Sit and Go Table Image

The conventional wisdom of playing “tight” poker is that if you, on average start with better cards than your opponents you will likely finish with a better hand. Still, some people think that their post flop play is superior enough to broaden the number of hands they do play because they feel they will be able to outplay their opponents.

While I can’t argue that there is a time and place for loose and aggressive play, the early rounds of a sit and go tournament is not that place. Catching a few big hands early on that you may not have hit had you played more tight may be tempting, but in the long run this strategy will be less successful for a number of reasons.

As more players become skilled (especially as you move up in limits) they pay more attention to the way other people play, and they adjust their own play accordingly. If you start out playing too wide a percentage of your hands for a raise or are constantly limping with weak holdings, the good players will realize this and adjust their play to you.

Towards the end of a sit and go, there are plenty times when you are raising with weaker holdings, just hoping to steal the blinds without a fight. If you show early that you are playing a wide range of hands, people will play back at you later. If a person plays weak cards once, they usually do it again, and the better players at the table will realize this, and when you raise to steal they will see right through it, and likely fire back a re-raise, or set you all-in.

The reason you play tight at the beginning is to establish your table image as tight, which you can exploit later in the tournament towards the bubble, when it matters most. Consider this scenario: Sit and Go tournament with 4 players left, 3 of which get paid. Blinds are 100-200. First to act, you pop it to 800 with A6 suited, just hoping to steal, and the big blind wakes up with A10. What does he do?

A good player might push all in this spot against an overaggressive blind stealer, where he might fold to a tight player, who has shown nothing but quality holdings. The important thing to note is that the hands people play back at you with should be reflective of the hands that you play. If you establish yourself as a solid player, the only times anyone is likely to play back at you is when they have you dominated, and if you fold like you should you will be playing excellent poker. Get more SNG advice