Bloggers / Matthew Pitt / 03 December 2008 / Leave a comment

A good way to get a feel for playing poker with real money can be by playing sit and go (SnG) tournaments.

A SnG is a single table tournament which starts as soon as all the seats are full, hence the name sit and go.

Whilst some may argue that SnG are not 'real poker' due to them being heavily driven by mathematics, they do allow a player some poker experience without ever risking a large amount of money as each tournament has a set entry fee. But looking down the lobby of the Betfair client reveals there are standard or turbo SnG's available, so which should you play?

The main difference is obvious in that a SnG with a turbo structure has blinds that escalate faster than their standard counterparts. Some people argue that there is a different strategy needed for each discipline but that is simply not the case as they are essentially the same game - and playing tight early and then using ICM (independent chip modelling) late on is the ideal way to play any single-table tournament.

If your strong point is the early part of the game, where the blinds are low in relation to the stack sizes then it would make sense to play the standard speed games as the blinds will be lower for longer in comparison to the turbo games. Conversely, if your end-game strategy is strong and you have a good, solid understanding of ICM then it would make sense to participate in the turbo structured games as the blinds will be higher earlier than in the standard games.

Another consideration to make is your hourly earn rate. Due to their very nature, turbo games finish quicker than standard games, therefore it is possible to play more turbos than standard so your hourly rate should be higher. However, as the shorter blinds take away some of the skill factor, your return on investment (ROI) will almost certainly be lower than if you played the standard games. The potential to earn more money per hour attracts the better players to the turbo games, especially at the medium to high stakes games.

At the end of the day, it is entirely down to the players as to what they play and feel comfortable with. But with games on Betfair starting at just $0.11, it is not going to be expensive to find out which you prefer!

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SNG Strategy - Gap Concept - Jonathan "JPK" Farrer
An interesting sit and go dynamic - Marcus Bateman
The best seats / the worst seats - Matt Broughton
SNG - Play to win or don't play at all - Jonathan "JPK" Farrer
Some SNG success - Sorel Mizzi
Annette's 180 player blind SNG win - Betfair Poker