flat called the 150 raise and then A4 shoved, and the others called the shove.

Not every time, but if A7 shoves instead of just making a 3x raise here, he stands a better chance of getting A4 and AT to fold. But, with my starting hand selection, he should have folded and then he'd have all of his chips still. Just an example I thought I'd throw in there. btw, A4 should have never been in this hand.

Attached Images

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And here's what a good day can look like. I've played these pretty much all day long and been doing pretty well.

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hmm... whats your BR have to be like to play these? Also, does this strategy apply to any lower super turbo sngs with a lower buy in? Your BR would have to be pretty high to reduce the massive swings that these cause I'm sure...

I'm actually outside of my bankroll on these, but I wouldn't recommend doing that.

I would recommend at least 50 buyins before you want to play these. And yes, this strategy, I think, will work all the way up to about the $10 level, but I haven't really played too many at that price to be able to say for sure.

I respect your grind, but this will be one hella swingy grindfest. But I like the strategy you have given. I think its a interesting and winning approach. I just am not a fan of this shortstack/ultra turbo style things I feel its very unstragetistic(not a word but u know what I mean) and not as much fun.

I hated them as well at first. I used them as only quick jumps of money when my bankroll was taking a hit. Then one day I thought "I'm gonna try these all day and see what happens". Well, what happened was a major jump in my bankroll. But these are definitely not for everyone (especially beginners) and definitely not for the faint of heart. They are action packed, quick games that are, if you realize the fact that there will be major downswings, are actually quite fun.

Excellent post DG and thank you for the contribution!

I’ve dabbled in them myself and can not agree with you more about the fact these games are push/fold mode before the first hand is dealt. There is absolutely no point limping anywhere with anything, it’s defiantly –EV in the long run.

This has left 1 massive question in my head about your strategy.

Let’s say game starts and we are simply card dead, I mean really card dead like J6 is the best hand we see. At what stage do you shove ATC and hope for a miracle? Because this strategy is based on the assumption that:
a) We are dealt something that we can shove with and
b) The hand holds up.

Now I’m not saying it will happen all the time. Most games we will see something we can shove with be it mid-high PP or suited broadways, but for those games where you just can’t catch anything, regardless of how many players are left, what’s your school of thought there?

Very interested in your response.

Congrats on your successors in these games. As a DoN grinder I know how much of a mind-**** they can be.

Ive been SnGing, and have been practicing push or fold, and have been doing real good. I am trying to eliminate the word LIMP from my vocabulary - lol dont always make it - but have been doin pretty good with the aggression. Was real aggressive last night and lost 10% of my BR lol, but I wont let it get me down. I like your post, and will be putting your theories to the test later. In 1-3$ SnGs.

I have a question... I prefer 9-10 player tables and even MTT SnGs. You seem to like the 6 player tables. Could you comment on why, and what IYO the advantages of 6 player vs other variations are?

I start looking to shove ATC when I'm below 175 chips. I'm looking for any connecting cards (preferably high ones) and just about any 2 suited cards with a J or better. Once you're below 100 chips, just look for a good spot and shove. Good luck.

On these short stacker SnGs I prefer the 6 man basically because they are quicker to play and there are less players to suck out with KT, KJ type hands. At these low stakes KJ looks like AA to a good portion of the players and even though I love getting A9 in against KJ, a fair amount of the time they are going to hit their hands. So it's mainly a variance reducer playing the strategy I play on these to go with the 6 man. Good luck.

I knew these were pretty "situational dependent" games so I tried playing one while covering up my cards. I took second place, and would've taken first, but the other guy limped in and when the flop hit he just minbet. I shoved, he called and he had a gutshot that hit. I was holding an A7 to his Q8! I might try that again sometime. It was quite fun.

On the $3 super turbos, you get alot of players who will call off really light in early levels... it is tighter when you go up into higher buyins.
There are a few regs. on just about every table. If you look them up you'll see some will have played in excess of 20,000 STT/Sng, many others in the 5-10,000 range. Generally speaking, for a 'good' super turbo sng player one can really only expect to have an ROI of ~+2%-+3% in the long run.
I've had short runs where it felt like I couldnt' not cash (lol) and have watched my partner run up her account to close to $1K in a weekend, playing the super turbos ($14 mostly). BUT... the downswings come, variance kicks in... and is more difficult to maintain a higher ROI in these than in regular SNG's (for experienced SNG players that is).
They do help one out with the shove/fold game & there's also plenty of oppurtunity to take advantage of other's mistakes (ie. early level limpers, & players calling off with any Ace, also shoving in EP on a weak Ace in early levels... stuff like that).
As far as playing AX hands goes.... yah, personally I'd rather shove with 87s LP than A3o in EP,.. because players tend to call down with Any Ace, so your suggestion of A9+ is prob a good one.

Some basic things I've found with those games.... stay fairly tight at the start, & I only play shove/fold while on starting stack (I think by shoving even your big prs. in Lev1 (esp. in the $3 games) it adds deception to your hand. Once I double up (if I double up, lol).. I stay tight on my calling ranges (unless I'm priced in to call & the call doesn't negatively affect my stack to any degree). You see alot of players getting the early double up & then calling down light & spewing off that extra 10bb they've just won at the start, losing the edge they had. An early double up can usually take you to bubble play, where it's somewhat similiar to a sng with really high blind play on the bubble.

GL in these dg... hope you have continued success in them!!

Once you are short, you can look for spots to 'call' when there's more deadmoney in the pot (when you're in blinds) as you'll be getting good odds to call & won't have any fold equity anyways.

Thanks Poker Orifice.

Honestly, without a hand I'm willing to play all my chips for (at these micro stakes anyway), I don't want to call in the BB. I've seen too many times we'll get 1-2 limpers, the sb calls and the bb shoves. So, with only a starting stack or a little better, I'm just folding anything under my shoving hands. But with a 30bb stack, I will call in those spots with 2 paint cards or 78s type hands hoping to see a cheap flop and hit it hard.

Okay, I just hit the 100 SnG mark for the month. I don't have a huge amount played such as 5k or 10k, but here is a good point to keep track at. Also, Most of these have been played in the last week. Up until then, I had only played them occasionally until I started noticing I was winning a good percentage of them.

But here's the stats at 100 played...

ROI= 21.4%
ITM= 41%
Money won= $81.33

Not bad, but it is a fairly small sample. And I stick to my rules above 99.9% of the time. The other .1% I'm limping KQ in the BB.

Nice stats dg, once I get a bigger roll I might take a shot at a few of these, I've never really got into 6max before, for now I think I'm just going to stick with smaller buyins and take my time.

i might take a shot at these, i am currently playing super turbo heads up, basically i have this same strategy, well, a bit looser of course since its heads up. thank you for the strategy, really need to read it few more times, and give it a try.

Great information and a pretty sound strategy. Sinlge table SNG's have always been pretty good for me on Full Tilt. I am not sure about these 300 startign chips things. I like the Freeroll to the Daily Dollar, where you start with 300 chips but it is a large format tourney. I play it like your suggestions and have won advancement several times. Would you say agree the strategy you give works well in that environment?

I don't see why it wouldn't, but if it's nine person tables, you might want to raise the shoving requirements up to maybe 66+ and AJ+. Other than that, I would just wait until you are around 1500 chips or well above the rest of the table before you start playing a normal type game. Good luck with those.

Right on. These are definitely high variance SnG's. Although they are done in a heartbeat if you single table most times you can play 3 to 5 in a 15 minute period. If you are running like god one day maybe jump on the 45 player $3.50+$.30 Super Turbo Games. I've taken 1st once and it really depends on the cards in all honesty. You won't have much time to pick up reads on opponents because some can be moved or KO'ed, etc. Especially because most these players will shove with ATC, and you'll find yourself calling the Buttons "All In Steal" while he's holding J7o.

If you run into other players who are skilled at this then it might benefit a player to run through SitNGo Wizard and set it for AI or Fold situations. Just a thought.

Great guide and I agree with you 100% on hand selections and strategy etc.

They Have $1.50+$.20 Super Turbos. Just as soft. Easier on some bankrolls.

Because I'm stupid I went outside my BR to to play a 3.80 along with a couple 1.70s... major swinging but I won the 3.80 and cashed in about half the 1.70s I played, majorrrr variance but way looser play than necessary. Tough games but not unbeatable... I recommend not playing under 50 buyins like dg said O.o

Yeah, 50 buyins are definitely recommended if not more. I have fairly steady funds I can use on poker so I really don't mind playing a little out of my b/r. But it's still not smart.

Honestly I do really like these... way faster than .25 + .5 DD satellites, also they run at night before 12 am unlike the DD satellites. Playing outside my roll though lol I only have about 22 buyins at the 1.70 level, but the play is so bad I seem to cash in every 1 of 2 or 3 i play at least, variance will screw me eventually though, i know this :< but I'm gonna live in denial ^_^.