Getting Started: Common Sit & Go Mistakes And How To Fix Them
If you open a pot by limping then you are doing so without something that is very important in poker – initiative. By limping you are declaring to the rest of the table that you are not confident in your hand's strength and that you do not want to risk many chips.
As we mentioned in a previous article, sit & go tournaments are a great way to learn the ropes when you first start playing online poker. Not only that but once you have mastered the basics of the game and are feeling confident with your skills you can attempt to progress through the many different stakes on offer at Betfair Poker and start to earn some decent money.
It should make sense to the vast majority of you that the higher the amount it costs to buy into a sit & go the less weak players are present in your games. That is not to say that higher buy-in games do not have weak players in them, far from it, but even the weak players in higher buy-in games will generally make less mistakes than those in so-called smaller games.
So what constitutes a mistake in a sit & go? Over the past few days I have been frequenting the sit & go games and these are the most common mistakes I have found, but not only that how to fix them too.
Open-limping Into The Pot
When the action folds to you in any format of No Limit Hold'em you should almost never open the betting by limping into pot. Limping is simply calling the statutory big blind and not raising. Open-limping is a very weak play, in fact it is only slightly stronger than simply folding your hand; it really is that bad.
If you open a pot by limping then you are doing so without something that is very important in poker - initiative. By limping you are declaring to the rest of the table that you are not confident in your hand's strength and that you do not want to risk many chips. Not only this but you are also allowing others to follow suit and limp into the pot behind you which reduces your odds on winning the hand dramatically. Imagine you limp into the pot with a pair of sevens from early position and five other limp in, you are never going to be overly confident even if you hit a third seven because your opponents could have limped in behind you with a whole host of random hands.
The way to fix this is simple; don't limp! My personal mantra is if it is good enough to open with then it is good enough to open with a raise.
High Blind - Low Stack Limpers
In the early stages of a sit & go it is quite okay to limp behind opponents with speculative hands such as small-to-medium pairs or suited connectors in an attempt to flop a monster of a hand and stack one of your foes. However, many players take this one step too far and continue to limp behind hoping to hit a big hand when they do not have the correct sized stack to do so.
When the tournament first starts you are usually 75 big blinds deep. This means during the 10/20 blind level your limp behind for 20 chips could net you your opponent's entire 1,500 stack which is a fantastic result by any stretch of the imagination. But when the blinds are your stacks are much shallower. At the 100/200 blind level if you still have 1,500 chips then instead of 75 big blinds you only have 7.5 big blinds are are quite short stacked so risking one big blind here (200 chips) has a high risk but low reward ratio because most of the time you will limp behind, miss your hand and be forced to fold and the times you do hit your dream hand you will not be paid off sufficiently to make up for all the times you miss.
Personally I would stop limping behind with any sort of hand once I was down to 15 big blinds. Many players will state they stop limping hoping to flop a set (also known as set-mining) when they are down to 10 big blinds but you should probably do so slightly earlier. This is because although the odds of flopping a set are around 7.5/1 you have to factor in the times you flop a set and do not get paid off in full or flop a set and still lose.
Moving All-In With Too Few Hands When Short-Stacked
For the purpose of this article we will define short-stacked as having 10 big blinds in your stack. Whenever you reach this level you can no longer play what you would call standard poker. This is because you can no longer afford to raise then fold, nor can you afford to call raises then fold when you inevitably miss the flop so you only have two options open to you. They are fold or move all-in. The problem lies in that most players choose the former and start to move all-in with only the strongest of hands.
Despite what they tell you the majority of sit & go players like to fold when they are facing an all-in bet. The solid regulars, the winning players, will call your all-in bet with less than premium holdings from time to time but for the most part your "shove" will get through. If you are in early position and are looking to open-shove all-in for around 10 big blinds then you obviously need to be slightly tighter based on how many players are left to act but in late position, particularly in the cutoff or on the button you can often be moving all-in with a very wide range of hands; often literally any two cards if the players left to act are prone to folding too much.
I would much rather move all-in for 10 big blinds on the button with Ts-7s against tight blinds and lose than sit blinding away hoping for a premium hand to move all-in with because the majority of the time my shove with the lowly ten-seven is going to win me the much needed blinds and antes.
Do some research into poker's many statistics and look at how often players have hands strong enough to call your 10 big blind shove. You will probably be surprised that it is not very often they can call you; unless they are a little bit crazy that is!
There are obviously plenty of other mistakes that are regularly made but these seem to be the most common I see on a daily basis. Hopefully you will no longer be making them!
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
