Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 24 March 2009 / 1 Comments

A brief analysis of the catalogue of mistakes made in Nick Cantwell's excellent sarcastic piece about how to play a sit and go...

"No hand is a massive favorite in hold'em, and surviving many pre flop all ins is nearly always very difficult."

Breaking down your games and sessions and analysing each play is a very useful tool in learning about your game. Here we see a classic 'how not to play a sit and go' scenario, but some of these mistakes you see time and time again even from quite solid players

I had $94 in my account, so I thought I'd have a game - a $50 STT looked good, and if I could win that I thought I might play a bigger one.

- This is the first massive mistake. Even if you were the perfect blend of Stu Ungar, Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson together you would always lose if you don't adhere to good bankroll management - you simply have to give yourself enough buy ins to be able to deal with the variance of poker no matter how good you are.

So I registered, grabbed myself a beer and made a quick phone call. Wow, the game must have filled up quickly, because by the time I got back we were six minutes in, and I was already down 60 chips - oh well, I had 1500, it makes no difference really.<

- This is not actually so bad. Although drinking when you play is not ideal, one beer will probably not affect your results too much. Missing any number of hands is not great, but your usual strategy early in STTs should be extremely tight so you are not losing much value missing the first five or ten minutes.

Hand 1 - A4off in the small blind. Some guy raised it to 90 from a medium position. This guy hadn't played a hand since I sat down, so he must have been desperate to play one - so I had him on any two cards here really. I re-raised him, and then he shoved. This was a toughie - I still thought he was bluffing, so I called and he had KK. Luckily I hit my Ace on the turn, and doubled up. The guy abused me in the chatbox (shouldn't have made it look like a bluff should he??? - lol)

- This is just so bad on so many levels. Firstly, playing hands like ace rag early on is just dumb - they play terribly against basically all hands when deep stacked, you never have any idea where you are even if you hit your ace, and will nearly always get into trouble with them. Secondly, this point is even more pronounced against a player who has not played a hand since sitting down - the odds of them itching to play a hand are much less than the odds of them just being very tight early on. Lastly, early on you should just be looking to stay out of trouble and survive until the blinds get big and force you into making moves

Hand 2 - I'm still chip leader, and I have AJs in the big blind. The blinds are 25/50 and a guy with 250 chips shoves from the button. I don't really fancy doubling him up here - so it's an insta fold. Well played me!!

- Button can have any two cards when playing that short and folded to. You are also getting a very good price on your hand here. Snap call, high five the dealer and hope you hold.

Hand 3 - There's just six left - three to go until the cash. The blinds are now 50/100 and I have 2700 chips. I get dealt JJ and shove - no messing with me. And can you believe it?? The button woke up with AA and took most of my chips. How unlucky can a player be??

- This is a tricky spot, but one where shoving is not amazingly bad. Open shoving 20-30 big blinds has become much more common in recent years, due to the amount of re-stealing going on, and player's subsequent desire to avoid facing a re-raise. My own personal preference is to just put a standard raise in here and play a bit of flop poker, but shoving is not that terrible if you feel your post flop game is considerably worse than those around you.

Hand 4 - Five left now. I'm in fifth with 1000 chips. The blinds are 75/150 and I get dealt JQoff. I'm not willing to shove here, but I don't want to fold JQ, so I flat called. Unfortunately the big blind shoved, so it was another fold. Sensible I think.

- Just shove - you have six big blinds and unless you can double up this orbit are going to struggle to generate fold equity from now on which takes your main weapon away.

Hand 5 - On the bubble now. I have 600 chips and I am big blind next hand, which is 200 chips. I have a pair of twos - thought it best to fold them - I'm flipping at best. I don't want to go out here.

- Again, just shove. Being blinded away is a much worse fate than getting it all in with a marginal hand - at least you have a chance with the marginal hand.

Hand 6 - Still on the bubble. I have 300 chips and the blinds are 100/200 and I get dealt AK. I gleefully push, and for some unknown reason the big blind calls for an extra 100 chips with 96off. I mean WTF!!!! How can he call with that? And yep, he hits, I don't and I go out. Unbelievable.

- And here we see the importance of generating fold equity. If you don't have enough chips to make people fold, you will nearly always bust pretty quickly. No hand is a massive favorite in hold'em, and surviving many pre flop all ins is nearly always very difficult.

Oh well, that was good...not. I only went and spunked the rest at a cash table five minutes later as well. Time to reload I think!!

- Avoiding tilt is one of the key aspects of playing poker successfully. Although the cash tables might look very good after busting a tournament, odds are that you will lose pretty quickly if you sit down and start playing deep stacked poker, at stakes outside of your bankroll, against good players. Either have a break or drop down the stakes.

By looking at how you play at each step of the game you can greatly reduce the number of leaks in your own game.

More Cloud Poker

Bert and Ernie play the Sunday Million
Scared of Two Plus Two
Poker and life aims for 2009

Get 40% rakeback at Betfair Poker

Comments (1)

1. Cloud | 25 March 2009

   Nice piece - I'm glad to see the legend that is "Anthony Fish" lives on!

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comment: