Sit & Gos the easy way (Howard Lederer)

Sit & Go (SNG) is online poker's greatest gift to those who aspire to be great tournament players. Before SNGs, the experience of a final table in a tournament was rare. You could enter dozens of multi-table tournaments and never find yourself in a final table situation. Or you could make one or two final tables only to be beaten into eighth or ninth place. Adapting to the "fewer and fewer players" model of an SNG is a crucial skill in a multi-table tournament, and it's an experience that's hard to come by playing live without spending a lot of time and money. Online, that experience is just a click away.

The advantages of an SNG are many. For beginners, it costs little or nothing. It's also fun, and convenient: You don't have to schedule yourself - an SNG starts every time the table fills up - and it's usually over in less than an hour. An SNG is a simulator of a tournament final table and mastering it should be essential homework for any serious student.

Now that you know why you should play, let's find out how:

The most obvious difference between an SNG and a multi-table tournament is when someone is defeated. In SNG, there is no one waiting to fill the empty seat. Multi-table tournaments mostly consist of full tables. In SNG, as players are eliminated, the table gets smaller and smaller. This reduction in the number of players serves to artificially increase the blinds. For example, let's say you're playing a table with five players and blinds at 100/200. You're paying out 300 chips in blinds every five hands, or 60 per hand. As soon as someone is beaten, you're playing at a table with only four players, obviously. Now you're paying 75 chips per hand - an increase of 25% - even though the blinds remain the same. So you're forced to play more hands or risk being swallowed up by the blinds.

Depending on the difference between the size of the blinds and the size of your stack, you should adopt a different stance. I recommend starting SNG by being very tight with your 'starting hands'. This serves two purposes: Firstly, the blinds dictate that you should play tighter at the start. The blinds are small and you're playing a table with nine people, so they (the blinds) don't catch up with you as quickly. Secondly, it helps you establish a tight image at the table, which you'll be grateful for later, when the blinds are higher and you need to steal them frequently.

But there's another not-so-obvious reason for playing tight at the beginning and looser at the end: The payout structure of an SNG rewards those who play tight. Most tournaments at a table pay 50% to the first, 30% to the second and 20% to the third. This payout structure dictates that you should play to finish third. Why? Let's look at this structure one more time to help you understand. Basically, this structure means that 60% are awarded when you're at a table with 3 players (20% are already guaranteed for each), 20% are awarded when you're down to 2 players, and the final 20% go to the winner. If you can just come third, you get at least a third of the 60% prize pool, or 20%. You've secured a profit and have the chance to win 30% more. It's only now that you're in the final three that your strategy has to change radically. Now you're paid to play looser. Let's look at the numbers one more time: 60% of the prize pool is off the table and moving up one position is only worth 10% more. However, moving up one more position is worth 30% more - that's three times as much for the former as it is for the latter. And with the blinds going up, playing loose is, more and more clearly, the best way to play.

I see many players employing exactly the opposite strategy. They believe they have nothing to lose, so they try to double the number of chips as soon as possible. They risk too much too soon when, in their view, there's nothing to lose. Then, when they're inside the prize range, they play tighter, thinking about the extra prize when they move up a position. If you start to rethink your SNG approach and adopt a "slow start, fast finish" strategy, you'll see an almost immediate improvement in your results.

Original from March 14, 2005, Full Tilt Poker - link (authorized reproduction)