As you may recall my last blog entry covered the preparation for Sit&Go tournaments – so now let’s get down to business. Let’s deal the cards for our hypothetical SNG!
Our SNG starts and every player receives a starting stack of 1,500 chips. The blinds are being raised every 10 minutes and the first blind level is at 10/20 (that means a small blind of 10 and a big blind of 20 chips). This and the next blind level will mainly consist of us focusing on our opponents’ playing style. Who hardly plays any hand if any at all? Who only plays from late position? Who likes to raise? Who hardly raises? Who keeps calling? Do we have a maniac (wild player who plays a lot of hands, raises a lot and possibly attempts many bluffs)? If we come to see a showdown who has played which hand and how? That is already a lot of information to be gathered and remembered and if it is too much at the beginning of your young poker career at least try filtering the players willing to play risky!
We will play a TAG style (as explained in my last blog entry Sit&Go Preparation). In order to effectively do so it is important to realise what position we are in. Position refers to where we are seated in regard to the Dealer Button (BU). With 10 players at a table you divide the position up as follows:
- Small Blind (SB)
- Big Blind (BB)
- Under The Gun (UTG)
- Under The Gun +1 (UTG+1)
- Under The Gun +2 (UTG+2)
- Middle Position 1 (MP1)
- Middle Position 2 (MP2)
- Middle Position 3 (MP3)
- Cut Off (CO)
- Button (BU)
The 2 player left of the dealer (SB, BB) are referred to as the Blinds. The 3 following players (UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2) are also called Early Positions. Seated after them are the players in Middle Position (MP1, MP2, MP3) while the final two players (CO, BU) are referred to as being in Late Position.
Why is the position so interesting? Well, the more players acting after you the bigger the chance that one of them has strong cards that we don’t know about yet. The position defines the order of betting in all betting rounds which makes the Button the best position because – with the exception of the first betting round, the pre-flop – this player will always be able to make his decision after everyone else. If a player is seated further to the right of the button than you, you “have position” over that player in the poker lingo. This is a great advantage because whenever you get to decide what to do you can adjust to what he did and act accordingly. Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson (a poker icon if there ever was one) noted in his famous book Super System: “In No Limit Hold’em position is… well, it’s the name of the game. It’s everything. If I had position all night, I could beat the game… and I’d never have to look at my hole cards.” We however will take a look at our cards and will make sure only to play the following hands in this early phase of the SNG:
| Raises before you | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hole Cards | Position | None | One | Two or more |
| AA,KK | 1-10 | Raise | Reraise | All-In |
| 1-10 | Raise | Reraise | Fold | |
| AK | 1-10 | Raise | Call | Fold |
| JJ,TT | 3-5 | Call | Fold | Fold |
| JJ,TT | 1,2,6-10 | Raise | Fold | Fold |
| 99-22 | 1-10 | Call | Fold | Fold |
| AQ,AJ,KQ | 3-7 | Fold | Fold | Fold |
| AQ,AJ,KQ | 1,2,8-10 | Raise | Fold | Fold |
You will fold all other pocket cards during the first three blind levels! While this may seem overly conservative or even cowardly I strongly recommend that you stick to the table strictly in your early SNG career. To quote myself: “Wanting to be a winning SNG player in the long term we will have to make it our primary goal to be among the remaining last 3 players on the table.” We haven’t gained anything finding ourselves in an all-in situation with AQ and 8 remaining players on the table when an opposing player shows us his AK and takes us off the table. In a tournament your goal is to survive. Don’t let the fact that someone at the table already doubled his stack change your playing style. In the very next tournament this player might exit very early thanks to his playing style.
In my next blog entry Sit&Go – Flop or Dropwe will take a look at which flops we would like to see with our carefully chosen pocket cards. Until then I hope you will find a lot of aces under your pillow!