As we noted in part 1 of this series (‘Shifting to speed Sit & Go’s’), just because the blinds rise every four minutes doesn’t mean you have to go crazy and start shoving and calling blindly once your stack gets a little short.
In speed Sit & Go’s you can approach the early levels in much the same way as regulars, in the sense that once you reach levels four and five (50/100 and 75/150) it’s almost never correct to flat-call preflop (especially out of position), as stacks are too shallow. We also noted that it’s almost never worth slow-playing big hands in speed Sit & Go’s because other players are always looking to get their chips in. The crucial levels in ten-handed Sit & Go’s are levels six through nine (100/200, 150/300, 150/300/25 and 200/400/50). During these levels the field will shrink and you’ll approach or reach the bubble, while effective stacks at the table will almost always necessitate push/fold poker.
Keep on shoving
Most players do not shove wide enough in the late stages of Sit & Go’s and most players call too lightly (especially when you consider that most players aren’t shoving wide enough). Here is just one example of optimum pushing and calling ranges using the resource I mentioned in part 1.
In this example the blinds are 200/400/50 and there are five players left in a ten-handed Sit & Go (1,500 starting stack). The stacks are, from first to act to big blind: 4,000, 3,000, 3,000, 3,000 and 2,000. What would you shove as the under-the-gun player? Here the UTG player can shove 30% of hands, which is as wide as J-To. How about the button? Would you shove T-6s or 5-4s? You can profitably. Put yourself in the big blind’s position. What would you call with if the small blind shoved on you? Would you call off your chips with T-6s or 8-9o? Again you can do so profitably. But a word of caution – the ICM/Nash calculator assumes that the small blind in this case is shoving 84.6% of hands. In my experience people shove tighter than this, so obviously you need to tighten up your calling range in response. And also in the ‘what can you shove with’ parts, remember that most players call a little lighter than they should, so it’s best to tighten up the hands you shove with to compensate.
The above is just one arbitrary example. Plug in some numbers using real hands and see what you find. Chances are you’ll be surprised just how many hands you should be shoving once the stacks get short.
Read part I
Read part III