Sit and Go tournaments are a great way to practice your final table skills. These tournaments are quick, frequently offered and extremely profitable way to play poker. If you can relax and make it past the early stages with a decent amount of chips, you’ll be well-positioned to make a final run at first place.

Early Tournament Play

Whether you’re playing in a short handed game with five or six players or a long handed game with around 10 players, your goal in the early stages of the tournament remains the same—stay in the game. Crazy people do crazy things for very small stakes. In this environment of all-ins to win 30 chips, you need to just relax, stay out of the way and let natural selection set in. Eventually, the maniac players will be shaved from the ranks of your table. Until that happens, and until the blinds become worthy of stealing, you need to bide your time and only play only premium hands.

Practicing Patience

In order to stay in the tournament, you can’t let bad beats, overly-aggressive table habits or long shot calls force you to make an early exit. Just sit and back and relax for the first few hands. Wait around for a quality starting hands and don’t do anything foolish. Don’t try to bluff too many pots in the early rounds. The blinds and pot sizes are so low anyway. It’s really not worth forcing the issue when you’re not holding a winning hand. Avoid calling large, tempting bets. Let aggressive players make their bold moves for small pots. You’re going to wait until the stakes are higher to make your moves. If you can stay patient and limit your amount of risks in the early stages of the tourney, you’ll be more likely to finish one top or at least in the money.

Later Stages

The further you get in the tournament, the more belligerent you should become. If you’ve made it to the money, it’s time to get super aggressive. Aggressive is different than reckless. When there are only a couple of players left, you need to play more hands, but you also need to need to curb any careless tendencies you may have. Don’t beat yourself by making the wrong call. Just play smart and loose. You need to be mindful of your betting position at all times. Don’t make a strong move to take a pot if you have yet to see people act. Be patient, and then get aggressive. During short-handed play, when you have a decent hand to start with, consider going all in right away and force your opponents to fold.

The early stages poker strategy of a Sit and Go are much like the early stages of any poker tournament. You object is to stick around. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you are patient early, you can turn on your aggression in the middle rounds. When the blinds and pots are bigger, and when there are fewer opponents at the table, that’s when you start taking over the tournament.

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