Texas Holdem Poker

Tournament Texas Holdem is one of the most popular forms of poker in the world.  Every poker player imagines making the final table and winning it all.  One way to get final table experience without having to plan an entire tournament is Sit-n-Go tournaments.  Today, we will look at some basic strategies for both live and online Sit-n-Go tournaments.

Sit-n-go tournaments are single table tournaments that are played with either nine or ten players.  Each player starts with the same amount of chips, which is usually equivalent to 30 big blinds.  Most online poker rooms will pay the top three players in a sit-n-go.  Live Sit-N-Go tournaments pay either two or three players.

The early stages for most sit-and-go tournaments you want to play extremely tight.  The blind are low and all players are still involved.  You have no reason to try and steal blinds at these levels.  The risk to reward ratio is too high. Sit back and play strong starting hand.  Weaker and looser players will tend to gamble big in the early stages to try and amass a large amount of chips.  Sometimes you will even see players move all-in pre-flop or on the flop when the pot is very small.  You want to only play the strongest starting hands during this stage.   Weaker hands should only be played from the blinds in an unraised pot.  The early stage of a sit-n-go last typically the first four levels or until you are down to 6 players.

The middle stage of the tournament comes around the 75-150 or the 100 – 200 blind level.  At this point, if you have not won any pots, you only have around 7 to 10 big blinds.  Stealing blinds starts to become important.  Players that are short will begin to push on a wide array of hands at this level.  You can loosen up your raising requirements from late position at this level.   A well timed bluff or two may be beneficial against overly tight players.

The middle stage of the tournament is when we arrive to the bubble period.  The bubble period occurs in a sit-n-go with 4 players remaining.  Only three players will receive a payday, and nobody wants to go home empty handed.  If you have fewer than three sets of blinds left in your stack, you need to find a hand to move in with.  A couple of big cards or even any ace would be a hand to take a chance.  Sometimes you can play a couple of small cards and the cards will be very live.  A player is said to have live cards if he is facing a non paired hand and the other player has not paired yet.

Middle stacks need to be careful at this point.  You don’t want to get into too many pots with the chip leader without the goods and you do not want to tangle with too many short stacks and risk not only doubling them up, but making yourself a short stack in the process.  Sit back and play strong hands.   Only take on short stacks in cases where either doubling them up will not cost a significant portion of your stack, or when you have a strong holding.   Chip leaders should use their chips as a weapon.  Put the short stacks at risk.  Put pressure on the middle stacks that are just trying to hold on to their chips.  Chip leaders can open up their play quite a bit.  In some cases regarding short stacks, you may want to take them one with any two cards.   Be careful not to go overboard with this strategy or you may end up giving your chips to the other players.

After you get to three players, it is time to try and win the tournament.  If you are short, make a stand and try and pick up chips.  You will make a profit, so you have nothing to lose.  If you are a medium stack, try and make some moves to challenge for the chip lead or knock out the short stack to get to heads-up.  If you are the chip leader, continue to attack the short stack.  Be careful not to get too aggressive against the medium stack as now that everyone is in the money, they may play back at you.

Once you reach heads up, your style of play will vary greatly on your other opponent and how you are perceived.   Is your opponent very aggressive?  If so, tighten up a bit and play strong to mediocre hands.  Are you perceived as being tight?  If so, make a few plays at the pot in situations that makes you look strong.  One thing I do is keep close watch on how I play various types of board and also how I am betting my strong hands.  I will then mix up my play to give off strength tells when I am on bluffs.

You will also see many more hands heads up than any other time in the tournament.  Big cards, suited connectors, any ace, and many suited hands are playable.   You will want to raise with a wider range of large cards and most any ace.  You will want to raise all pair, even deuces.  A pair is very strong heads up.  Heads up requires several adjustments and even readjustments on in order to stay ahead of your opponent.

One difference you will notice in live sit-n-go tournament that you will not find online is that many players will want to make deals to chop up the prize pool once you get heads-up and in some cases when you are three handed.  There are many ways to make a deal, but typically the fairest way to make a deal is by a chip count percentage.  For example, if you have 60% of the chips and your opponent 40%, then you will receive 60% of the prize pool.  Deals in tournaments are entirely voluntary and if you do not feel a deal is fair, do not accept it.  You can always play it out for the full prize amount.

Sit-n-Go tournaments are great practice for the final table end game.  You get the feel of the final table and are allowed the chance to experience the different scenarios that can arise as you work your way to heads-up and finally the win.  If you want to win in tournament poker, then start playing Sit-n-Gos.  They are great experience and in the end, they are also highly profitable.

Most of online poker rooms offer sit-n-go tournaments. Visit poker reviews website to find out your choice of online poker room to play sit-n-go tournament.