Sit & Go Tournaments

One of the keys to becoming a successful Sit & Go player is learning to master bubble play. The last thing anybody wants is to be the Bubble Boy, which means you need to get the most out of every hand you play during this critical stage. If you make solid moves from good positions and manage your chip stack wisely, you’ll find yourself in the money before you know it.

In between the two polar opposites of hands in poker, those of the very strongest hands and the very weakest hands, exist a large number of marginal hands. The best players make most of their money through how they play the marginal hands (after all, anyone can fold five high or bet the nuts, but working out what to do with middle pair is much harder), and one of the most crucial concepts involved with marginal hands is showdown value.

There is quite a common situation that arises on the bubble of sit and go tournaments that can hugely improve your win rate if you can spot and take advantage of it. It usually comes about when playing three or four handed on the bubble of a sit and go tournament when you and another (or two others in the case of nine seater games) player both have chips, and there is a short stack trying to survive until the money. Many players just go after the short stack and try and get heads up or three handed, although frequently this is a mistake.

Heads up sit and goes provide a great opportunity for spinning up a bankroll to the beginner or play money player. The variance is very low in these games, as they combine many features which allow skill to shine through over the short term.

The single most important concept to understand when playing heads up is position. If you do not understand the importance of position and how to use it to your advantage you will be an easy target in any heads up game.

In a typical nine-handed, one-table Sit & Go that pays out three places, the most critical juncture of the tournament comes when four players remain. Three of those players will turn a profit, and one of them will go home empty-handed. It goes without saying that there's no more disappointing place to finish in a nine-handed Sit & Go than fourth.