In multi-table Sit & Gos one of the most important strategies you should be employing is blind stealing. In standard single-table Sit & Gos you can make the money without accumulating a massive stack and there’s a very real need to preserve the chips you do have. In multi-table Sit & Go's, however (with 30 or 50 runners), you need to build a much bigger stack in order to reach the final table, and that means you need to step up your blind stealing.
On the whole your playing style should fall somewhere between normal SNG strategy and MTT strategy. If you get short you can employ the tried and tested method of playing push-or-fold poker, but you will usually have to win many all-ins to go deep (which is highly unlikely). Instead you should focus on keeping your stack healthy and preventing yourself from having to risk it all on one hand.
As a general rule if you fall below 15 big blinds you will need to resort to a high-risk push-or-fold strategy, so the most important time to gear up your attempts to steal the blinds is when you have a stack of between 15 and 25BB. If you can continually and successfully steal as the blinds go up, you will be able to build your stack with minimal risk and carve a smooth path through the middle section of a tournament. If you’re card dead blind stealing will help you immeasurably.
It’s also worth noting that in most tournaments antes come into play in the middle stages so you will be getting excellent odds to steal, especially if you lower your opening raise to 2.5BB. For example, if the blinds are 50/100 with an ante of 10 at a ten-handed table there will be 250 in the pot, so if you win the blinds more than 50% of the time you will be making an immediate profit.
Picking when to get frisky
In order to determine good situations for blind stealing, the most important factors are your position, and the players and stack sizes behind you. Obviously the fewer players you have to get through the better, but other skilled players will be more likely to play back at you in late position for this reason too. The biggest factor that is usually overlooked is the stack sizes behind you. Players with 15-20 big blinds are in an ideal position to re-raise all-in with a wide range of hands on a resteal, so if you see several of them behind you still to act you should think twice about trying to steal.
Stealing and calling ranges
Now that we've looked at some of the basics of blind-stealing we can start thinking about more advanced factors such as hand ranges, position and player types, as well as how to respond to aggressive players. In recent years blind stealing has become much more prevalent in tournament play and because of this many players will attempt to resteal by going all-in with a stack of 15-20BB. For this reason, unless you think it is likely you are going to get flat-called, often you should be inclined to polarise your opening ranges in late position, since if you are only going to call with strong hands and fold the rest, hands like Q-Jo or 7-8s converge in value with absolute trash like 2-7o or T-6o. In other words, if you’re folding to any raise then what does it matter what cards you’re holding.
Situational stealing
Blind stealing is as much about situation as it is about the cards you hold. For example, against three or four tight-passive players with stacks of 25-30BB you can steal with almost any two cards profitably as they will rarely play back at you. However, against three or four aggressive players with 15-20BB, open- raising a hand like T-Js might be unprofitable, as you will be shoved on so often.
But, in the latter situation, you can now open your value raising range, meaning that you would now be happy to raise and call with hands like K-Q, A-8 or 6-6 since your opponents will be shoving with worse often enough to make it profitable and you will have good pot odds. Remember that in a multi-table Sit & Go you still need to accumulate some chips for the final table where the money is lodged at the top.
The most important factor in successful blind stealing is your pre-planning, both in considering whether you are in a good situation to steal with a weak hand and, if not, whether you have a hand that you can raise and call profitably with. Remember, to show an initial profit on a blind steal you might need to win 50-60% of the time, and this is radically altered by the players and stack sizes left to act behind you. So don’t just fall into the trap of automatically raising an average hand in late position and then folding it when an aggressive short-stacked player goes all-in!
Defending and restealing
We’ve already discussed the general principles and specifics of successful blind stealing, but because it is so prevalent in the modern game it’s also vital to have a good understanding of when and how you can accumulate chips profitably by restealing from blind thieves in multi-table Sit & Go’s.
The most obvious strategy, as mentioned in the previous parts, is moving all-in with a stack of 15-20 big blinds against a player that you suspect is opening with a wide hand range. This is a risky but foolproof strategy since there will already be four to five big blinds in the pot to win and your opponent will often have to fold his hand unless he has a strong holding. That knowledge will give you sufficient overlay for the times you are called and have on average 30-40% equity. To employ this successfully just look for players who open a lot in late position (or fold to a lot of re-raises) and make sure you have a reasonable hand in case you get called – A-5s, Q-Jo, 8-9s etc.
Snapping thieves' fingers
Restealing gets more interesting and less risky when you have a deeper stack of over 30 big blinds, since now you can afford to make smaller re-raises that put pressure on your opponents without risking your whole stack. For example, with a stack of 35 big blinds against a deeper-stacked opponent you might re-raise his 2.5x open raise to seven big blinds. Now his options are to go all-in for his entire stack – in which case you can just call with your strong hands and fold your resteals – or call and play post-flop, which still gives you some room to manoeuvre. The beauty of this resteal situation, however, is that you are only risking seven big blinds to win four or five, and because you are threatening your opponent’s entire stack he will usually fold and rarely be inclined to shove in light.
This can be a great way to stamp your authority on a multi-table Sit & Go by creating an aura of fear and aggression. As with the 2.5 big blind raise, this tactic can be used to pick up chips without having to risk your whole stack. Therefore this move should be one of your most effective strategies, although when you get short you can still resort to re-raising all-in or moving all-in yourself.
Just remember to think ahead, use your chips to steal effectively, and you should be able to put together some top three finishes!