Poker Forum by Poker is Rigged

I've been playing a load of turbo SNGs recently and here is a detailed guide of how to play them. These tournaments are great because they are finished in under an hour and you can multitable them easily. Players also tend to be very poor.

This guide is largely for small staked turbos all the way up to $12.

Concept

You want to play these tournaments tight to start with and then gradually loosen up as the blinds get bigger, stealing pots and blinds etc. You need all the chips you can get hold of for a double up later on if you need it and you WILL get paid on 90% of your premium hands.

Early Stages

Starting with 1500 on most poker sites and blinds being 10/20 you have the ability to limp a lot of hands. Limping suited connectors and hands like KQ/QJ/KJ is perfectly fine at these stages but is a bad move to do so in early position.

ALL your limping should be done either MP if there are a bunch of limpers before you (so you're getting odds) or if you're in LP and the players behind you haven't been raising every hand. Limping early stages is a bad move because in turbos you get a lot of loose players who will be raising a lot.

The only hands limpable in early position are pocket pairs.

When you pick up a premium in starting stages you need to raise strong; take into account how many limpers there are and raise big not only to get people off trash that you can't put them on but to get value in the pot.

Remember that your 1500 stack will be obsolete at later stages and so you're looking to build pots and double up or take down large pots early on. This means that C-betting on safe boards such as Axx or Kxx (Where X=RAG) is necessary.

Do not call unnecessarily. As i said earlier, you want to have as many chips for a double up as possible so if you are doubting your hand don't call off 1/3 of your stack.

Late Stages

Seeing as there isn't much of a middle stage I'll move straight onto the latter parts of the tournament. This is where blinds are 100/200+.

At this point your stack will either be 1500 because you have failed to really get any hands. Or atleast 20bbs.

If you are 20-25bbs so 4k-5k then you need to tighten up. Only steal blinds with a hand A2 or better in late position preflop. You cannot risk too much of your stack because when you double up you need it to be a big double up so that you don't need to risk your stack again.

At 10-15bbs you should be shove folding your usual hands. If you have 12-15bbs then perhaps decrease the range of the hands you shove with. If you have lost respect from all your shoves then shoving hands like QQ-AA is usually +EV. Don't min raise/3x raise AK/AQ/AJ as if you miss the flop you're committed and no doubt the blinds will be raising soon.

If you're a big stack at these points 30bbs+ then be sure to put pressure on the short stacks. A lot of the time when you're short handed your Ax is going to be good and so if there are shorter stacks to your left then be sure to put pressure on them in late position. (Most are scared to bust out before the money). Watch out for the big stacks when short handed, you don't really want to tangle with them unless you're deep enough to get implied odds with small pockets and set hunting etc.

A lot of people play turbo SNGs differently and like to play 80% of hands at early stages. I think this is -EV as you'll be needing those chips you leaked on limping for the very important double ups that are crucial.

Happing Playing.

im not a huge fan of your advocation of limping surely if you raise its better than a limp as you have pot control?
though nice post!

Calling small bets and limping in small staked SNGs can be extremely profitable because you will likely your 2pair/trips/straight etc paid from someone who is holding 2nd pair.

I don't advocate limping all the time ESPECIALLY at later stages, of course all hands that are playable you should be raising.