‘Sit N Go’ tournaments also known as the single table poker tournaments are become exceedingly popular in the recent times. These are short tournaments and typically last for about one hour with three places. The buy-ins for these tournaments starts from $1 and go up to $1000. We have formed a list of all the common mistakes people make in these tournaments.
Playing Too Loose Early
There are a lot of opponents who would play too many hands at the start of any Sit n Go tournament. One of the most common mistakes is to play the easily dominated hands, for an instance an ace with any small kicker. You must try and play the strong hands in the beginning, which would help you to save your bankroll, which you may need during the later stages in the game. If you notice your opponents playing too loose in the beginning of the tournament, make sure that you raise a lot with premium hands; since it would help you collect some chips.
Multi-Way Pots and Position
You would come across a lot of opponents who would enter the multi-way pot, simply by raising pre-flop with a medium sized hand during the early blind levels. This could be considered as a dangerous move in poker and hence these players have no idea of their stance after the raise, irrespective of their position relative to the original raiser. Usually playing for a set value is different and therefore calling raises often in multi-way pots is pretty much the same as losing a lot of chips.
Adjusting to Increasing Blinds
We all know that as the blinds increase, the total number of players go down and hence you need to make some adjustments to the starting hands. During the middle stages of the Sit n Go tournament, you need to lower your raising requirements on the hands and tighten the game. One of the common mistakes would be to call a raise with the smaller pairs – as soon as the blinds reach 10% of your bankroll, the implied odds for the play would disappear.
Bad Play from the Blinds
It is important to defend your big blind, or else it could become short-stacked in any Sit n Go tournament. On the other hand, defending all the time would often lead to being trapped for the bigger pot. Look out for opponents making the same mistake at the extremes and thereafter balance your own play. Take advantage of the doubt in the opponents’ minds.