ON THE BUTTON: Standing Up for Sit-n-Go Tournaments

Poker is a grind and you have to learn to maximize your chances for success

April 6, 2006

By Nick Lanteri
BodogNation Contributing Writer

It’s a grind, folks, that’s for sure. If you’re hooked on poker, you know what I’m talking about.

The grind. Long hours at the table. Longer hours spent online. The bankroll is up, then it’s down. Most of us go on tilt at one time or another, especially online. That’s a recipe for disaster. Playing the donkeys will test your mental state. Bad beats will make you go nuts, but an endless stream of brutal beats will make you go Paulie Walnuts on some unsuspecting soul stuck on a chat with you.

Yeah, it’s a grind. But there’s an upside. It’s called THE RUSH. You’ve been there, and that’s why you go back to the table. Winning big pots, winning tournaments and "playing the rush" is the ultimate thrill in poker. There’s no better feeling than when you’re on a monster rush, especially in a cash game. You play loose and aggressive until the rush ends. Unfortunately, these "rushes" can be few and far between. They always end quickly.

Then it’s back to the grind.

And grind is what I do best.

They’re going to put me in the Hall of Fame for online poker “grinding" if I keep this up. And that’s fine with me. Here’s how I grind with the best of them in online poker. I pick the right spots, pick the right games, the ones with the best ROI (return on investment). That’s the key to building your bankroll, or at least maintaining it.

The games I play 75 percent of the time online, with a 50-60 percent cashout rate, are one-table tournaments, otherwise known as Sit-n-Go tournaments.

BEST BET: SIT-N-GO TOURNAMENTS

I’ve been playing online poker for five years and still haven’t found a better way to maintain or build a bankroll than by playing Sit-n-Gos.

These online poker tournaments are fast-paced, consisting of 10 players, and they're the best way to build a bankroll with a minimal deposit. It's important to note that they pay the top three finishers out of 10 players and are the only tournaments where you will find 30-percent of the field getting paid (in multi-table tournaments, generally only about 10 percent of the field is paid). Sit-n-Gos definitely are the best "risk/reward" ratio in online poker.

They're the best way to not tap out your account. Speaking of TAP, try to remember and apply two very important strategies when playing online Sit-n-Go tournaments. I call it the T-A-P method (Tight Aggressive/Position).

TIGHT AGGRESSIVE

Play conservative early because the blinds start very low. But remember, you must be TIGHT AGGRESSIVE from the start. I never only raise the bet to 30 or 40 with a premium hand when the blinds are 5/10 in Level 1 because those donkeys with suited cards or connectors (or worse!) who limped in out of position aren’t going to fold to a small raise and you don’t want half the table seeing this flop. Therefore, you must be aggressive and raise the big blind at least five times the amount or more to protect this hand.

Here’s an example of a hand I was dealt at Level 1 in a $20 Sit-n-Go just a few days ago. I get Q-Q in the cutoff (one seat to the right of the button), and already have four limpers for 10. I raise to 110 and I still get two callers (the big blind and one of the limpers in early position). The flop comes Jc, 8c, 8d. It checks to me. I make a pot size bet (350) and they both fold. Someone typed into the chat box "damn, I folded 8-9o.” This person had limped in early position with 8-9 offsuit, then folded to my pre-flop raise.

That’s why it’s important to be aggressive with premium hands. However, there will be times when you encounter someone who will pay any price to see a flop, but you cannot let these maniac callers cloud your judgment. Example: In this same Sit-n-Go, I got A-K offsuit UTG (Under the Gun, which means first to act before the flop). There were eight players left and we were at Level 4 (30/60 blinds). I raised the bet to 240 because it was a loose table, and the button and big blind called. The flop was Ac, 10c, 9h.

I hit the flop here. The big blind checked. I went all-in to protect against the club flush draw. The button folded. The big blind thought about it for at least seven or eight seconds and then called with Jc-7c. You know how the story ends. Bamn! A club spikes on the river. Nothing I could do about it. This guy paid a big price to see a flop with a marginal hand, then I got him to put all his money in after the flop when he was behind.

That’s poker.

POSITION

In early position, you should only play strong hands, especially if there are a lot of aggressive players behind you. This is because you don't have a lot of information about the cards the other players have. In middle and late position, you can get away with playing more marginal hands because you get a better sense of what the other players might be holding. You will get to see what kind of action they take before you have to make a decision, and more important, what kind of pot odds you’ll be getting to see a flop.

Limp in with a small pair from early position when the blinds are low. You want to see a flop for cheap with small pairs. Also, the pot could be raised in middle/late position and you’ll be able to get away from a low pocket pair after only limping in. Most mistakes are made by players who overplay low-to-mid pocket pairs. If you hold a pair, you're going to flop a set (one of the flop cards matches your pair) only about 11 percent of the time, odds of about 8-1. Not great.

Example: I limp in for 100 in early position with 5-5. The button raises it to 400. The big blind, who is short-stacked, goes all-in for his remaining 750 chips. I’m faced with a raise and a re-raise, and now it’s time to throw 'em in the muck. My hand is probably no good, and I’ll wait for a better spot to get involved in a big pot.

BODOG SATELLITES TO THE WSOP

Talk about low risk, high reward. I’ve been playing World Series of Poker qualifiers on Bodog for the past few weeks, and why not. You can spend $1.50 on a Cheap Seat tournament, which is the first step toward qualifying for the WSOP Main Event. I also recommend the $5.50 multi-table Bodog qualifiers, where 1-of-6 entered will win a seat into a WSOP quarterfinal. Those are great odds. Also, if you have a lot of Bodog poker points, it’s worth a shot to play a WSOP points quarterfinal qualifier. It costs only 100 poker points. I’ll be trying that a few times in the next week or two.

PHOTO: Sit-n-Gos are beauties for poker players like BodogMusic's Nazanin (BodogNation file photo).

Nick Lanteri is a Long Island-based journalist and freelance writer whose column will appear monthly in BodogNation.