So you are new to online poker and a little impressed, what should you do? Expanding on my first article A Beginner’s Guide to Online Poker: Introduction, I suggest you start with Sit and Go tournaments, but before explaining why, let me explain what sit and go tournaments are.

If you’re interested in playing poker on television, you’ve probably seen tournaments. However, this is not a sit & go, it is a multi-table tournament. Basically, multi-table tournaments are huge sit and go tournaments. This is how sit and go tournaments are usually held:

Players buy a certain amount and start with the same number of chips, with blinds at a low point compared to the stack. These chips are tournament value chips, not real dollars. So whether you buy a particular tournament for $10 or $100, it doesn’t matter. These tournaments usually start with 9 to 10 players and, to win money, you have to finish in the top 3 of  Online . Payment is usually 50%, 30%, 20%. During the game, the blinds (and eventually before) increase based on a certain period of time. If you lose chips, you will be out and will not be able to reload as much as you could in cash games. The tournament ends when a player collects all the chips in the game.

Sounds simple enough, so why Sit & Gos? I prefer new players to start for several reasons:

It’s basic. The last thing new players need to do is flood themselves with more knowledge, terms and jargon than they can remember. Once you get used to the basic strategy, sitting and sitting can become almost robotic.

The reason they’re basic is that, for the most part, this is my basic sit-and-go strategy: fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold , fold, fold, fold, fold, raise. It’s amazing just sitting and watching people hit each other, while you just sit back and wait for your moment. And here’s the big part; they don’t notice that you are sitting. You can fold the first 20 hands, and when you raise with AA, “this guy” will think his AT is good and make it all-in. I smiled and pressed the call button more than I can remember.

This is a pre-flop game. A house is built on a good foundation and the game of poker is no different. You have to learn the cards you have to play, and this starts with the preflop. Learning a solid pre-flop game is necessary, as a solid foundation is for the house. Most of the time, sit and go tournaments focus on learning good pre-flop strategy. This is because when the blinds start to rise, which is usually fast, your stack will be smaller compared to theirs. For most tournaments, you will usually be between 10 and 30 times the big blind. This is very different from cash games, where most of the time you will have 100x the big blind or more. The more chips you have, the bigger your post-flop play. Your game should be very different and focus on selecting pre-flop hands when you have fewer chips. Here’s an example of why:

Say you have a stack of 1,300 chips and the blinds are 75/150. You receive the appropriate UTG AK. This is a very good hand and you may have been waiting for it. You are the first to act pre-flop, what should you do? First, let’s take a look at your stack. You have less than 10 times the big blind, which means you are too short. If it was a cash game, and the blinds were the same, you would have a stack of 150,000; more than 1,300. Now, let’s say you choose to make a standard increment of 3x, to 450. By doing this, you’ve already done more than 1/3 of your stack and there will only be 850 left. Now, fold to the big blind, who’s calling. Failure comes 2 7 T, none of them fit you. big blind bet 600, What are you doing? You feel like you have to call or bet everything, because a lot of your chips are already in the game, but you know you might lose. You’re causing that misery for yourself because you don’t pre-flop all-in with a low chip count.