 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
Single-Table Tournaments:
Sit-and-Gos are Tournaments that begin as soon as the required
number of competitors are registered. Most online Single-Table
Tournaments (STT's) operate this way. One of the major advantages of
STT's is that your maximum loss is limited to the tournament's entry fee
so you won't go broke if you go all-in and bust out early. Each player in
the tournament pays a set entry fee plus a small extra payment called a
"rake" that goes to the hosting poker room. In a standard ten person
tournament the prize money is usually distributed among the top 3
finishers (50% for 1st, 30% for 2nd and 20% for 3rd). Each player is
typically given $800-$1500 in play money chips to start with and whoever
holds all the chips at the end is the winner. The blinds start low and
increase at set intervals throughout the tournament (Usually every 10
hands or 10 minutes but sometimes faster).
When playing in an STT you should break it down into 3 stages
(Beginning, Middle, and End). For each stage you will play differently.
The size of the blinds and the amount of players remaining will loosely
dictate when you will "change gears" at each stage.
Beginning Stage:
Early on in the tournament, your play should be extremely tight. This
means playing VERY few hands. A common mistake is to play too many
hands in the beginning. Players think that because the blinds are so
small they should try to see many flops cheaply and build an early chip
lead. NOT TRUE! One of the reasons extra-tight play works well in the
beginning is because it allows you to spend some time watching the other
players and getting a feel for their play. Also, depending on the size of
the initial buy-in there will likely be some bad players at the table who will
be eliminated quickly. You want to give these players a chance to bust
out of the tournament early. Each time one of them does, your chances
of reaching the top three spots will be increased. Don't worry if someone
at the table is getting a big chip lead. It's actually good to have a clear
chip-leader at the table as he will likely be forcing a lot of action among
the other players and you can sit back and just play a nice tight game.
When you are watching the players, pay close attention to those who are
easily pushed out of a pot; you will target these players for "Blind
Stealing" later on in the tournament. NEVER BLUFF IN THE BEGINNING
OF THE TOURNAMENT!!!
Middle Stage:
The middle stage of the tournament begins when the blinds have
increased to a size that will put moderate pressure on your chip stack
and hopefully a few players have been knocked out of the game. It will no
longer be acceptable to just let the blinds pass over you so you will have
to get involved in the action and play more hands. Simply play a solid
game like you would if you were sitting in a normal ring game (See Basic
Strategy Section). By this time, the other players will have noticed that
you are fairly tight and will respect you and any aggressive bets that you
make when involved in a pot with them. Use this respect to take
advantage of occasional bluffing opportunities against the players in the
blinds. This is a good time for me to mention that you should be very
careful when bluffing and never bluff often, read more about the rules of
bluffing in the Basic Strategy Section. "Blind Stealing" is when you raise
with position over the players in the blinds when there are very few or no
other players involved in the pot, the idea is to get them to fold marginal
hands and take their blinds. Be careful who you try this with though,
some players will "protect their blinds" by calling your raise with a
marginal hand because they don't want to have the reputation of being
easy targets for stealing. So only try to steal from players you know to
be tight or timid and don't do it often. The goal for the middle stage of
the tournament is to catch a few nice hands and build your chip stack up
so that you will be a force in the end of the tournament when the blinds
get large.
End Stage:
In the end of the tournament there will be a few players left and the blinds
will be huge. Aggression is key here and you should take even more
risks than in the middle stage. Sometimes players will "Lock-Up" when
there are 4 or 5 people left to try and fold their way to the prize money.
Most of the time this is not the best course of action, you should still be
trying to "win" the tournament. Remember 1st place pays a lot more than
3rd! Play good cards aggressively but proceed with caution when going
past the flop. If you are going to move All-in or call someone else's All-in
make sure you think about it very carefully! Remember that you will need
much better hand to call an all-in than you will to make one. Once there
are only two people remaining you will change gears again into the
ultra-aggressive heads-up strategy. When you are playing against just
one other player (heads-up) any pocket pair or hand that has a face
card in it is a very powerful hand. You should be raising pre-flop very
often when playing from the button (first to act pre-flop in a heads-up
game). If you have a sizeable lead against your opponent put a lot of
pressure on him by making your pre-flop raises at least 2-3 times the size
of the big blind. Once you have someone hopelessly short-stacked
(meaning you have nearly 10 times the size of their stack) take the
initiative and put them all-in pre-flop when you are first to act and have
almost any reasonably strong starting hand.
