An example Sit and Go at Ignition of 9 players, 1,500 chip stacks, and starting blinds of 10/20. At the beginning of a Sit and Go, all players are usually given between 1,000-2,000 chips. The blinds begin anywhere between 5/10 and 20/40 with the exact amount depending on the site’s tournament structure. Single Table (9-Handed) Sit and Go Strategy Nine-handed sit and gos are somewhat of a dying art, but they still run non-stop. While you won’t find 20 games filling up in a split second, you still need to know what you are doing if you want to be able to win.

• 9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Plan
• 9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Games
• 9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Challenge
• 9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Against

For most turbo sit and go's (18, 45, 90 & 180-mans) on PokerStars and Full Tilt, you can generally use the same strategies. You want to stay tight early on and once antes kick in, you'll want to loosen up and become more aggressive so you can try to build a stack for the bubble, not to mention the final table.

Now, while the basic approach to these sit and go's will be similar from one to the next, there are going to be some differences. Some will be more subtle than others. One of the more noticeable differences will be your bubble play strategy. Below, I'll explain why it should change from one game to the next as well as outline the general approach I suggest you take for each game.

Why You Need to Adjust Your Bubble Strategy

You will want to adjust your bubble strategy from one SNG to the next primarily because of the difference in payout structures. To better understand what I mean, go look to PokerStars and compare the details between 18 and 180-mans. This is what you'll see:

• 18-mans pay the top 4 places. 4th place receives 10% and each pay jump increases by 10% (1st: 40%, 2nd: 30%, 3rd: 20%, 4th: 10%).
• 180-mans pay the top 18 places. 10th through 18th receive 1.2% and the pay increases from 9th to 1st start at about .9% and eventually make it to 10% (1st: 30%, 2nd: 20%, 3rd: 11.9%, 4th: 8%, 5th: 6.5%, 6th: 5%, 7th: 3.5%, 8th: 2.6%, 9th: 1.7%, 10th to 18th: 1.2%).

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything, much less your bubble strategy. Well, that's simple.

See, in a game where there is a steep payout structure, just making the money is worthwhile. Don't get me wrong, 1st place should always be your goal. But you can't complain (too much) getting 4th place in an 18-man and 10% of the overall prize pool. I'll go in more detail below, but this type of structure will change your bubble strategy to trying to cash at all costs.

Now, if you look at a flat structure like 180-mans, cashing in last place is peanuts, especially when compared to the 1st place prize. And it doesn't even improve much when you final table. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you should be trying to cash in the top 2-3 places. This will change your bubble strategy to a much more aggressive one since building a stack (for a top 3 spot) is a much better strategy than trying to min-cash.

Specific Bubble Strategies for 18, 45, 90 and 180-man SNGs

Ok, so hopefully that all makes sense. If not, I think you'll get the idea after going through my strategies for each individual SNG below.

Please keep in mind, however, that these strategies are very general. My goal is to simply show you the differences in strategy from one kind of SNG to another, not show you strategies for very specific situations.

18-Man Bubble Strategy

As I mentioned above, you should be trying to cash in an 18-man at all costs. To give you a better idea, your ITM% (in the money) should be somewhere around 24 to 28 percent. This means you should be cashing in 1 SNG for every 4 played.

So, the first thing I suggest doing is avoiding thin calls on the bubble. If someone else shoves, you shouldn't be calling with hands like AK. Many times your range will be as narrow as jacks plus, if not better, all depending on stack sizes. Even if you have the player covered, AK is a thin call at best. Losing can cripple you and result in you bubbling the tournament.

If I'm acting first, I do play an aggressive game to exploit the fact that players should be extremely tight. However, whether you push or raise will depend on who's to your left. If you have someone capable of re-shoving light, you'll want to lean towards shoving and maximizing your fold equity since it's bad to make a thin call on the bubble (obviously hand dependent). If there are tighter players or fish to your left, than raising is definitely acceptable.

If I have a short stack with no fold equity and there is someone equally as short, I'll try to outlast them. A good way to do this is to look ahead a few hands to see who will blind away first. If it's you, you should then be in push mode. If it's not, I'll only push very good hands and just try to wait it out.

45-Man Bubble Strategy

Your strategy will change slightly from that of an 18-man in that it's not an 'at all costs' type of situation anymore. While you certainly want to cash, the real money is going to be in the top 3 to 4 payout spots. To give you an idea, I would say your ITM% should be in the ballpark of 20% or 1 in every 5 games. Keep in mind though that this is data pulled from my own relatively small sample size.

I think a few of the main differences in my strategy from 18-mans is that one, I don't wait around as a short stack. I feel that there is more benefit to shoving crazy wide when short to either rebuild my stack or bust and then load a new game. Secondly, thinner calls are going to be much more acceptable, especially if you have a stack that is somewhere in the middle or below average. I will make calls with hands like AK, AQ and medium pocket pairs if doing so will give me one of the biggest stacks at the table.

90-Man Bubble Strategy

My strategy is drastically different from that of an 18 or even a 45-man in that I not only take thinner spots, I'll even go as far as to set them up. There is definitely no make the money 'at all costs' in a 90-man. I don't have an ITM% to give you as mine are skewed from KO's being added. But you can assume that it's less than a 45-man (20%). If I had to guess, I'd say somewhere around 15% or so.

But as I said, I don't just try to make the money. Instead, I try to build a stack. This means that my strategy shifts from being slightly aggressive or even borderline passive to flat-out aggressive. I open a lot of hands (to steal), 3-bet frequently (to steal/abuse) and I make calls that are considered thin in smaller field SNGs. In fact, I'll open with hands like AK, AQ, AJ, KQ and even medium pocket pairs with the intention of calling a re-shove that is trying to exploit me. Their re-shove range is much wider than my calling range and unless I have a 75k+ stack, I need to be adding as many chips to my stack as I can.

Keep in mind that only 9 players cash in these (12 on Stars) and the majority of the money to be made is in the top 3 places. So, I'd much rather bubble while trying to build a massive 'top 3' chip stack as opposed to barely making the final table and busting for a min-cash in 9th place.

9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Plan

180-Man Bubble Strategy

180-mans are going to technically have two bubble situations. One will be from 19th to 18th place known as the money bubble and the other will be from 10th to 9th place, also known as the final table bubble. Again, I don't have a large enough sample size to give you an ITM%. But you could probably assume somewhere in the range of 10 to 15% is decent.

My strategy to the bubble(s) in these is a little different then what you might expect. For one thing, I don't abuse the money bubble all that much. Players are much more relaxed on the money bubble since a min-cash is only double that of the buy-in. So, I do steal and try to keep my stack from blinding away, but that's about the extent of my aggression.

Once you get into the money, this is where you should pick up the aggression. You need to keep in mind that 9 of remaining 18 players will be paid the exact same amount. So, there is no need to be a nit. You should be playing all of your hands hard and fast. Also, since there is more value in building a stack than trying to squeak into 9th or something, you should be pushing any edge you have. Again, I'll make calls with AK or KQ if I think I'm ahead of someone's range. I'll also set players up by open-raising trying to get my opponents to 'exploit' me.

Summary of Different Bubble Strategies from One SNG to Another

I realize that this is all quite a bit to soak in. But what you should take away from this is that your bubble strategy is (should be) drastically affected by the payout structure. As you increase the field size, the more players who are paid and the flatter each payout is. Because of this, your aggression on the bubble should increase as the field size increases and your strategy should go from trying to make the money at almost any cost to trying to build a stack in order to cash in a top 3 position.

Last week in our series of tips for sit & gos — whether playing online poker or live — we discussed heads-up play. This week, we'll wrap up the SNG series with a look at bankroll management.

We'll start by focusing on developing a plan for determining the bankroll size you need to play SNGs. What constitutes a smart bankroll for playing sit & gos? The answer to this question is a function of the amount of risk you are willing to accept.

Number of Buy-Ins

I would suggest a bankroll size of at least 100 buy-ins for conservative players who want to give themselves a very small risk of ruin. This includes professional poker players who cannot easily replace their bankrolls.

If instead, you are a serious recreational player who has a source of income that could be used to replenish your bankroll, then you don't need to be so conservative. In this case, that is, if you're on the less conservative side, you can get away with 50 buy-ins.

Meanwhile, if your goal is to just play a few SNGs for fun instead of strategically building a bigger bankroll, then you can play with as few buy-ins as you like. Just be careful not to play with money you cannot afford to lose.

Slight adjustments to these bankroll requirements can be made based on your return on investment (ROI). This is a measure of how profitable you expect to be in future tournaments based on how well you've done in the past.

If you determine that you have a much larger than average ROI, then you can expect to lose less often than most players. If this is the case, you will need fewer buy-ins than most players. The opposite is true as well — i.e., if you have a lower than average ROI, you'll want to have a bigger bankroll.

Feel free to make these adjustments to your bankroll management plan, but be careful not to take it too far and expose yourself to too much risk.

Moving Up or Down

9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Games

Once you have decided on a bankroll management plan, your current bankroll will tell you at which level you can start. For example, if you have a $1,000 bankroll and want to take a conservative approach with the goal of being a professional player, then you should start at the level for which you have 100 buy-ins. In this case, that would be the $10 level.

If you go on a bad run, you'll need to drop down in stakes until you build your roll back up to around $1,000. For example, if you lose 50 buy-ins, then you will be left with $500. This is not enough to play $10 SNGs professionally. If this happens, you should drop down to play $5 SNGs since you now have 100 buy-ins for that level. If you recover the $500 you lost, then you can move back up.

9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Challenge

On the other hand, if you beat the $10 games handedly, you may eventually double your bankroll to $2,000, or 200 buy-ins for the $10 level. It is completely fine if you want to be ultra-conservative and stay at that level despite the bigger bankroll. But if you feel you are ready, you can move up to the $20 SNGs since you now have enough for 100 buy-ins at that level.

That said, moving up when you have the buy-ins to do so is only half of the equation. Generally, the higher levels are tougher than the lower levels. You must also be sure that you have the proper skill set to compete. Do some self-assessment by taking occasional shots at the higher levels to see how they play and determine what new skills you need to acquire.

9 Man Sit And Go Strategy Against

When deciding whether or not to move up or down, ROI once again becomes a factor. Most likely, your goal when you play poker online for real money is to make the most money you can per tournament. Sometimes, this can be better achieved at a lower level than a higher one even if you are properly rolled to move up.

For example, let's say you've determined that you have a 20 percent ROI at $10 SNGs. This means that you make $2 per game on average. If properly rolled, you can move up to the $20 SNGs, but you wouldn't want to do so unless you believe that you have at least a 10 percent ROI at that level.

If your ROI is lower than this, you actually make more money at the lower level. Even if it is exactly 10 percent, you'd want to consider staying at the lower level. Even though you make $2 per game at both levels, the one in which you have the higher ROI will result in lower variance. If you are going to move up and deal with bigger swings, you should make sure you are being paid a premium to do so.

Conclusion

I hope this series on sit & go strategy has been helpful to you. SNG mastery is a great skill to have because it gives you experience that is transferable to other types of poker tournaments. SNGs always start at the final table, so you should feel somewhat at home if you later decide to play an multi-table tournament and make it to the end.

Also in this series...

Ready to start giving sit & gos a try? Put these tips into practice at PokerStars.

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  tournament strategyno-limit hold’emsit & go strategyonline pokershort-handed strategysatellite strategyheads-up strategybankroll managementROI

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