Ask Collin Moshman and Katie Dozier About Sit ‘n Goes!

Hi guys! Collin and I have some cool stuff planned with CardsChat that we’re excited to announce soon!

And to get things started, ask us anything about SNGs, or anything else if you’d like

My Proudest SNG Accomplishments:

• Over 100,000 online poker tournaments played, most of them SNGs
• Played 40 or more tables regularly at once
• Having so many great friends in the poker community!

My husband Collin’s SNG Accomplishments:

• Wrote the best-selling book Sit ‘N Go Strategy
• Staked and coached hundreds of players to beat SNGs
• Almost $60,000 in profit and a 28% ROI from 180man SNG alone

We’re mostly playing on US-friendly sites now, but here are our SNG profit graphs on Stars where we’ve played the most. Collin is on 50 different Sharkscope SNG leaderboards! But I’ve played more games than he has

OK ask us anything!

We are so lucky to have you 2 sng wizards here to help us at CardsChat. I might even start firing up some sng's again!

I was never great at sng's but did very well with MTT's. What are some of the main adjustments a tournament player would need to make if they wanted to try some sng's?

Aw, thanks Debi!

I’d say to just think of sngs as mini-tournaments where everything happens faster! ICM of course comes into play way sooner than in MTTs, which I think is the single most important thing to keep in mind. Also make sure to keep a close eye on the effective stack which can become short much more quickly than in an average MTT which will effect every decision we make—all the way from generally playing fewer speculative hands early to those crucial shove/fold spots later on.

In fact, sngs can be a great way to study up for playing MTTs in a condensed amount of time, also because of the great benefit of more short-handed poker experience!

Excited to find out what you both have in store for us at CardsChat and reading your expert advice here.

I have dabbled with sng's in the past but don't tend to play them too often these days I must get back to playing them!

How did you two get into playing sng's was it a time constraint thing or a way to pass the time while waiting for a big mtt to start? What do you think of the spin n go type sng which I think Stars started and other rooms have followed suit, do you play them or does the random prize pool aspect put you off?

Thanks Martin!

I started off playing $25nl cash games and got into SNGs when I was trying different formats and discovered that 10man SNGs (they all had 10 players back in those days!) were a lot of fun and easy to beat with a super-simple tight strategy. I did play other formats including MTT then, but always loved one-table SNGs and played them as my primary game.

Katie started playing SNGs (I believe!) because that was my main format and she started playing online poker after we met.

I think spins are cool but like you said, the variance is incredibly high, and the rake can be difficult to beat on some sites/stakes. With that said, if you find soft spins and enjoy the format, then they're fun and can definitely be profitable. I prefer conventional SNGs though!

Wow I started reading your book like 2 days ago again even though I read it a year or two ago just wanting to go through some fundamentals and concepts that I haven't been implementing in my game and now I see this thread.

I switched from cash games to SNG's not too long ago as well as I find them to be more consistent in terms on win rate.


There is not that much SNG material out there and I am very excited about this thread.
Also congrats to CardsChat they continue to do good things for their members and the poker community in general and this is a prime example.

Hi and welcome to this great poker forum! I’m really happy to see this thread.
I’d like to ask about where specifically you play SnGs online (since it’s a struggle to find good us-facing sites), and also to ask where in the us you live.
And perhaps could you also share your thoughts and expectations about the future of us online poker.

Thanks so much Razzor! Really glad you're enjoying the book, and for sure it's awesome how much CardsChat is doing for their members.

Thanks Nabmom! Our online play is on different WPN skins (like BCP and ACR) and some on Ignition. You're definitely right that options are limited, but it helps a lot if you're mixing different formats like Jackpots, MTTs or even some cash games in depending on where the action is.

I think there's a real trend toward regulated US online poker now and am hopeful for the future that more and more states will combine player pools, resulting in very good traffic if that happens across enough states

Welcome to Cardschat to the both of you!

I have good success with 9 man SnGs myself. Top 3 ITM format is very obtainable with patience. My challenge right now is to climb the WSOP SnG on ACR from Step 1 for $1.65 to Step 7 (15 Seat Guarantee to WSOP Main Event) Any advice on laddering up SnG formats like this one?

SNG of 1.00 180 play this and my goal to play in the future I would like to have some tips for this kind of sit in go?

Thanks Ribbybruno! Awesome challenge. I've grinded Stars steps in the past but haven't done the ACR steps grind. I believe they're all in the satellite format though right? I.e. two or three places will get the identical prize of a ticket to the next highest step.

If so, you want to study up on satellite strategy. And here's some good news. The world's best satellite player is doing an AMA too! I think you've actually posted in there so you probably know this already, but he is the one to ask and I would 100% recommend getting his book on Poker Satellite Strategy if you haven't already because it's an amazing resource for any format where 2 or more of the top spots win the same prize.

Welcome to CardChat Collin, Katie ! I dont have question for now..
pokerstrategy : AlexKockar )))
all the best

Great to see you both here! Thank you Collin for your great book! It has helped me a lot. I'll be sure to come back to you with any questions I have.

I love 180-man sngs! Congrats on picking an exciting and super fun format to play. I’d suggest starting by focusing your studying on ICM and short-stacked shove/fold strategy. In general in the low stakes, a tight-aggressive strategy will be a winning one. Good luck!

Hi, Alex! Thanks


Thanks, we’re happy to be here!

Great news, that you will do a thread here at Cardschat about SNGs. It should become an interesting one. I love SNGs beside MTTs. I play mostly the 1 table SNGs and started with 9-handed at normal speed. Meanwhile, I play often the 6-handed turbos. Which speed do you prefer? Do you play also 6-handed often or more full-table SNGs?

In general I tend to prefer 9-man turbos—though I also love super turbo 9 mans as that was the first poker format that I played a ton of! I will play some 6max too and the regular speed (non turbos) can be a profitable format as well!

Hello and thanks for offering some advice to the members of CC! I personally don't play as many sit n goes as I used to, but have always enjoyed them (Usually If I was ever in a time crunch, or wanted to take a break from the crazy tourney variance).

However, If I ever do get back into full on "grind mode" with sit n goes, what do you think about Dons? Im sure they can be profitable, but would I be leaving money on the table by playing these full-time, instead of a typical 9handed SNG? Thanks in advance and welcome Collin to CardsChat! (I've already welcomed you before, Katie! )

Hi guys, welcome to CardsChat. How do maintain focus and discipline playing 40 tables at a time?

Hi Collin and Katie welcome to Cardchat. The quality and speed of your replies is very impressive.
Im a beginner in online play and Im curious about where to learn more about shove/fold strategy. Is shove fold strategy the same in SnGs and MTTs?
My last question for now is; for a beginner, what SnGs would be best to start with to build a bankroll?

Thanks Dealio! Good question and keep in mind it's all about your goals. For me I find DON to be a slightly mechanical format but a lot of people love them. If you like the strategy involved and they're soft at your site/buyin then definitely go for it. I've recommended Dara's book on Poker Satellite Strategy earlier in this thread and would do the same here actually, DON works like a one-table satellite with half paid so studying sat strategy is great for DON too.

Thanks HaroldHouse! Good questions.

Shove/fold strategy is (usually) different depending on the format. You can use the same ranges in early-stage MTTSNG (like a 45-man) and MTT play. But it's very different in 9mans because there's a lot of ICM involved from the start.

For a beginner, here is my advice: Find an SNG format that you really enjoy and specialize in it. Study its strategy, get better and better at it, and keep your focus right there. For me that would probably be 9-man turbo SNG, but again just pick the one you like the best and get really good at playing them

Hi and thanks!

Having an extremely stream-lined and efficient setup that works very well for you is very important for mass multi tabling. For me that means played with stacked tables (they pop up when it is your turn to act), using a HUD that displays a limited number of stats, and listening to up-tempo music that encourages me to make good decisions as quickly as possible.

Most importantly, I built up to playing a lot of tables over time, only adding more when I was confident that I was playing well with very few misclicks. Since there’s more potential to miss spots, I also think mass multi tablers should review their own games more even more frequently than those playing fewer tables.

Hope this helps

Hi Welcome to Cardschat!...Greetings from Ecuador, South America

Hi, Mack and thanks!

I think this is amazing that you have trained yourself to do this. I am a player that really prefers to play at one table at a time and get a good read on my opponents while taking thorough notes about their betting patterns, hands they prefer and in what position, ect. I also do not use a HUD (maybe I am too old school or maybe it's the lawyer in me that really likes to observe, find weaknesses that I can attack). I have played 2-3 tables at a time with ok results (I misclick playing one at a time sometimes, I just did last night, meant to fold Q2s but raised instead and the original raiser pushed but it wasn't even a half a bet bigger than my raise so I had to call and fortunately for me, flopped two pair). I have heard of players playing crazy amounts of tables like you. Do you play like this daily? What buyin level do you typically play? Do you play on one screen or do you have a multi-screen setup?

You talked about using HUD. What HUD do you use and are there times when you feel like you have a better read on a particular player and follow your instincts instead of the HUD?

Finally, how much live poker do you play?

Thanks for your nice words Here’s a very short YouTube link that’s a screen capture video of me 40 tabling that I think will answer a lot of your questions as to the setup: https://youtu.be/1TFM_rAwFU8

When I am playing in the US, it is a bit harder to get as many games as I would like to play at one time, especially when playing on multiple sites, but I do what I can . These days I play a pretty large range of buyins, from pretty low stakes up to around the $200ish level for the bigger online tourneys.

One advantage of playing a lot of tables is that I accumulate hands pretty quickly on players, which helps makes my HUD more accurate more quickly. In the video (and the stats I generally use the most) the simple HUD is just vpip/pfr/3betpf . Using that kind of HUD makes it less likely that there’s a spot where my instincts are at odds with my HUD—as usually adjustments I’m making to a particular opponent are based on their HUD.

Of course I also utilize my hand histories to review the games of other regs, focusing on those that I play against the most frequently. I’ll color code and add notes to those players which do eventually (hopefully) get mostly memorized, but I try to stick to practical notes that show a real history of a leak in a way that is useful to me, such as a player “calls 10bb shoves too wide bvb” meaning that the player routinely calls wider than Nash in short stacked blind versus blind spots, and therefore I’m not correct to shove as wide into him as I generally will be shoving there versus others.

I’ve played a fair amount live, but haven’t been quite as into it as of late. To me live and online poker are extremely different, but I love them both!

Paying a lot of attention to a limited number of tables is good, and keep in mind that misclicks are inevitable and a part of online poker. You’re likely exceptional at paying attention to details as a lawyer and it’s so important to make the most of our strengths! In playing so many tables I am simply looking to maximize my hourly earnings, but there are certainly downsides to it!

Hi Collin and Katie welcome to CardsChat! I’m playing 0.5 9man Turbo SNG regularly now. Wanna to ask you guys would u inclined to shove marginal ICM push spot or playing a more conservative style. Thanks a lot!

Thanks LLUVV! I would suggest taking +EV spots even if they're close. The reason is because in turbos you'll get blinded out quickly if you fold too much, so it's easy to wait for a better spot that never comes.

But, one important caveat: Sometimes you have to change the ranges that software wants to use based on your actual opponents. For example, if it's the bubble and a crazy mid-stacked player is only supposed to call with 99+, you'll want to change his range to one that's more realistic before deciding on your own range.

Good luck in your 9man turbos!

Thanks for the reply! It helps me a lot!
Btw, wanna ask how to improve HU play. Finding myself drive into push/fold mode when both player still have 25bb up because being so vulnerable playing postflop. Big thanks to you two answering our questions!

Thanks, LLUVV!

It sounds like it would be helpful to get a bit more comfortable with post-flop play in general. I went through this myself because I started out grinding super turbo sngs, and then, when I wanted to transition to slower speed sngs, I was the most overwhelmed with post-flop scenarios.

What I did for a while was to switch gears and study playing cash games. I watched cash poker training videos and read up on deeper-stacked strategy. Most importantly, I played low stakes cash games and then reviewed my sessions and talked about any hands that I was unsure of with friends more familiar with deeper-stacked post flip play than I was.

A lot of cash hands wind up being heads-up, which makes this all the more suited to what you’re working on I know it’s not exactly a quick fix, but all of these things radically helped my post-flop game. Best of luck!

Cool! Just to confirm, it seems that you are using four stats? What is the 4th stat in addition to vpip/pfr/3betpf?

Yes, you’re correct, Matt! At the time of recording that video I also was playing with the fold to steal in Big Blind stat, which I believe I deleted not too long after, because I felt like the likelihood of a player folding a ton to raises in the big blind was generally indicated in the other stats (i.e. a player with a vpip/pfr of 50/2 was very likely to have a low fold to steal in the big blind percent). Hope this helps!

Welcome from me too. Frankly I'm a little bit surprised to find you folks here, since I thought you were somehow bound to somewhere else (where I have not even a 10th of the posts compared to CC). I'm glad that CC improves in terms of education about strategy. Looking forward to read your stuff.

Thanks Katie. That's interesting. It's funny how the simplest stats are often the most useful. I guess I refer to VPIP and PFR the most, with Fold to LP Steal and 3Bet Preflop coming in 3rd & 4th. I find the 3rd stat very useful since in a tournament I often 'stay in the game' so to speak by stealing as much as possible. I do refer to it in conjunction with the first two stats as you point out but personally like to have it front and centre.

[QUOTE=Collin Moshman;5170551]Thanks Martin!

I started off playing $25nl cash games and got into SNGs when I was trying different formats and discovered that 10man SNGs (they all had 10 players back in those days!) were a lot of fun and easy to beat with a super-simple tight strategy. I did play other formats including MTT then, but always loved one-table SNGs and played them as my primary game.

Katie started playing SNGs (I believe!) because that was my main format and she started playing online poker after we met.

Hey guys....really excited about your new thread...huge welcome from all of us I'm sure !!! I've never done much more than an occasional SNG but I recently started thinking about doing more because I read somewhere that if you play well there is much lower variance. Would you agree?
Have a good one !!!lol

Appreciate that Trillian, and I really hope that you enjoy the content we're working on

Gon4iypes, thanks! And yes I would definitely agree that SNGs are lower variance than MTT. There's a cool free tool called the Primedope Variance calculator that quantifies variance, and in the course we're working on, we're planning to show how much lower swings you'll face playing SNG.

hey Collin, last night was great and fun! ))
im online PKO player, but im better live
AlexKockar (pokerstrategy )
kockar=gambler
all the best

That’s a good point about using a stat to “stay in the game,” I really like that! Come to think of it I think my time using the fourth stat did train me to be thinking about stealing in late position more frequently in spots where widening my range seemed very likely to be profitable

Hi, What a cool thing to be doing. Two questions:

[1]


What's the best resource to getting up to speed on SNG?

Your book looks very well reviewed, but has been out for a number of years. Is the advice still timely? Any particular points in there that need updating?

[2]

Any typical traits you find in your successful students?

Hi and welcome!
Do you play spinngo or HU and what you think about them?
I play usually 6 sngo turbo, is better double up 3 place paid od ordinary with 2 place paid?

Thanks AlexBlefer, glad you enjoyed the coaching and happy to see you on CardsChat!

Great questions Hoboken.

1. Glad you asked, Katie and I are working on a course right now for CardsChat that will have a lot of SNG content The single biggest thing to work on right now is GTO ranges in software like Holdem Resources and ICMizer. For the early game, you can use other resources too (e.g. for MTT and cash game) since decisions tend to be very similar between the formats when there's little ICM.

2. They're eager to study. If you suggest they start marking difficult hands in tracking software, they start doing it all the time to learn and improve.

Thanks Kapobar!

I like both spins and HU but make sure the games are soft and rake isn't too high or they can be tough to beat. Both of these formats are a lot of fun though.

I like normal 65/35 6max over DoN 6max because I prefer the strategy with different prizes. But I would base this decision for you on what you like playing more and also where the softer games are

Hi Katie and Collin, nice to see you both here at CC!

From time to time I was focused on SNG's, but main thing demotivating me is the lower prize pool. So, what you would recommend to solve this issue, as MTT's normally paying better, but also harder to get ITM?

Glad to have y'all here on CC ! Being that I'm 73 years old, MTT's have become too much for me to endure. I'm not much of a cash player either, so a few weeks ago I decided to go back to SNG's. Thanks for the pointers both of you have contributed.

Will y'all (yes I'm from the South) be playing in the WSOP this year? If so, good luck to you both!

Very interesting thread so far, especially about the stats.
I have a question about this, are you changing your profiles of stats when you are playing different games, or do have common profile in you HUD for all games, like I do? I am very used to one, well, maybe I also could remove some stats, because the tables a a bit cluttered by this.
I mean, I play MTTs and SNGs mainly, would you recommend different stats for this?

Thanks, Dejange! It is true that SNGs tend to have lower prize pools overall, but when motivating ourselves we want to keep in mind the key issue of an hourly rate. Of course if we win the MTT, then our hourly rate for playing an online tournament lasting around 6 hours will be fantastic, but over the long term that hourly rate will not be nearly as high as that.

Even though the prize pools of SNGs do tend to be lower, they take dramatically less time to play, so you can play many more of them in the time it takes to play just one MTT. They are also lower variance, as previously talked about, allowing the potential for a more consistent hourly rate as well. Hope this helps on the motivation front!

That’s a very good question! Personally for me, I play with the same stats in part because I mix SNGs and MTTs, so having different HUDs I think wouldn’t work well for me.

That being said I certainly do look at other stats while I play. A common example would be if I’m at a final table, have quite a few hands with someone (such that the stats are likely a nice representative sample of the player), we are heads up in a pot and I have a close decision on if I should c-bet, I’d likely click on the HUD to see their fold to c-bet percent.

I know players that play game types that are more different, such as cash games and heads-up SNGs, that opt to use different HUDs for their two different game types. It certainly can be helpful, particularly in that situation!

In general I’d say to take a hard look at the stats you display and make sure that you’re maximizing your HUD space—which means getting the most out of the ones you choose to display and also not having stats that can make your play less efficient (such as having a cluttered HUD with stats that include a lot of info rarely used practically). Hope this is helpful

Thanks, yes Collin and I’s books are available as ebooks on Amazon, kind of you to ask.

In general, the lower the stakes of the SNG, the less likely there are to be a lot of regulars and pros. As you move up in stakes, and there tend to be more regs, their names and stats will become familiar quickly and I recommend tagging them for easy reference on the sites where that is possible—that way you can quickly see in the lobby if an SNG has 8 Regs/Pros (uncommon for sure but it does happen), then you can avoid that game.

Another thing that helps is playing at times where it is a popular time to play, because in general the pros/regs will be playing a lot, whereas on weekends, and after work times, there will tend to be a bigger player pool. You’ll know you’ve found a good time when the games are filling/tables are loading quickly. Best of luck!