Basic Sitngo Strategy.

                 Here is the Basic Sitngo Strategy that i have learned over many hours of playing and doing a lot of research online, and purchasing a few different strategy guides. The game starts with 9 players , all starting with 1500 chips. The top 3 finishers win a portion of the prize pool. These 3 players are also known as being In The Money. First place will take down 50 percent of the prize pool, 2nd place takes 30%, and 3rd place 20%. Sitngo's are the cash cow of online poker. There is virtually no wait to get into a sitngo , regardless of the buyin level. A game will be starting at the level you want to play approximately every 2 minutes, and they average about an hour in duration. There are three stages to a sitngo, which i will explain to you as we go on.

             Stage one of the sitngo is the Early Stage. During this stage , you want to sit back and watch the action and play nothing but level one , or premium hands. These hands are basically, aces, kings , queens, or ace king, and jacks*(be careful with jacks). With hands jack queen , 10s, 9s, ace queen, king queen, or ace jack, you only want to call if you are almost last to act and there has not been a considerable raise. I know its hard to fold if you have one of these good non-premium hands, but trust me , for the most part you will only get yourself in trouble. Here is one example you will often see in the early stages of a sitngo. Someone makes a large raise, and one player calls. The flop brings out a Queen as the high card. The original raiser makes a pot sized bet , and the other player reraises. The next thing you know there are 2 players all in. Then you see that the original raiser has ace queen , up against king queen. Needless to say , the guy who thought his king queen was way ahead , finds himself trying to find the next sitngo to register into. It has happened to me countless times, and probably you too. When you do find yourself with a premium hand , make sure you raise at least 5 times the big blind. You may think that you want to get a lot of action with kings or aces. But the reality is you dont. You would rather be heads up against one caller, and take all that players chips. You may have learned this lesson already by having your aces or kings cracked by something like 9,10 suited. You want to bet that person out of the hand and hope the guy with Ace queen calls and you can get all their chips, and  when stage 2 of the sitngo starts, you have more chips to make moves with. Remember to play tight and watch players knock themselves out, and hopefully you can get a premium hand and knock someone out yourself, but if not its ok. Most often then not , stage 2 will start and you will have less chips then you started with.
                              This brings us to the Middle Stage of the sitngo. This stage begins when there are either 3 players out , or the big blind has reached 100 chips. Ideally, there will be 3 players gone once the blinds reach 100 , but that is not always the case. During the middle stage, it is ok to call a raise or raise with hands like ace queen or ace jack or a pair like 9s, or 10s. One thing that ive learned from my personal experience, after making a raise preflop, getting a caller , and then hitting the high card on the flop. Of course you are going to make a large bet to get the person off their hand.  If that person , reraises all in or even reraises at all, chances are you need to get out of the hand regardless of how much you have in the pot or how good you think your top pair is . The odds are that you have run into trips or 2 pair and your high card with a great kicker is now trash. A big part of becoming a GREAT poker player, is the ability to make a good lay down. It takes time to learn this , but it is very true. During this Middle Stage , position is key. You want to be raising with decent hands with only a couple players left to act, and hopefully taking the pot down preflop. You want to be going all in with premium hands no matter what position you are in. Taking down blinds is very crucial, because you dont want to enter the late stage shortstacked if at all possible.

                                  You have finally made it to the Final Stage of the sitngo. At this point , there are 4 players left. Remember that the final 3 players are IN THE MONEY. Everyone left is on the bubble. Because the amount of the big blind is huge compared the the chipstack at this point, most players are either all in or folding. Be careful if someone just calls the big blind which happens to be one third of their chipstack, because most likely , they are setting a trap for you to raise the pot so they can go all in. You should probably just fold your decent hand in that situation. Also remember that you want to be the person making the raise or going all in and taking the blinds , and not the person calling (unless you have a premium hand of course). While on the bubble, be aggressive with decent hands in position, because NOBODY wants to go out in 4th. I know it will get annoying because you will realize that people are raising in position to take the blinds. Let them! eventually you will have a good enough hand to call them and either take them out or double up. Once you get into heads up play , the basic rule of thumb is going all in with any ace or any king, and only calling an all in with a pair or a medium ace or medium king. When you make your pushes you want to primarily be first to act. Your opponent will be more likely to go all in , than to call your all in. (be aware that someone having a large chip advantage will play a role in this as well).  Play smart , and hopefully you can take down first place, But the main objective when you are playing in sitngos is to cash, or make it in the money. A successful sitngo player will cash in at least 75% of sitngos played.

                                  What i have just explained to you is just the BASIC sitngo strategy, for more in depth strategies i recommend you get a strategy guide as well as read the other posts on this blog , which i will be updating daily to help you get the edge on your sitngo opponents. If you have any questions or requests please contact me directly or leave a comment, and i will give you a quick response. Good luck at the tables. There is a sitngo starting in 2 minutes waiting for you to register in.