Turbo SNG Strategy

When entering a turbo sit and go, you should look at how many
chips you start with and what the blind levels are. Most of the
time the blind levels will be five minutes and you’ll start with
1,500 chips. A number of turbo sit and gos will be over quickly
and you should keep this in mind as you start to play. This
style of game isn’t a long grind like big tournaments and is
very much a short term endeavor. In these games it will come
down to whether you can win coin flips later on. Your goal throughout them
should be to win and get your money in
ahead, if you keep that in mind you’ll have more success when
playing.

Early Stage Strategy

At the beginning of a turbo sit and go you should start off
by playing passive. The reason is because if you commit too many
chips, too early on, it can hurt your chances of winning. If you
play passive at the beginning, it will also help you build an
image at the table. If you have a solid and passive image
at the table, you’ll be able to use it later on when the blinds
get bigger to exploit other players. When the blinds start to
get bigger is when you should change gears in turbo sit and
gos. You should start playing more pots and move your stack in.
The reason for this is because the blinds are bigger and worth
it to win. In most cases you’ll increase your stack by 10-20%
just by winning the blinds.

At the beginning of games you should start to categorize
players and always observe what hands they are showing down. If
you lump them into a player who is an aggressive bad player you
can make some of your decisions easier throughout the game. When
a big spot comes up against an aggressive bad player, who is
shoving wider ranges of hands, you’ll be able to call in spots
where other times you would fold. This draws a thin line between
the aggressive good players, but these are easier to pick out.
The aggressive good players will most likely showdown big hands
and not showdown weak hands. This is the category you want to be
in.

Table Image

If you can only showdown hands in which you are very strong
in turbo sit and gos, you’ll get credit for always having it
regardless of how many hands you are playing or how many pots
you take shots at. To become an aggressive good player it takes
hours of practice playing sit and goes and some of the best out
there only have a 10% ROI. Most of the aggressive good players
will multi table these games to slowly build up a
big enough bankroll to move through the limits of the sit
and goes.

If you are sitting and only playing one table you can
be more observant, but, in the long run, it will take you far
longer to make money, even if you are good. The third type of
player is a passive bad player. The passive bad players will
almost never play hands and will slowly get blinded away. Avoid
being this type of player at all costs. If you sit and wait for
things to happen they never will. You have to be proactive when
playing turbo games and look for spots to double your stack up.

To look at the turbo games as a whole you should start off by
playing passive and then move towards playing overly aggressive.
It’s a fast progression and after about the fifth blind level,
when you have ten big blinds or less, is when you should begin
to implement this strategy. If you have the same amount of chips
you started the game with, all this means is that you haven’t
gotten any hands. A rush of cards in turbo games is great
because you can chip up and run the table over. If you do happen
to catch that rush of cards you’ll be able to win the game a
great deal of the time. If you don’t catch any hands it’s hard
to win these games, but you’ll be able to maintain your stack
size if you attack the blinds.

Hand Ranges

There are also a number of hand ranges to look for later on
in the game. If you start off with a
passive-fold-almost-anything attitude, people will pick up on
that if you are at a higher buy-in game. When the other players
see you are playing passive is when you can start to pick them
off or you can force them to fold in certain spots. You can
become the aggressor by either re-shoving to the players raise
before the flop or by making an opening raise yourself.

If you change how you play and change gears as the
money bubble approaches, you can chip up and win
these games. As the money bubble approaches and only one or two
more people need to be knocked out in order to turn a profit on
the game is when you should pick up aggression. By picking up
aggression, even against players with bigger chip stacks, you
can put them in spots where they simply cannot call.

After the money bubble has passed you should go for the win.
In order to go in for the win in turbo sit and gos it almost
always means shoving all-in more times than you’re used to. With
the blinds as big as they will be you’ll build your stack and
have to take chances in order to win. If you are short handed at
a table, the number of hands you open a pot with is going to be
more than if the table were full.

A standard opening raise at
the end of most turbo games is a shove. Just before the shove or
at the beginning it’s between 2-2.5 times the blinds. As every
player drops off, your hand ranges gets that much wider. In most
instances at the end, almost any connecting hand or ace high is
good enough to gamble with. If you fold these hands it can only
hurt you in the long term run of turbo sit and gos. Your goal
from the beginning is to win and in order to win you have to
gamble at the end of them.