Adapting to sudden changes

If observation is one of the keys to winning at Sit and Go’s then adapting to the sudden changes, raises, losing and tightening up of the game and changing tactics of players completes the set. You need to change your tactics as soon as you sense a change in the winds. Sticking to your signature style throughout the span of the game would be nothing less than suicidal and unwittingly you will end up throwing away a lot more than you can imagine.

Be as unpredictable as possible as sudden variations is the order of the game! Inducing sudden bluffs to change the course of play, loose down a little to fake and tighten up a little to clinch more chips later on will make for robust game play. Another thing that you need to keenly track apart from your co-players game play is the blinds. As the game progresses, blinds start to hurt, more so if you have shorter stacks. Although this is not an ideal situation, wait for an opportunity to turn this drawback to your advantage later in the game.

Game over – I

The most exciting and action packed stage of any game is the final showdown. It infuses new blood into any game with its onset. The relative value of pocket cards goes up as the table becomes shorthanded and players are under immense pressure to pay the by now gaining in momentum and hence the very expensive big blind every third or fourth hand. Short stacks are under huge pressure to double up while big stacks are cagey about giving them new hope.

This stage demands that hands pump in more iron and get to an aggressive mode of play and normally would not progress beyond the flop. Prior to the flop, raises come often as do all ins after the flop. The option of slow play becomes a lot more tempting now as it comes with a guarantee of fewer hands to beat you and marginal hole cards being played very aggressively. Betting also needs to become highly targeted, aimed less at the size of the pot and more at the size of an opponent’s stack.

Now about the ones who are struggling in lower positions, they have no other alternative but to treat every bet as leading to a potential all-in situation. They also need to keenly observe the blinds and estimate the number of hands they will get to see before they are either blinded out, or their stack gets so low that a semi-bluff with an all-in would be easy to call.

Keep in mind that an all-in that is going to put your opponent below you if he loses is infinitely harder to call than one that is not. As a general rule, if you are short stacked and need to make a play, you would be better off targeting a small or medium stack with a bluff and big stacks, as these ones would definitely loose out and so are more likely to call with strong cards.