Advanced Sit and Go Strategy and, Are you There Yet?

Do you know how strong your hole cards are? Do you understand the importance of position at the table? How often do you go on tilt? Do you often feel angry after a sit and go tournament? Do you get caught bluffing often? Do you participate in verbal jousting in the chat box? Do you move up to a higher buy-in after taking a loss?

These questions may seem objective, but in fact, there are correct answers for each one of them. Denying that is to deny progress in your own sit and go game. All of these topics pertaining to the basics of mastering sit and go strategy, and therefore require you to not only the master these topics, but recognize such weaknesses in your opponents and take advantage of that.

Moving into the advanced play and learning a sit and go tournaments requires that you have mastered all aspects of your game. That doesn't mean you have to play perfect, but it does mean that you consistently make significantly less mistakes than your opponents. Some advanced skills are based in your knowledge of the game, but you're going to find as you move up in levels that most of your opponents will not know the game anymore or less than you. Your real advantage in the advanced levels, stems from how you master it your self control at the table.

You may think that knowing the strength of your hole cards is pretty basic, and you may have a point about that in fact, aspects of the game that you really have to master quite early in your playing career. However, you will find many players at higher levels at sit and go tournaments that do not understand the true strength of their hole cards. They will often call with dominated hands, low pairs, connectors with the simple hope of expecting the flop to help their hand. It's not that you should never play these kinds of hands of course, but you've got to know when to play them, who to play them against, and for how much.

Although bluffing at higher levels does have its place, this is one tactic that still requires extreme selectivity. Too many players in online poker suffer from bluffing too much, and if this is still you - then you are not ready for advanced sit and go play.

How have you sought out to improve your play? If you can answer this, and quantify specific sections of your game that have improved because well, you went and researched these areas then you might be ready for advanced play and higher levels. If you are the type to join forums and submit a hand for feedback and help others with their hands, and in turn helping yourself, then you likely have the right foundation and frame of mind to make money in the advanced sit and go levels.

I suppose what I'm getting at here, is that the game of no limit hold'em is quickly comprehended, (which is partly the reason that there are always many new players to compete against), but we also know how long it can take to master. The reason for that is, in my opinion, is because the true challenge of becoming an advanced player goes far beyond the game and into the dark, mysterious corners of your character.

Does it all boil down to sit and go math now?

Well with so many ranked pros playing sit and go tournaments for a living now, turbos no less, there has been a movement to purely mathematical decision modules near the money and in the money. 

Colin Moshman brought a lot of this strategy to light in his sit and go strategy book released from two plus two last year.  Even he though, pinpoints some drawbacks of using the independent chip model exclusively to make decisions.  Those drawbacks may include your opponents still and relative positions at the table in a given hand.

I think a lot of Colin Moshman's success, and that of his readers, come from emanating his style during the high blind stages in sit and go tournaments.  And yes there are equity decisions in this stage as well, but the pure aggression of it all, is what turns certain sit and go tournaments into relatively mathematical based games of chance.  I mean, a lot of these guys just play turbo sit and go tournaments leading half the field orange and mzoned 20 minutes into the tournament.  There just isn't a lot of play there for bluffing or re-stealing when I bet at the flop is going to pot commit you anyhow.

There is simply more luck involved in turbo sit and go tournaments.  So you can expect some high variance swings in your bankroll if you play these in the upper limits.  Check some of these big-time players out on sharkscope and you will see a drop of $100,000 to $200,000 is not unusual.  Unless you can handle fluctuations as big as that, I would recommend you stick to sit and go tournaments under $100, and avoid turbos.  This way your bankroll will build more consistently but also allow your opponents sufficient time to make those inevitable mistakes found in the lower levels.

Yes, it's good to know the numbers, it's even better with a firm grasp of ICM.  But you still have to take care of your bankroll while building that upward graph, not only an ROI percentage, but your education as well.