Lee Jones has a sequel to his article about Sit and Go mistakes in the new Cardplayer. It's pretty basic advice but good. The part about the limit raises is so true, you see a ton of min raises at the low buy-in Sit and Gos.
I used to play a lot of Sit and Gos but a few months ago I moved to NL cash games. My assumption was that my win rate would be better as the edge for a good player should be higher, but after looking at my StatKing numbers recently I realized that the S&G tourneys have been my biggest moneymaker. So, I've moved back to them and am doing well.
I've been playing them at Pacific Poker where I had bought in to play limit ring games. While I worried at first about only starting with 800 chips, the structure is actually pretty good because there are 15 hands per level. There's no rush to jump in and mix it up, which is how I like it. I play pretty tight early, although I will limp in with hands like small pairs and suited connectors that can have big implied odds.
Tonight I entered two NLHE Sit and Gos and finished first both times, it went really well. The second one I felt especially in the zone, like every decision I was making was the right one. My timing was excellent, I was stealing at the right times and playing very aggressive.
I took out two players on the same hand when we were four-handed. One player was all-in for the same amount as the big blind, I limped with AJ, and the big blind checked. The flop came A 8 rag and I checked, prepared to check it down and hopefully eliminate the all-in player. The big blind then makes a min bet into the dry side pot, which was a stupid thing to do and really annoyed me. I decided not to screw around and raised him all-in, figuring the min bet was a bluff and he'd lay it down. He called and when the smoke cleared they had both been knocked out. They both mucked so I'm not sure what the big blind had, but that was a pretty crazy call if he couldn't beat AJ there. He should have just checked. I had been coming over the top of him a lot, so he may have gotten tired of it and decided to look me up.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing a lot more of these to see how my win rate holds up. Right now it's 2x the buy-in per hour since I started playing them at Pacific, but I am sure that will come down over time. I'll be happy if it ends up better than 1x the buy-in. So far it seems that my results are much better than at Ultimatebet, where I used to play the Sit and Gos a lot.
Ted
I've written an extended article about a NLHE hand I saw recently that contained a lot of bad decisions. I think it could be especially helpful for people who are newer to NL, as some of these mistakes are pretty common for newer players.
You can click the link in the nav bar on the right to get there, or click here.
If you have comments you can leave them with this weblog entry using the link below.
I hope you find it to be helpful.
Ted
Just saw a good article by Lee Jones at cardplayer.com about common mistakes players make in NLHE Sit and Go tourneys. If you are somewhat new to NL and/or Sit and Gos, check it out, there's some good advice. And if you are new to Holdem in general you should start with Lee's book Winning Low-Limit Hold'em, which is generally agreed to be the best beginner's book on the subject available.
I'm actually working on an article about NL cash games, I'm about 80% of the way through the rough draft. I'll post the article here when it's done.
Ted