Short handed Turbo SNG strategy

As we know, Turbo Sit and Go tournaments are the same as your standard SNG, except for the fact that the time it takes for the blinds to move up is shorter. So aside from the fact that these games run a lot quicker than your average tournament, are there any other differences in the overall game play and strategy?

When it comes to strategy, the fact that the games run more quickly should make quite a big difference in your approach to the game. A lot less time is spent deep stacked, and so a lot of the tournament involves you having to play short-stack poker to survive.

When you are short-stacked in no limit Texas Hold em, it leaves you with a lot less room for maneuvering during hands. So whereas when you have a larger stack you can make a variety of plays to set yourself up for bigger wins further down the line, with a short stack you have to make every decision based on the most mathematically profitable factors in each individual situation. So basically, each hand is win or lose, and there is going to be very little in between.

To play successful short-stack poker, you have to stick to playing the big cards. You do not have enough chips to be able to play mediocre hands like suited connectors, as you are not going to have the winning hand enough times to make them profitable. By only playing premium hands, you are drastically increasing your chances of winning each hand, as opposed to pushing your money in and hoping to get lucky.

The sort of hands you want to play are big aces and high pocket pairs. Your starting hand requirements should loosen as your stack size decreases, but generally hands like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, AQ and AJ are primarily the ones that you are after. When things start to get a little desperate, you can start to play with other hands like KQ, AT, KJ and so on.

Another important point to remember is that you lose all ability to push your opponents off a hand when your stack becomes less than 5 times the size of the big blind. This because your opponents are going to have the odds to call you almost regardless of what they might be holding, so the chances are that you are going to need to get lucky to win. Therefore, you should avoid letting your stack to fall so low, and be prepared to push in and use the size of your stack to win pots, even though you might not be holding a big enough hand.

As far as short stack strategy goes, these are the basics in playing a profitable turbo Sit and Go tournament.

It is important to remember that due to the high speed nature of these tournaments, luck is going to play a much bigger factor than it would in your standard tournament. With each of the all-in races, you really need to have some luck on your side in order to win a turbo Sit and Go.

However, over a large enough time-scale, there is no reason why you can’t play these tournaments profitably. You will lose tournaments even if you play perfectly, but if you play enough of them you should be able to show a profit by the end of it. My advice is to play as many as you can, and to not let the losses dishearten you. The key to winning turbo poker tournaments is to get the basics right and play as many of them as you can.

Turbo SNG Tournament Short-Stack Strategy

In some of the turbo sit and go tournaments that you play you’re going to get burned in a hand in the early stages and you’re going to be the short stack at the table. Now if you’re playing at Poker Stars everyone starts with 1500 chips, so I consider myself to be short stacked when I’m around 800 chips. Once you get to 800 chips or less you need to start sitting and not playing any cards until you get an all-in hand.

The short stack isn’t where you want to be early in a tournament, but the good thing is there is plenty of time to recover your tournament still. You only need to come in the top three in a nine player sit and go tournament which means you can still do that from the short stack. A lot of the players will be prone to calling your all-in to try and get you out once you do go all-in as well which is why you need to wait for your monster hand.

If you’re playing on a tight table then you might be able to steal the blinds with your short stack all-ins for a little while as well to build your stack back up. When I’m short stacked I try and steal the blinds once every time around the table so that it pays for my blinds. Then I sit and wait until I get a monster hand and either slow play or push all-in and try to double up.

There are instances where you’ll get burned and lose with your monster hand, but this doesn’t happen the majority of the time so you can’t regret the play. As long as you’re winning the hand when you get the chips into the pot you should feel about the play you made. If you happen to get outdrawn then you basically got burned, which happens a lot in poker and you’ll need to get used to it. You aren’t going to win every tournament, but when you’re short stacked don’t give up. You shouldn’t give up until all your chips are gone and you’ve been eliminated.

Weird things can happen on the poker table and I’ve seen many people catch up from the short stacked position in the past and win the tournament. You’ll need to play a much firmer hand selection and you’ll also need to take some calculated risks when it’s time to steal blinds, but if you play the cards right you still have a chance of winning. Remember you don’t even need to win, you just need to hold off from being eliminated until the final three. Hopefully you don’t need to play the short stack position to often, but it will happen so make sure you’re prepared to play as needed for your position.