Sit and go strategy

[sceaga]

Hello everyone,

I prefer playing Single Table Tournaments (STT) and have recently been playing $20 (+2) 6 seater tournaments with the following results

Game 1 : 50 mins : 1st (+$50)
Game 2 : 30 mins : 4th (-$22)
Game 3 : 15 mins : 6th (-$22)
Game 4 : 40 mins : 2nd (+$26)
Game 5 : 40 mins : 3rd (-$22)
Game 6 : 30 mins : 5th (-$22)

So in summary achieved :
Time spent playing 3 hours 25 mins
Won cash in 2 games
Lost 4 games
Layed out $132
Winnings $120
Loss of $12 (loss of $3.51 per hour)

OK, so I guess I achieved "average" results and therefore just lost the house fee, so not too bad a result I guess, but of course I want to improve my game to start building up my bankroll

Are there any general suggestions you can make that are specific to playing 6 seater STT ?

thanks

[The Professor]

Hi Sceaga and welcome to the forums.

I personally like to play SitnGo's in a very similar way to multi-table tournaments. Obviously shorthanded with only 6 people at the table some of the more marginal hands that wouldn't be as strong at a 10 man table are a little stronger, so you can relax your starting hand requirement a little.

But I like to stick to playing tight at the start of the tournament and being patient until I have a hand that is playable - but I will push with some of the more marginal hands.

A key measure to keep an eye on is the size of your stack in comparison to the blinds - obviously with SitnGo's the blinds sometimes increase a bit quicker and you need to know what factor your stack is against those blinds. At the start of the tournament you may have a factor of 50x with a 1500 stack and 10 / 20 blinds and at this stage you have plenty of time to sit and wait for the better starting hands.

When your stack gets to a factor of 5 - 7x then you need to start to make a move while you still have enough chips to do so. Pick your moments to make a move - you want to be first into a pot and raise it hard probably all-in - you can make this move with alot more marginal hands but the key is that you have to be first into the pot with no raises before you. Hopefully the strength shown will take the pot down there and then. Be carefull how many times you do this though as you will start to get called down eventually.

Your aim is to get your stack back above the 10x factor so you can sit again and wait for the premium hands where you can look to double up.

Also if I was playing alot of SitnGo's I would be looking to play in the tournaments that pay down to 3rd place - this means less of a prize for winning but more cover as you only have to make it to 3rd place to get your money back. If you can manage to place at least 3rd in the tournaments then the times you win will be profit rather than at the moment covering the times you don't make it into the money.

I have to say the best site I've found for shorthanded SitnGo's is Poker Heaven - had alot of success there and the SitnGo's are very loose - if you want slightly larger tournaments then Paradise Poker do alot of "Quickie" tournaments for either 10 / 20 / 50 / 100 players which are good.

[francis lee]

nice tactics

i prefer at least 200 man tourneys but do play a few S N G'g in between and ive found a very tight at first and getting looser when the blinds increase so its worth stealing gets me the most sucsess. but i find them to be quite hit and miss. there are far more looser players in the bigger tourneys making it easier to get a half decent stack. it a bit trickier on SNG's.

[Rolls]

Chris Moneymaker likes to effectively sit out sit'n'gos for the first 40 hands, unless of course he hits a monster (group A and B hands). This will mean that the field has been reduced to about 5 or 6 players on a 10 man table. If your starting chips are 1500, you should still have about 1000 to play with.

I am not saying this is a great strategy by any means, but if you are a very good short stacked player it is a sure fire way of building a healthy bankroll. Obviously this goes only for the 'normal sngs, as turbos would cripple you before you have played a hand!

[Twidbin]

Dont play so many sng's that you lose focus on them all. You should start at 3 or 4 and if you can focus easily then play more at a time.......

[kobayashi78]

i was playing a lot of sit-and-go's lately - but i have to admit that i neither won a lot of money nor lost a lot of money. in my opinion it depends too much on luck whether you win or loose, as you HAVE to go all-in sometimes with not so great hands.

nevertheless it's fun sometimes.

[PokerPrincess]

I play quite a few sng's myself. I enjoy them but as you say Professor you must be patient at the 10 man tables because there are donkeys that play in them and they will push right from the start and usually end up with nothing. Once it gets down to 5 people at the tables then you are playing with the "players". That's when you have to use strategy to win.