Is the sit-n-go poker a solved game with no discernable edge, or does it remain a profitable format?
If you ask a group of poker players about the relative merits of the sit&go you’ll to get as wide and vitriolic a range of responses as you would about limping with pocket Aces. On the one hand, there’s a strong argument to say that sit&gos are robotic and devoid of any of the subtleties of ‘real’ poker. On the other, there’s an equally viable argument that sit&gos offer a fierce gladiatorial arena where only the most aggressive players will reliably make money.
The overarching question that has begun reverberating around the online community is whether the explosion of sit&go material – in print and at online training sites – has made sit&gos a near edgeless pursuit where the only winners are the poker sites.
Either way, one thing we can all agree on is that the number of sit&go players is only going one way: up. So while the competition may be tougher than before, the constant influx of new players at the lower levels means there’s plenty of dead money in play.
Poker Player caught up with sit-n-go poker veterans Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier and Dario Minieri to see what the top dogs thought of the single-table format.
HAVE SIT&GOS BEEN CRACKED?
ELKY: I think because of the structure of sit&gos it could be true to say that. When players are short-stacked and have between five and 15 big blinds the game becomes very easy, as there aren’t too many mistakes you can make if you understand the maths of the game. You just have to know which hands you need to push with and when you must call or fold in any given situation.
It makes the game much less creative because you can’t make big bluffs, or even big calls. And because you can’t play those speculative hands you could say it makes it a lot easier to play the perfect game.
DARIO MINIERI: I don’t agree. It’s not a predictable game. At the start you can change the way you play a little. It’s only after 15 to 20 minutes in an online sit&go that it becomes a lot more of a mathematical game.
E: It has to be more mathematical because even if there is history with a certain player there is nothing you can do differently if you only have ten big blinds. If you have a hand you’re going to go all-in. It’s not like you can trap the guy or set something up for later. You also have to play really aggressively to get the blinds.
DM: I think that you can try a few bluffs when the blinds are still low to try to get your stack up to a third bigger, so if you start with 1,500 you can try to reach the 2,000 mark. This gives you a little edge on the other players.
E: You can try to be a little creative but it’s difficult because everyone plays so tight early on now. You can pick up a few chips before the blinds go up but they increase so fast that even if you do pick up a few hundred extra by the time the blinds reach 50/100, the edge that they give you is pretty small. There is interest in being creative early on but compared to the variance of playing with the increased blinds later on it doesn’t mean much.
IS THERE STILL PROFIT TO BE MADE IN SIT&GOS?
DM: I don’t think there is a big edge in high-stakes sit&gos because everyone knows the maths and plays really tight at the start, so it comes down to gamble. I think an ROI of 6-7% is good for a high-stakes player.
E: Anything higher than 5% is really good in the $500 sit&gos because the competition is very tough. There is a lot of variance at this level, as things often come down to coin-flip situations. You get to the point where you have to push with any Ace, and if you get called by someone with a big hand there’s nothing much you can do. That increases the variance.
There aren’t a huge number of adjustments you can make and the edge you can have at these levels is never going to be that big because all the players are really good. They know when to go all-in and when they have to fold according to stack size. No-one’s edge in these games is that big.
DM: The $500 and $1,000 games aren’t as profitable as they used to be, so I’ve started playing more tournaments and cash games.
E: Well, they can be profitable but I think there’s a much bigger edge in cash games because you can be more creative and force players into making mistakes. And when they do it’s for 100 big blinds, so that’s what I have been focusing on. If you make a big bluff in a sit&go you can’t use this to your advantage later because you are already out, but in a cash game you can.
If the guy knows you’ll bluff, it can mean he’ll call you down lighter and that can make a big difference for your value bets. Cash games last a lot longer than sit&gos, so you can use all the information to your advantage.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER BENEFITS TO PLAYING SIT&GOS?
DM: If for no other reason I would recommend them because it’s good to learn how to play the important short- stack situations later in tournaments, which are similar to sit&gos. Maybe after learning this it’s better to move to other parts of poker.
E: I used sit&gos to improve my play in the end of tournaments. They help with short-stack play, they help you know when you’re meant to start pushing and they show you how to put people on shoving and re-raising ranges. I think they were beneficial to my game but it’s always hard to quantify because there is so much variance in tournaments.
DM: Sit&gos helped my tournament game a lot because they taught me when I needed to make that move or wait for a hand. They helped me learn how to manage my stack.
E: When I first started playing sit&gos I wasn’t adapting to the size of the blinds. In a sit&go it’s much more important to survive so you need to stay tight early on when there aren’t many chips to win. There’s no real advantage to risking going bust early on, so you have to play tight until you get to the point where you have to push or fold, which is a much easier game.
DM: When I started it was very different because I started with $5 sit&gos and I would play a little looser at the start. I was still learning how to play poker and also the players I was up against were different. Now I play a lot tighter and play the mathematical side a lot better as well. That’s the major difference.
DO YOU USE SIT&GO SOFTWARE?
E: I never use any programs, I just remember the players. But when you’re playing the higher sit&gos the pool of players isn’t as big. I was playing sit&gos for so long that I knew almost everyone I was sitting with, how they were playing, and what their pushing and calling ranges were.
DM: I use PokerTracker because if I play different stakes I don’t know all the players I’m facing. PokerTracker can help. I’ve only been using it for about a year and it’s made a lot of difference.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE MOVING UP THE STAKES?
E: You have to play a lot and put in the hours. After you’ve lost a game you have to look at the situation again and ask if you did anything wrong. If you didn’t make a mistake then you don’t need to worry about it, but if you did you need to learn from it and improve your game. If you put in the hours and you are better than the opposition you will build a bankroll.
DM: I had terrible bankroll management, which is why I managed to move up through the levels so quickly. I played every day and played a lot. Every month I tried to go up a level, which is quick and dangerous. I wanted to prove myself against other players.
A year and a half after I started playing $5 sit&gos I was playing the $500 sit&gos, but sometimes I was dropping back down to the $200 tables. I switched around a lot. I wanted to improve myself so I can’t really give people much advice on bankroll!
E: It wasn’t the same for me because I didn’t start at the lower sit&gos, I started by playing cash games. I was never playing sit&gos by themselves. I was playing them to improve my tournament game. I was making most of my bankroll from cash games anyway, because they’ve always been much more profitable for me. It’s a bit of a different situation.
When I started playing sit&gos I was playing the $100 and $200 sit&gos mostly. They really helped me a lot in my tournament game and I moved up to the $500 and $1,000. Anything over $100 and the competition gets really tough.
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