Turbo Sit and Go Strategy

Turbo Texas Hold'em Poker sit and go tournaments are becoming increasingly popular. The faster game play and wilder action has helped them become a pretty big attraction in the world of online poker tournaments, like heads-up sit'n goes.

But the question is, with the blinds increasing so rapidly and the players playing so wildly, are these turbo tournaments beatable? Furthermore, if you can play them profitably, what is the ideal strategy?

Can you win money from turbo sit and go tournaments?

Yes, of course you can. Whilst the element of skill has been reduced due to the increased rate at which the blinds move up levels, it is still possible to outplay opponents and make profitable decisions in each tournament.

Turbo sit'n gos are more of a numbers game than you standard tournament, as you will need to play a greater number of these turbo games in order to see any conclusive results because of the greater swings. However, if you can get a good strategy under your belt, you will be able to make money at these tables.

Turbo Poker tournament strategy

Here are a few quick facts about the turbo sit'n go games:

• The blinds move up levels very quickly,
• Your stack will rapidly become small in relation to the blinds,
• You will have less room for movement to make plays,
• Decisions will be reduced to the flop and preflop only.

Sounds awfully like you're going to need good Texas Hold'em short-stack strategy here, as the majority of the time your stack is going to be very small when compared to the size of the blinds. In a standard tournament you won't often find yourself with 5 - 10 BBs, but that is going to regularly be the case here.

Therefore, aside from at the start of a turbo tournament, you are going to need to learn how to play good short-stack poker.

Short stack Poker strategy

Good short-stack strategy in Texas Hold'em Poker starts with the starting hand selection (in fact, it revolves around it). The hands you want to play are the ones that are going to hit the flop hard. So the following hands are going to be ideal:

• Big pocket pairs,
• High cards like AK, AQ, AJ.

The chances are that we are not going to be able to make it to the turn or river the majority of the time because our stack is small compared to the size of the bets. Therefore we are going to need to look for hands that will get the job done.

Hands we will want to avoid are:

• Low connecting cards,
• Low suited cards,
• Small pocket pairs (except for when our stack is desperately low).

When it comes to short stack strategy, the last thing we are looking to do is call a raise with 67o with the intention of check raising on the turn with a flush draw on a semi-bluff, our stack just isn't going to give us that much room for manoeuvre.

Opening up your starting hand requirements

As your stack diminished in a turbo Texas Hold'em Poker pokerstars sit and go, you are going to need to adjust your starting hand requirements with it. If your stack has reached the stage where it is pretty much all-in or fold before the flop, you want to prepare to move in with any hand that can hold it's own in an all-in situation.

You should continue to stick with big cards, but incorporate some more speculative hands like the following:

• AX,
• KQ,
• KJ,
• KT,
• Pocket pairs,

Basically, any big cards are going to be your friend when your stack starts to hit the 10BB or lower mark. They may normally cause trouble in a bigger-stacked situation, but seeing as flop play is minimal or non-existent, it is not going to cause too many problems.

Turbo Sit'n Go: Pushing vs. holding on

Do you wait for a better hand or do you push all-in and hope to collect a few extra chips? It's not an easy decision, but as a rule of thumb, pushing all-in earlier on is usually the better option.

The longer you hold off on moving in, the shorter your stack will be when a nice pair of cards comes your way. Even if you are dealt AK, a 4BB push is going to give the right odds for any old hand to call, so you are almost definitely going to have to see 5 cards with another player. Now against any random hand you have 66% chance of winning, so you still lose out 1 time out of 3. Are those odds worth waiting for?

On the other hand, if you find yourself with 8BBs and decide it's time to push, you have got a lot more weight behind you, and your opponents will have a hard time calling with any old hand. You have increased your chances of picking up the blinds to help build your stack, which will prove to be very handy. If worst comes to worst and you get called, you still stand the chances of doubling up to 20BBs or more, which is far better than the 8BBs you may have got by holding on.

It's a lot easier to hold on and hope for the best, but it's not necessarily the most profitable way to play. Forget about thinking "what if" every time you push all in and lose, because you're better off grabbing the bull by the horns and giving yourself a decent chance of winning the tournament, as opposed to sitting back and diminishing into 4th place.

Turbo Sit'n Go: Overview

You should treat the start of any turbo tournament just like any other, so don't try and force a double up at the start to try and set yourself up for the rest of the tournament indicator. Play wisely, and play as you would at the start of a normal Sit and Go.

As the blinds start to increase, you will need to keep an eye on the size of your stack and the size of the stacks of the players around you. Start to incorporate short stack strategy when appropriate and consider how your plays will affect the other players based on the size of their stacks also.

The more you play turbo sit'n gos, the easier they will become. You're going to need to play a lot of them anyway to exploit that poker edge and see a profit, so consider multi-tabling to make the most of them. When you know you've got a winning strategy, it's all about playing as many of them as you can and turning that handle. Best of luck.

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