Using Tournament Indicator for advanced sit and go strategies.

If you are planning to be a sit and go rounder, especially online - then you should strongly consider using software to help you keep on top of your game and on top of your opponents. It is true that some players may not need, nor will ever need software to improve their game. Let me tell you right now, that if you think that is you, then you are likely already mistaken about your game and your skill level.

Don't take offense. The first part of being a professional rounder, even online, is to admit to your own shortcomings - and we all have them. You may in fact get to the point where it later on, that after analyzing your game, you realize, you can actually maintain your win rate without the use of any software, then sure go ahead. You are profitable and will very likely stay profitable. But most of us are not there yet. So have a look at these recommended pieces of software that will improve your sit and go mastery.

Tournament Indicator. This is a poker calculator designed specifically for tournaments. Most people when they use or are thinking about buying tournament indicator, think of only multi-table tournaments. However tournament indicator has specific features in it that are applicable to any type of poker tournament. Because tournaments half, far more variables than regular ring game action, your poker calculator in sit and go tournaments should also take this into account.

Before the release of tournament indicator, programmers just thought it too difficult to quantify the fluctuating indicators in tournaments, and thus only produced software for ring game action. However, tournament indicator specifically adjusts to the many variables and nuances in a tournament that are simply too difficult for other pieces of software to quantify like stacks, position, structure, escalating blinds, profiles, payouts, rebuys, qualifiers, and on and on. By adapting the end zone, calculations, TI can now offer a graphical snapshot of yourself and your players gain situation, when taking the rising blinds and antes into account.

TI also has the most up to date, industry-standard profiling features available in a poker calculator, but not only that offers streak and balance indicators, which have far more tendency of pinpointing players on tilt in a tournament by monitoring, how many hands won or lost incomes in consecutive, and how much a player's stack has changed over a set amount of hands. Watch this video of how I use tournament indicator in a sit and go tournament, and you'll see what I mean.

Spade ICM takes your decision training to a professional level.

From SpadeIt, the makers of the highly acclaimed table selection program ‘SpadeEye’ comes another new entrant into the ICM (Independent Chip Modelling) calculator market. As with most other programs of its type, SpadeICM is tailored to the student of single table tournament (STT) poker. For the accomplished Sit n Go player it probably doesn’t have a lot to offer over and above that of the more established ICM calculators out there. However for the trainee that wants to refine their Sit n Go game, SpadeICM is a great place to start. The overall look of the program is fairly basic, but it doesn’t need to look pretty to do a good job. The trainer mode even comes with a couple of extra skins for PokerStars and PartyPoker.

While there really is little substitute for experience in this game, the trainer feature can put you into a ton of marginal situations so that you can know what to do when these situations come up in game. For those still getting to grips with the basics there are also some more common situations that the program can throw at you. Would you know what do to with 7BBs and K9o from the small blind on the bubble? SpadeICM will tell you what to do in all kinds of scenarios. Probably the most useful feature of the trainer allows you to import your own hand histories from PokerStars, Full Tilt and PartyPoker. The program will then completely review the tournament for you and point out every mistake. SpadeICM makes pinpointing mistakes really simple as it uses a easy colour coding system on your hand history. Hands listed in green are good decisions and those listed in red are not optimal decisions. Remember that it is just as important to review what you are doing well as it is to look over what you are doing incorrectly. Making sure that you keep making the right moves is as important as eradicating the mistakes. SpadeICM makes this all possible in an easy to use list format.

Importing hand histories is fast and efficient so that you don’t have to spend a ton of time sorting through text files to find specific hands. You don’t have to stick rigidly to your own hand histories or made up situations either. Once a hand is imported from your history, the editor function of the program still works just as it would to create your own situations. You can edit your hand, position, your own chip stack and that of your opponents and their pushing/calling ranges. So even if you know that a situation is a marginal one, you can experiment with certain conditions to see when a push or a fold takes on a solidly +/-EV (Positive/Negative Expected Value).

Analysing your Sit n Go play after a session is undoubtedly a practice that can lead to huge improvements in overall Sit n Go performance. SpadeICM can put an end to the question ‘Should I have pushed or folded there?’. Using this program will make you feel more confident about making decisions in game and if employed correctly can make anybody a better and more profitable Sit n Go player when it comes to those all-important endgame decisions.

Shark Scope.com is your operative tool that puts your opponents under a magnifying glass.

I really don't know how anybody can be playing without the use of this website. I cue up my opponents and find out all I can about them during the first hands of each and every sit and go tournament I play.

I really cannot tell you how many times I have used the information that I found on shark scope.com about one of my given opponents, which made me lean towards the correct decision and either earned me money or saved me money.

This service is about 15 bucks a month. Now they do offer five free searches a day. But if you are serious about making money in sit and go tournaments, that's just not good and do it. If you play even a small handful of sit and go tournaments during a one-month period, this site will pay for itself. It's as simple as that. It's one of the best bias on the Internet.

You can grass your opponents progress or lack thereof. You can identify, if one of your opponents are playing well or are on tilt at any given moment. You can find out if the table, they are sitting at right now is their best game or their worst game. You can note from their graphical statistics, if they know what they're doing and if they are likely to make the right play under pressure from you at a given stage of the tournament. You will know from shark scope.com, who to bluff, who will call, and who will bet into your nuts.