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Posts Tagged ‘Low-Blind Play’

This is part one of a four-part series outlining everything the average poker player needs to go from sit-and-go noob to sit-and-go shark. Part one will focus on low-blind play.

One type of poker that has really gained popularity online is the single-table tournament (STT) – commonly known as a “sit-and-go.”

Online sites have these running continuously. A new one starts as soon as it has enough players registered, so there’s never any shortage of action.

Sit-and-go play is a completely different monster than cash-game play. It is more similar to multi-table tournaments inasmuch as the amount of chips you have is finite. There are no re-buys and once your chips are gone you are gone. So you need to protect the chips you’re given at the start.

In the course of this multi-part article I will take you from being a sit-and-go noob to a sit-and-go shark.

The Basics

When the blinds are low you should employ a very conservative strategy. There’s no need to get overinvolved and risk tons of chips when the blinds are low.

If you have any chores to do around the house, than feel free to start up a sit-and-go or six and then go sweep the kitchen, vacuum the stairs and put your pot roast in. By the time you get back you should be ready to play.

Well obviously that is a little extreme, but it’s a more advisable course of action than getting all aggressive early.

Avoiding Confrontation Early

In the early stages of a sit-and-go you’d like to avoid large-scale confrontations. There’s no need to run up large bluffs or overplay marginal hands. There will be plenty of time for being ultra-aggressive later, so don’t worry.

What we’re trying to do is stay out of the action early. While I advise you to play very tight, you should still be playing strong hands aggressively. If you have a premium hand, by all means bring it in for a raise. I would never advocate anything different.

What I am saying is there’s no reason to try to exploit small edges early. For example:

Effective stacks $1,500. You have 9♠ 9♣ in the big blind. The blinds are $20/$40. There are 4 limpers to you.

In a cash game, this is a very easy raise. In a sit-and-go I would argue this is a check. If you wish to raise this hand you will have to make it at least 5 or 6x the BB since you will be out of position for the rest of the hand and there are four limpers in front of you.

For the sake of the example, you raise the pot to $240. The first two limpers fold and both the cut-off and the button call. The flop comes Q♥ 4♠ 2♣.

This flop is fairly decent for your hand. Only one overcard and you took the lead pre-flop so you will have to continuation bet this flop.

You bet 2/3 the pot or about $500. The cut-off folds and the button calls.

Now look at the spot you’re in. You’ve just put half of your stack into the pot. What are you going to do on the turn? The pot is now $1,800. If you fire again on the turn it will be for all your chips. How much can you like your hand?

The answer is probably not that much. Although checking and folding is also a pretty bad move, as you have half of your stack in the pot. This is why I advocate the check pre-flop while the blinds are low. It allows you to avoid a sticky situation like this one.

There are lots of situations like this. With speculative hands that are most likely to be good now but are not a huge favorite there’s no need to balloon a pot to exploit some small edge you may or may not have.

The amount of chips you’ll have to put into play to find out if you do have that edge is far too many to risk when your stack is finite. Rather than trying to push your small edges now it’s better to conserve your chips for the higher blind levels.