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 Now that we’ve learned how to best exploit opponents’
weaknesses during the early stages of a single table Sit & Go Tournament, it’s time to move on the middle stages.
Since there are rarely antes during the middle stages of SnG’s, you
can calculate your chips by the amount of
Big Blinds your stack represents. Hopefully you’ve been able to
accumulate early on, and are somewhere above 30 Big Blinds by the time the stakes hit 25/50. If this is the case, then you still
have the option of employing Early Game strategy, which provides you with a slight edge over players who are now in worse shape.
If you have 12-20 Big Blinds in your chip stack, then you’ve entered the Mid Game.
Once you’re at this point, starting hands become extremely important… because opponents will begin forcing the action
pre-flop at a much higher rate. There is some room for creativity still, but decisions will soon become automatic. Before
opening any pot, you need to take opponents’ chip stacks into account, and be prepared to react to their all-in pushes.
By the time the blinds reach 50/100, starting hands usually fall into one of two categories: (a) hands you are folding
against a shove, and (b) hands you are calling a shove with.
The mid-stages of SnG’s force you to make snap decisions with small pocket pairs and broadway cards based on equity. By
this time, two or three players may have been eliminated; which means that chips have decreased in value. However, most
of your decisions should still be primarily based on pot odds at this stage, because players are usually not close enough
to the money to consider Independent Chip Modeling calculations just yet.
However, being able to assign a specific range to opponents who are raising or shoving over raises becomes mandatory at
this point. If you have 1,600 chips at 50/100 and raise 3x from the
button with KJs, you have to KNOW (within a
reasonable range) what your opponents in the blinds are capable of going all-in with. King-Jack suited could be an easy
call or an easy fold in these types of situations, and it all comes down to your read on a particular opponent. On the
flip side of that token, you will often be forced to go all-in over an opponent’s pre-flop raise – meaning you must have
some idea of what he/she is capable of raising with.
Make an effort to recognize predictable opponents at the mid stages of Sit & Go Tournaments. Mainly, you want to place a
note on players who NEVER pre-flop raise with a hand (when their stack represents 12-20 times the Big Blind) unless
they’re calling a shove. These multi-tabling TAG players give up a small portion of their edge because they simply don’t
want to deal with having to fold a hand pre-flop after one of their raises gets re-raised… so they tighten up and only
raise with strong starting hands. Knowing which players employ this strategy allows you to make correct decisions by (a)
stealing their blinds more often and (b) mucking your own rags from the blinds instead of re-raising all-in with them.
The reason why folding rags versus this specific type of opponent should be apparent: risking all your chips requires
Showdown Equity and/or Fold Equity… your rags possess neither versus these opponents, so you muck and move on to the next
hand.
You may have noticed by now that the ‘name of the game’ is to accumulate as many chips as you possibly can. To take that
one step further: you want to stay in the EARLY GAME for as long as possible. Just because the blinds increase at the
same pace for every player, doesn’t mean that all players are playing the same strategy. If you have 3,500 chips at the
50/100 level 7-handed with an average chip stack of under 2,000, then your options vastly outnumber those of your
opponents. They are handicapped while you are not, and that represents an enormous edge, even as the blinds increase.
Many players struggle to find a “raising amount” that they are comfortable with during the Mid Stages of a Sit & Go. As
long as you’re raising with a strong enough hand to justify calling a shove, I really don’t see any difference between
putting 2.5x or 3x or 3.5x into the pot… because eventually it’s all going in the middle anyway. BUT, be wary of getting
cute versus opponents who flat-call from the blinds in these situations. If you have 2,500 chips at 75/150, and you’re
holding Ace-Queen on the button, I wouldn’t advise raising less than 3x in general, because you run the risk of
“under-punishing” a flat-caller for seeing a flop.
The Mid-Stages of a single table Sit & Go are where close decisions become crucial to one’s expectation. Pay attention to
your table(s) and make sure you (at least) generalize each opponent’s style while taking as many specific notes as
possible. Execute correctly and react appropriately to re-raises in order to maintain an image that forces your opponents
to make mistakes versus your raising and shoving range. And most important, get to the Mid Game as late as possible in
order to enjoy the luxury of playing a more creative game against players who have been forced into automatic decision
making!
In the final article of this series, we will cover End Game Strategy, where Full Chip Value no longer exists and almost
all decisions come down to PUSH/FOLD/or CALL.
Read:
Sit N Go Strategy - Part 1: Early Stages
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