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Howard Lederer
March 14, 2005
The Sit N Go (SNG) is online poker's great gift to the
aspiring tournament player. Prior to the Sit And Go SNG, final
table experience was hard to come by. You could enter a
dozen multi-table tournaments and never find yourself at
a final table. Or you could make one or two, only to get
knocked out in 8th or 9th place. Adapting to an
ever-diminishing number of players at a single table is
a crucial skill in tournament poker, and it's a hard
experience to find offline without investing a lot of
time and money. Online, this experience is a mouse-click
away. The SNG's advantages are many. For starters, it's
low-cost, or even free. It's also fun, and convenient:
You don't need to schedule it -- a SNG starts every time
the table fills up -- and it's usually over in less than
an hour. It is the flight simulator of Final Table play,
and mastering it should be considered mandatory homework
for the serious student.
Now that you know why you should play, let's look at
how:
The most obvious difference between a SNG and a
multi-table tournament is that when someone goes broke
in a SNG, there isn't someone waiting to fill their
spot. Multi-table play consists mostly of full-table,
ring game poker. But as players get eliminated from a
SNG, the table gets shorter- and shorter-handed. This
reduction in players basically serves to artificially
raise the antes. For instance, say you are playing
five-handed and the blinds are 100-200: You are paying
300 in blinds for every five hands, or 60 per hand. As
soon as someone gets knocked out, you're four-handed.
Now you're paying 75 per hand -- a 25% increase --
despite the fact that the blinds have remained the same.
Accordingly, you're forced to gamble more, or risk
getting blinded out.
Since the size of the blinds relative to your stack size
should always play a major role in you hand selection, I
recommend starting out with pretty conservative starting
hand requirements. This serves two functions: First, the
blinds dictate that you play fairly tight early; the
blinds are small and you are nine-handed, so they don't
come around as often. Second, this helps you establish a
tight image, which you hope will pay off later when the
blinds are high and you might really need a timely ante
steal.
But there is another not-so-obvious reason to play
tighter earlier and looser later: The payout structure
rewards tight play. Most SNG's pay 50% to first, 30% to
second, and 20% to third. This payout structure dictates
that you play for third. Why? Looking at the payout
structure another way might help. Basically, the payout
means that 60% gets awarded once you are down to three
players, 20% gets awarded when you get down to two
players, and the final 20% gets awarded to the winner.
If you can just get to third, you get at least one-third
of 60% of the prize pool, or 20%. You've locked up a
profit, and you have a chance to win up to 30% more.
It's only now that you're in the top three that your
strategy should take an abrupt turn. Now it pays to
gamble for the win. Let's look at the numbers again: 60%
of the prize pool is off the table, and moving up one
spot is worth only another 10%. But move up just one
more spot and it's worth a whopping 30% extra -- that's
three times more for first than it is for second. And
with the blinds going up, gambling for the win is even
more clearly the correct play.
I see many players employ a nearly opposite strategy.
They figure they have nothing to lose, so they go for
the quick double-up early. They take chances too soon
when, in their view, there's "nothing on the line".
Then, once they're in the money, they tighten up,
thinking about that extra payout for moving up a spot.
If you start to rethink your SNG approach and adopt a
"slow early, fast late" strategy, you will see an almost
immediate improvement in your results.
Best of luck and see you at the tables,
Howard Lederer
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