I love and play a lot of SNGs. Not too many heads up ones though. I want to start playing them more though, so this is a very helpful video. Small Stakes Heads Up Strategy The small stakes heads up sit and gos are some of the easiest games in all of poker. Lots of players join these games without any real idea of what they are doing.

• Heads Up Sng Strategy Examples
• Heads Up Sng Strategy

Adjusting To Opponents Is Important In All Forms Of Poker
In Heads-Up Poker It is Vital. Learn More Here!

About The Author: JackofHeartz is an online poker pro, heads-up SNG specialist and moderator for the SNG Study Group at PokerXFactor.

Note: This is one of many articles on Heads-up matches here at SNG Planet, we recommend the following articles for readers looking to find out more about this profitable form of poker.

- Introduction To Heads Up Poker Matches

- Which Is The Best Site For Heads-Up Poker SNGs?

Heads-Up Poker Games Strategy - Playing Opponents, Not Just Cards!

Heads Up Sng Strategy Examples

Playing Heads Up SNG Poker is more about playing the opponent than playing your cards. The faster you can adjust your strategy to what they are doing the better off you will be.

A lot of players come into games with a set strategy and do not adjust to their opponents. If your opponent is too tight preflop then you can start to open up almost every hand on the button. If they call too much preflop but fold missed flops then make your preflop raises slightly smaller but make your continuation bets smaller on the flop. This way you charge them more to see flops but risk less on the flop as they aren’t calling unless they hit a piece of the board.

Learning to make these adjustments before your opponents is one of the keys to being successful as you move up to bigger games. Hand reading is another skill that you will want to develop. It’s a lot easier in heads up games if you are only playing 1 game at a time to learn to read your opponents hand. I tend to take notes on any hand showdown so in the future I can use that to my advantage.

Opponent Types In Heads-Up Poker - When Your Cards Stop Being Important!

As you learn to read your opponents hands, your own cards become less important because you can start to outplay your opponent. Your hand doesn’t matter if you know the opponent doesn’t like to call after the flop without top pair or better. Also it becomes easier to bluff the turn and river based on how they play certain hands. Hand reading isn’t an exact science but it’s a skill that will help you in any game you play once you learn how to use it.

One play I see a lot of lower level players make in the opening levels is this. They will limp the button and the flop will come with an Ace. Now this player doesn’t raise enough preflop but Ax is in his raising range. When checked to he will always bet the flop and fold to a check raise. 95% of the time if a player limps the button and bets an Ace on the flop he doesn’t have it. There are a few players who will limp A2o or other weak aces and I make a note when I see them. But I’ve had players who bet/folded in this spot 5 times during one match. They refused to stop betting the Ace and didn’t adjust to the fact that I check raised them every single time they made the play.

Another play that weaker players tend to make is the donk bet on the flop. You raise the button as usual and they call in the big blind. Then they make a bet on the flop instead of checking to you. Usually if a player flopped a real hand he would check to the button and then check raise the flop. But when you see a player make this donk bet it’s rarely a big hand. I tend to raise their bet with almost any two cards. If the bet was a minimum bet I usually make a ½ pot sized bet and they go away. Now if the flop comes down something like Jc Th 6h I’m going to be more careful if an aggressive player leads out here. Reason being is an aggressive player may very well have something like a pair and flush draw, a flush draw and a gut shot straight draw. Hands that he doesn’t mind if you raise so that he can 3 bet all in.

Our Heads-up Poker SNG Strategy Tips continue with these excellent articles:

For a more general overview that could seriously improve your profits check out our mini guides specific to the Heads-up Poker area:

Sit and go’s, or SNG’s as they are also called, is a one table poker tournament structure with usually nine, six or two players. I started playing them when building my bankroll as early as 2005 just before the poker boom, and I quickly become one of the absolute top players in the world at that format.

At that time I had an average profit per game that used to range from 20$-40$ per game at 215$ buy in SNG’s. Back then I was playing about 8-10 games per hour which gave a pretty decent hourly rate (about 300$/h) for a 19 year old boy just finishing school.

Many of the guys that I was competing with in these games later became some of the most famous players in the world, like Elky, DaroiMinieri and RhainKhan. My nick in the chart below is HOMERos (on PokerStars.com).

In this guide, I’ll teach you the tips and tricks that took me to the top. This basic sit and go poker strategy explained below can also be applied as a starting point to how to develop a strategy for multi table tournaments. But more on that in another post.

So let’s get started!

The early levels

During the early levels of a sit and go tournament the blinds (and sometimes ante’s) are very low compared to the stacks. A usual setup is 10-20 blinds, with 1500 chips in each stack. One big difference between tournament poker and cash games are that you can’t buy new chips and add to your stack whenever needed. The value of each chip is therefore were high and you should persevere as many as possible to maximize your potential double up, once you do get the hand and spot you are waiting for.

One of my favorite book’s for tournament strategy is Dan Harringtons books “Harrington on Holdem” (Both volume 1 and 2). Dan Harrington, or “Action Dan” as he is called, literary never gave any action

That was how my journey started as well, adding a really aggressive twist during the later levels to really exploit the fact that my opponents had the perception that I was only playing the nuts.

Starting hands

At the first levels at a nine handed table without ante, which is the standard format at many poker sites, I used a starting hand selection during the early levels that looked something like this:

UTG: Raise – AQs+, TT+. Yes I was so tight that I folded AQ off at tables were I could not locate any super fishes that would call my preflop raise with a very wide range of hands. The thoughts around this is that it is so little in the pot and you have one of the worsts positions at the table, acting last on all streets against all players but the small and big blind.

Middle position: Raise: AJ+,99+. A bit “looser” than above. For earch spot you get closer to the button you can of course loosen up your opening range. It is also very important to mention that adjusting to the opponents at the specific table is very important. At some tables a wider range is preferable, and at some a tighter ranger is better. If you have calling stations and loose limpers acting before you, there is more reason to raise and isolate. But since the stack sizes are much more shallow you should not raise as often as you would in the same spot at a cash game table when acting after the same type of players.

HJ: Raise A7s+, 55+. At a cash game table much looser ranges here are advised. It is just because the blinds are very small and not much to win in the pot you could as well keep a tighter approach here at the earlier rounds – something that you can exploit when it really matters and the blinds are high. Table image is very important when “stealing” and bluffing later on.

B: Obviously the best spot at the table. Here you can, and should, raise very liberally. Any Ax, any pair and lots of suited connectors and “one gappers” is fine to raise with here. If the blinds are tight, or just loose passive, even more hands can be added to the raising range here.

Medium levels

At the medium levels at a sit and go tournament the ante often kicks in, that makes it much more lucrative to widen the opening range and start stealing those blinds and antes. It is impossible to really provide any valuable opening hand chart here because it is so dependent on your opponents at the table. I’ll talk more about that, and different spots, in the poker video below.

But as a general rule of thumb, play really tight when you are out of position. Understanding the importance of table position is one of the most important concepts to become a winning poker player, also when acting last it is so much easier not doing any big mistakes.

During each round of betting in poker you receive more information about the strength of your opponents hand. When playing in position you have more information and can thus make better decisions.

The bubble

When you approach the bubble (close to money paying positons) new parameters must be taking into account. How big is your stack? Whats the blinds and antes? How is the player that is closest to going busto? When you have a good stack in a SNG and it’s time to “play the bubble” it is a great opportunity to accumulate alot of chips and put tons of pressure on those guys that are waiting for the small stack/stacks to go broke.

Identify the weak players and their patterns and exploit them to maximum. It’s almost impossible to go through all the different spots in a blog post, so I’ll guide you further about this in the video as well.

Tips and tricks

There is one type of play that has worked really well in during the later levels of an sit and go and steal smaller pot without risking much. Since I’m playing such a conservative style during the earlier levels I can get away with lot’s of stuff when the blinds are high and it really matters.

One of my favourite moves is to limp from sb when everyone folded to me, and then bet half pot on the flop almost no matter what (of course you should occasionally check as well). That bet on the flop only need to work 1/3 to be profitable, and since the opponents give me ton of credit at that stage it works way more often than that.

Of course, sometimes you will face an opponent that will read the preflop limp from sb as weakness, and instantly raise, but then you now that until next time. So when I get the chance to limp in I almost always do that from sb to if I don’t already know that my opponent is really aggressive. I’ve made tons of extra chips (=money) with these types of steals.

One other grinder that I was competing with at the tables actually said to me at the table once that he picked up that specific play from me six months earlier and that he made a smaller fortune at those types of SNGs (this was 5 max at Betsafe/Microgaming) when he started to exploit his opponents tendencies to fold to much against that half pot size bet.

GTO or exploitative play?

GTO, game theory optimal play, is a really popular concept nowadays. And when facing really good players with statistical tools in deep cash games today I understand that it is important to not play exploititative. Though when facing weaker opponents I always advocate to play and exploitative style. It doesn’t matter if some players at the table know that you would only do a certain play or raise size with a certain hand. It is better to exploit the fish at the table to maximum.

For example, if you are sitting at a only SNG and know that one player at the table will call to see the flop almost no matter how much you raise, you should of course try to find the sweet spot and maximise it when you wake up with a great hand. If you know a player is willing to call a 500 raise pre even though the antes are only 10-20, then you should go for the 500 raise right from the start with your pocket aces, kings etc. In that way you are maximizing the value even though some better players at the table will know that you will only make this type of play with certain hands. It doesn’t matter. You’ll burn the fish in this way.

Playing the short stack

There is tons of literature of how play a short stack in poker tournaments and sit and gos. I always found myself a bit tighter than the general tips, however I have really been a master in picking my spots. Don’t only look at your hands and position when you decide what to push. This is almost just as important, who is the big blind and small blind? Do they have really shallow stacks themselves so they are almost forced to call? Or do they have super big stacks so a call doesn’t matter to them? Pick your spots to push against the players that would be hurt by calling with a hand that don’t hold up.

This concept i very often looked over. But it is really important in maximizing your fold equity when you push your small stack.

Playing the big stack

When you have a big stack in a sit and go and you are are getting closer to money paying position you can really exploit the fact that several players are just sitting and waiting for a money paying position. You can always start off with an aggressive approach and see how that works out, if your opponents don’t bite back – be relentless and put pressure on them, especially on those “medium stacks” that are waiting for the short stacks to go busto.

Payout structure

Another important thing to take into consideration is the payout structure for the tournament. In some SNGs the winner receives a large chunk of the pool and that changes the dynamics even further. An illustrating example was the turbo 6 max tournaments I played on Cryptologic (Ladbrokes) back in the days. The structure was super fast with blind increases every ten hands. And the payout structure was 75% to the winner, and 25 % to the runner up.

That means the winner got 4,5x their initial buy in, compared to 1,5 for the second place. When playing the bubble in that case it was super lucrative to play really aggressive before the bubble to maximize the times you won the tournament. Going busto as third some more times than if I had chosen a passive approach was no problem since the times I won I took almost the whole pot. My winnings on that network skyrocketed when I adjusted my SNG strategy to the payout structure. So it is a very important factor to take into consideration, both in SNG’s and MTT’s.

Best online poker sites for Sit and gos

Then, what is the best online poker sites if you want to play sit and go’s today? Well, here is my favourites considering action in the games running and competition.

Unibet Poker – Softest competition

PartyPoker – Great software and lot’s of different in games running

Pokerstars – Biggest poker site in the world

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