|
Sit and Go Tournaments
Sit and go tournaments or single
table tournaments are a very good spots to make some easy
money if you are patient enough to wait for your cards and
smart enough to know when to bet and when to fold. Some of
the weakest online players try to win online single table
tournaments before they give a multi table tournament a go.
It should be of particular interest to you that with ten participants
on a table that if you can manage to be in the money 51% of
the time that you will do very well over time. Let’s
assume that you win 17%, finish 2nd 17%, and finish third
17% then below you can review how much you will make over
100 tourneys:
Cost
of 100 $10+1 tourneys
= $1,100
1
- $850
2 - $710
3 - $340
Total
Estimated Revenues = $1,900
Cost
= $1,100
Profit
= $800 ($8 per tourney)
In a sit-and-go tournament with
a no-limit format you have to really be on your toes as your
position relative to your opponents is constantly changing.
Please note that Online Texas Holdem is not played the same
as in a land based casino or poker room. No limit texas holdem
becomes a totally different game with fewer players which
means that 5 people at a poker table is a not at all the same
game as with ten people at a table. It is important as an
Online Texas Hold’em player to recognize this difference
in the game and it is vital for you to benefit from and use
this difference in becoming a profitable single table no limit
texas holdem tournament player. The table strategy has been
divided into different sections based on the number of players
remaining at the table so that you can understand the changing
strategies as they happen.
Early in the single
table tournament - 8 to 10 players left:
The preferred strategy is very
simple: you cannot play tight enough. Your goal at the early
stage of a single table Texas Hold’em tourney is to
avoid being busted out prematurely. You just need to hang
onto chips to play with at a later stage in the poker tournament.
It is about survival at this point in the tournament and if
you think of it as anything else then you are destined to
lose. If you win a hand or two before there are seven people
left great for you. Just avoid the hand that will cost you
a big chunk of your chips and wait until there are fewer players
left before you make your move. In fact fewer players means
that you have a better chance of winning a hand or two so
it is in your interest to wait. Your focus should be on keeping
a healthy stack of chips on the table and not necessarily
on winning all the chips right away. If you see someone go
all in early then you know that they are weak players (along
with anyone who calls them). You want to make sure that you
have chips to play with when there are a handful of players
left. It is much easier to outplay the opposition when it
is down to fewer players. Some argue that playing lots of
hands when blinds are low is the way to play (yes in a multi
table No Limit Holdem Tournament yes – not on a single
table tournament. You really want to conserve chips and wait
until the table has seven or fewer players before you begin
to gamble. Don’t waste your chips early.
Playing tight is a must, but
equally important is specifically avoiding the type of starting
hands that have the potential to lose a lot of chips by making
a second-best hand. You might say that starting hands like
(A-Q) or (A-J) or (A-T) or (K-Q) or (K-J) should be treated
as marginal hands early on. These hands will win pots without
a doubt. When you win a pot it is a small one but when you
lose one it is a big one to a hand that is ever so slightly
better than yours.
Note that in all the examples
of hands it is always assumed that nobody has raised into
the pot before your turn to play. If the raise is around 5-15
percent of your stack, you can call with any pair hoping to
flop a set. A-A and K-K are clear reraising situations. Q-Q
and J-J are borderline hands. Hands like T-T and A-K should
usually be folded to a raise of more than 15% of your stack.
Even when the raiser is very loose, you can easily get into
trouble on these hands. If you do play them, play them carefully,
and do not attempt to push a small edge.
If you think your hand is good
it is important to raise or reraise with it to maximize your
chances of winning the pot as well as to capture as many chips
as possible in the process. The name of the game is Texas
Holdem and when you are holding the cards you have to extract
the maximum amount of chips from your opponents. If you ever
think you are falling into a calling station pattern just
remember that if you are calling you are likely behind in
a hand and you will lose valuable chips that you need in later
stages when your poker edge is greater. Remember, single table
Texas Holdem tournaments are won through bluffing, and at
this stage it is very difficult to bluff people out. If you
want to play small pocket pairs then you can limp and hope
to catch a set (three of a kind). Should you get lucky and
flop a set, try to win the maximum on it. This is one of the
few situations in a tournament where your hand is strong enough
to risk a drawout. However, if your opponent is checking,
don't give him free cards. Bet enough that it will be a mistake
for him to draw to a straight or flush. But if he is betting,
use your judgment to play the hand in the best way to win
his whole stack.
What do you do if you flop a
good hand when you get a free look at a flop from the big
blind position? No need to try to trap now. Bet it hard and
fast. If you get raised either go all in or fold – your
call. Remember that your ultimate goal is to get to the next
stage of the tournament.
Middle Stage - 7 to
6 players remaining:
By now with 3 or 4 players busted
out the game is totally different. The players that wanted
to throw caution to the wind and gamble should be gone. Most
if not all the players left will be TV survivors. In other
words now you should see only 2 or 3 players seeing each flop
so you can steal blinds by betting 5 X BB into a pot and by
raising a lot of pots after the flop to take them down. Some
of your opponents will be as good as you are and for these
players just avoid them for now (unless you get a monster
hand). During this stage you will notice that few players
are willing to go into a big pot with a marginal hand so you
can really capitalize this fact. It could be the case that
one or two players have large stacks of chips. Notice how
they play and if you see them getting a little reckless don’t
be tempted into playing that style of game. If a guy with
$6K in chips (buy in $1,500) plays K 4 os or J 7 suited you
don’t need to get into a battle with a player like that.
You can count on him playing badly but in fact now he may
catch some good cards so be careful.
This stage is just the beginning
of how your play should open up as the single table tournament
progresses. You can start mixing it up a bit into pots and
try to go into a hand once per round around.
Late Stage - 5 to 4
players remaining:
This stage is like the home
stretch to the finish line in a horse race. Your goal during
this stage is to make it into any of the top three positions.
If you must give up a hand or two that you felt was good to
win or likely to win that is fine. You hang on and wait until
you are in the money before you take a big gamble on a hand.
At this point positional isolation
is the key and stealing pots is the name of the game. You
don’t have to get into an all in battle unless you have
the nuts. Calculate how many rounds you can last at your current
level and figure someone else will likely bust out before
you. Try to use the blind changes to your advantage by timing
the change such that you are on or close to the button. If
your opponents play tight then you can expect to steal a lot
of blinds with terrible hands just by raising 3 or 4 times
the big blind into them when they are in the blinds. In the
event that they call watch out for a reverse trap. Remember
you are trying to make top three so even if you have $1 and
you are top three they you win.
In the Money - 3 players
remaining:
Congratulations you made it
in the money. Now the trick is to do your best to finish first
or second. It depends on how your opponents play but generally
they will be tight aggressive and in that case blind stealing
is the way to play. If you have a maniac then he will likely
make you go all in as quickly as possible. If there are three
people left let the other person do the all in thing first.
At least that way you make 2nd place quaranteed.
Some people argue that you might
as well go all in as often as possible since any two cards
are almost as good as any two other cards (with the exception
of pairs). As a result AK is almost as good as 23. Where you
get in trouble is when your opponent has 99 and you have 87
– now you are a real dog.
If your opponent has gone all
in before you just fold your hand and move onto the next hand
if the blind does not represent a large proportion of your
total chip count. Be patient and wait for the heads up battle.
Heads up - 2 players
remaining (the ultimate goal):
The correct strategy here depends
largely on how big the blinds are in relation to your total
chip count and the total chips in play. If you have 1,000
and the blinds are 300/600 then you might as well go all in
when you play. Generally speaking the blinds will be more
than 10% of the total chips on the table you are best off
moving all in every hand and stealing as much as you can until
your opponent calls you down. At this point the game is almost
a coin flip so you might as well steam as many pots as you
can before your opponent makes a move on you
Ideally you want to play against
someone waiting for an ace or a king before making a play
and if that is the case then your all in bets will likely
take down a large percentage of pots uncontested. If on the
other hand your opponent plays the all in game too then you
have to wait for the ace or king before calling him. In this
case the game is down to who bets first since they will go
all in right away. This is not an unusual scenario and one
which you will need a pair or Ax to call your opponents all
in. It is always better to lose when you are the aggressor
at Texas Holdem Poker so when in doubt go all in.
To Summarize:
To become profitable in single
table no limit Texas Holdem tournaments you have to adjust
your play to the current table situation. At the beginning
of the tournament you should be playing few if any hands,
in the middle of the tournament you play just enough hands
to make it to the final 4 or 5 players. Now you play as often
as you need to so as to pick up chips and stay alive. Once
you are down to 3 players left you try to wait until you can
wait them out and play heads up against one of the other two
opponents. Once heads up you go all in almost every hand until
a winner is decided.
|
