Sit and Go poker strategy can be very similar to tournament final table strategy. And competing in a lot of single table Sit & Go events can prepare you for those final table scenarios.
If you’re a micro stakes online poker player, you can gain a massive amount of short-handed tournament experience by registering for hundreds of Sit and Go tournaments each day.
However, playing Sit & Go events “for a living” can be difficult to impossible depending on the rake amount that is charged to enter each event.
In this article, we’ll take a look at Sit and Go tournaments, why they are so popular, and provide a few tips on how you can improve your own Sit and Go strategy for a relatively low investment by utilizing premium poker training sites.
What is Sit and Go Poker?
A Sit and Go in poker refers to a tournament, either single table or multiple table, that doesn’t have a scheduled start time. Instead, a Sit & Go event (also referred to as an SNG, STT, or Sit n Go) begins immediately once the predesignated player pool has been filled.
A Sit and Go tournament can be an extremely convenient way to play poker, and can even allow players to compete in 10 or more games online simultaneously.
A Single Table Sit and Go is just as it sounds: there is one table — usually between 6 to 10 players — that must fill up in a registration queue before starting. The same goes for a Multi Table Sit and Go: multiple tables will be initially filled and will eventually play down to a single final table and a sole winner.
For example, if 36 players are required for a Sit and Go tournament to happen online, then the event begins only at the moment that the 36th player has committed to the event and paid the buy-in plus rake.
A Personal History: Sit and Go Poker Tournaments
At the peak of this author’s own foray into online SNG play as a for-profit player in 2005-2007, I was personally 16-tabling low-stakes Sit and Go events and playing over 100 per day at low stakes on PokerStars.
Of course, this was way back in an era in which traditional, straight forward “Weak Tight” strategy was good enough to turn a modest profit in said single table or multi table SNG tournaments.
I fondly recall the first time I won a 180-person, $20+$2 Sit and Go event online, which had a top prize of $1,080. It was the very first time in my brief professional career that I actually had a four-figure sum appear within my online poker site cashier module.
Sharkscope Sit and Go Results for dhubermex (PokerStars)
But times have changed.
Long gone are the days in which a relatively low skilled poker player (compared to present day) could mindlessly grind a bunch of real money online poker tables for a consistent profit — all while binge watching popular TV programs on a separate screen or monitor.
Also note that I merely broke even for roughly the final third (4,000 events) of my entire Sit and Go career on the site, which spanned approximately 12,000 Sit and Go tournaments.
So much for staying ahead of the competition as an online poker pro!
My point is: You will need much, much more table selection discipline and overall poker knowledge than I had nearly two decades ago to master poker strategy for Sit n Go events.
Modern Day Sit and Go Poker Strategy
Sit n Go poker strategy has indeed evolved in the modern era, with some micro stakes games being pretty much impossible to turn a profit on considering the relatively high rake that need to be paid for each mini event.
However, new players can get a lot of value just by playing a few SNGs and figuring out the rhythm of when to go all-in when short stacked.
There are three separate courses that may be of assistance in furthering your Sit and Go poker strategy to a level in which you can become confident in your play.
Since there are so many short stacked situations in Sit & Gos, one of the first resources you should probably look to is the Push/Fold chart offered by PokerCoaching.com. The charts can be obtained as a package deal with a monthly premium membership to PokerCoaching.com for as little as $117 per month (or $147 per month if you’re only subscribing for 30 days).
The short stacked strategy insight offered by two-time WPT champion Jonathan Little is an extremely good deal considering how much content you can gain access to for the low monthly subscription amount. Before long, you’ll be consulting material provided in the site’s Tournament Masterclass, which is also included as an extra bonus when you subscribe for a Premium PokerCoaching membership.
Another great resource for learning how to get the most out of your Sit and Go poker tournament play is to head to the Jaka Coaching website. There are more than 160 of online courses available to choose from, with instruction provided by World Series of Poker bracelet winner Faraz Jaka.
Jaka Coaching boasts its own Discord channel, an interactive poker community, and tiered lessons that are fit for both basic and advance competitive poker play.
The site specializes in poker tournament strategy, which is ideal for also studying Sit and Go events due to how they play out just like a multi table tournament would. The courses will help with both live and online strategy. The monthly cost of a Jaka Coaching premium membership ranges from $99 to $129 depending on how many months you purchase up front.
Finally, WSOP bracelet winner Ryan Laplante has a great Game Theory Optimal (GTO) course that is perfect for Sit and Go play for both live and online competitors.
Learn Pro Poker features coursework related to Independent Chip Modeling (ICM), which is pretty much a “must have” if you’re planning on playing a lot of Sit & Gos.
For $47 USD per month, you can become a premium member and review unique courses that focus quite a bit on tournament strategy. If you’d like to learn more about the service before signing-up, you can click or tap on the following like to read our complete review.
The Scheduling Convenience of Sit and Go Poker Tournaments
While Sit and Go events may not offer the “Sit Out” option as frequently as cash games do when playing online, they are a lot more convenient for online players who have a limited amount of time (usually 15-30 minutes, depending on format) to commit.
If you really want to enter a single table SNG that is all but guaranteed to conclude in a few minutes — regardless of the outcome — then you may want to opt for a Hyper Turbo format. The blinds usually increase very quickly in the Hyper Turbo events, and remaining players will be forced into Push/Fold situations in just a few minutes.
If you have more time to dedicate to learning online Sit and Go play, then you can choose a “Regular” SNG that has less frequent blind increases. This will allow for at least a few minutes of deep stacked play before the blinds increase to gigantic levels relative to players’ chip stacks.
Regardless of which format you choose, the blinds in a SNG will eventually become very large — but you’ll have more time to play with a deeper stack if you don’t choose a Hyper Turbo or Turbo format.
Sit and Go tournaments can be found online for popular poker variants, including Texas Holdem, which is by far the most common variant that one will find at almost every online site.
Why is it So Important to Learn Sit and Go Strategy from Active Players?
As players improve on a general level, the difficulty correspondingly increases in terms of being able to implement a Sit and Go strategy that is good enough to win in the long run.
While I may have personally enjoyed a modest amount of success playing Sit and Gos during the early years of online poker, there’s simply zero comparison to the tips I can provide as opposed to premium courses.
Poker coaching services and poker training sites relay instruction that is taught by actual, modern day players who are routinely competing at real money tables. In many cases, the coaches themselves play high stakes games regularly.
You really want to seek out poker instruction from these coaches, as they have by far the best “feel” for the game and how it is played in the modern era (not to mention a much better grasp of current day poker strategy needs.
While opting for one-on-one coaching can become pricey (and therefore is mostly ideal for higher stakes players exclusively), the monthly subscription services mentioned above each contain many, many hours of coursework taken directly from recent live or online poker play.
You can get the most out of a premium coaching service by taking the time to review each instruction category as it becomes relevant to your own play.
In short, you don’t need to be a high stakes player to sign-up for a premium poker training site. You can enjoy plenty of benefits — even if you are a beginner and/or a microstakes player. Each coach has experience helping players of all levels improve their own game.
What about “Live” Sit and Go Tournaments?
Many of the Sit and Go tournaments that can be found at major casino venues are categorized as Satellite Poker Tournaments. While the strategy may be somewhat similar to Sit and Go events in that they have some amount of deep stacked play at the beginning, the endgame strategy is very different for satellites.
This is because satellite events typically pay out in “Seats” or “Tickets” that can then be used to enter another event — with little or no difference in prizes for the top finishers.
In contrast, Sit and Go events usually award cash prizes to the top finishers, with first place receiving the larger portion of the overall prize pool compared to contestants who finish second, third, and so on.
In a live, brick and mortar card room setting, Sit and Go events will usually have a very high percentage of rake that must be paid up front compared to online events. The exception to this rule may be larger buy-in, live satellite tournaments that offer seats into a Main Event that will soon take place at the hosting venue… but again, this would be a Satellite instead of a traditional Sit and Go.
Cash prize Sit and Go events at live casinos aren’t all that common, and the rake will be excessive in some cases — especially if the buy-in is $200 or lower. If you DO happen to find a live Sit & Go tournament at lower stakes, be prepared to see entries in the $50+$20 or $100+$35 range.
Paying such a high percentage of rake per buy-in will pretty much eliminate any possibility of being able to turn a long term profit in these live games, but they can still be fun and you can still get at least some real money play for a small buy-in.
With this said, you’ll probably want to focus your Sit and Go real money play and study on the internet side of things. This way, you’ll gain more experience more quickly and be able to incorporate some of the strategies you’ve learned from premium poker courses along the way.
Have fun improving your Sit and Go tournament strategy!
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