How To Play Sit And Go Tournaments

Things you will learn:

• How to approach Sit & Go tournaments
• Why you should pay attention to the middle and late stages of a Sit & Go

Sit & Gos come in varying sizes, the traditional format being nine or 10-player games. Usually, the top three finishers are paid according to a 50%-30%-20% structure. Sit & Gos are great if you're aspiring to be a serious player. They offer a reliable return, and the opportunity to play short-handed against players who might not have the requisite skills.

All tournaments have a beginning, middle and an end. However, in Sit & Gos the middle period is shorter than in a big tournament - so even if you get off to a bad start and you still have a good chance of scraping into second or third place.

In Sit & Go tournaments, it's important to preserve a decent portion of your starting chips (at least two-thirds) for the middle stage of the game. The middle stage is when four or five players remain and the blinds are high enough to be worth stealing by pushing all-in. The other players will need to have decent hands to call you, providing you're in a position to damage their stack and put them in danger of missing out on the money.

Tighter than normal play is recommended in the early stages. Fold most hands and wait until a few players have been eliminated before getting involved.

However, if the tournament features a very slow structure you can still play a few speculative hands - like small pairs or suited connectors - in the hope of winning a big pot. If you manage to win some chips, you can then open up a bit and choose spots to pressurize your short-stacked opponents.

Once you arrive into the middle stages of the Sit & Go, a lot of what happens next depends whether you're playing a regular Sit & Go or a turbo Sit & Go.

• Regular Sit & Go. With a regular Sit & Go on PartyPoker.com, it's common for the final four players to thrust and parry for a long time until either one player makes a fatal mistake or two big hands collide. In these games, you can wait for good opportunities to get involved.
• Turbo Sit & Go. But in a turbo game, where the blinds quickly become astronomical, people will be forced to go all-in and call with far less. Here, it may simply come down to a matter of counting how many hands you can survive until the blinds eat you up and looking for the best hand to push all-in with

Now let's assume you've played well in the early stages. You didn't take too many undue risks and you won a few nice pots with speculative hands. You arrived in the middle stages with an average stack for the last four or five players.

Well, the bad news is that your work is still far from done, as you could still easily leave empty handed. Looking on the bright side though, you're in no immediate danger unless you do something silly or get short.

The first thing to do in this situation is to look around you and see what the other players have in front of them. For example, in a game with very short and very big stacks, you might expect some fireworks, with the big stacks trying to bully and the shorter ones trying to double through or steal the blinds. On the other hand, if everyone has about the same, there's likely to be a delicate equilibrium that nobody wants to disturb for fear of becoming the whipping boy.

As such, when there are different-sized stacks, if there's only one short stack between you and the money, you should try to stay out of harm's way as much as possible (unless a great hand comes along) until things change one way or another. However, if the stacks are pretty evenly matched, you need to carefully look for ways to maintain your chips or get ahead without risking a disaster, as any all-in benefits the by-standing players so much.

By extension, then, as risking an exit at this stage is such a disaster for a player, if you get a really big stack (approaching 50% of the chips in play), you can really start to use it against those who have some understanding of short- and medium-stack survival tactics by playing very aggressively against them. Frequently raise their blinds; re-raise them all-in when there's another, shorter stack still to go from the last four and they have enough chips to pass; or bluff a lot after the flop.

You shouldn't risk a lot more chips with a marginal hand if another player shows commitment, but remember this is a chance to effectively win the game there and then by getting a mile in front. Even if you do lose an all-in, you have probably paid for it with all the small pots you've stolen. What's more, the other players will know you're gunning for them and won't pass easily next time.

When you get to the last three, the blinds will probably be quite high and, after the tension of the squeeze-out stage, the players will loosen up considerably. If you were the big stack, remember your bullying privileges have just been revoked to a large extent. If, however, you were the short or medium ones, this is the time to gamble it up.

Assuming the traditional 50/30/20 structure, the smallest change in pay by position is from third to second, so it's well worth taking on the bigger stacks at the first decent opportunity in the hope of being in contention for first position (although if there's one very short stack, you might still wait for them to go).

If you have fewer than 10 big blinds and find a decent hand, you might as well go all-in (unless it's a real monster and you want action), as you have nothing to lose. Similarly, if you're the big stack with any kind of a hand, you might as well force the short stack to commit. Because of this situation and the pace of a three-handed game, you will probably reach heads-up play quite soon after making the money.

Sit & Go tournaments are great fun and usually over within an hour. They are a good way to improve your strategy and can also be extremely remunerative once you get good at them. The best way to start is to play in the dirt cheap $5 games where you will find plenty of loose-aggressive action. Then, as you improve your game you can 'trade up' to the $50 and even $100 tournaments.