Just like getting a drivers license, becoming a poker pro allows you to drive without any inconveniences. But in becoming a professional poker player, bankroll management is crucial as you drive towards your dream. Naturally, a big bankroll is needed to be able to play in the 200-300$ ring games, which almost every poker site has.
We’ll cover the best and worst starting hands for you to play in the lowest limit games. We start with the hands you can play and then we’ll discuss what kind of hand you need overall. It’s important to remember that it isn’t necessary to always keep playing the same hand, and you’ll need to re-evaluate your starting hand strategy while in the middle of a sit and go tournament. Due to the nature of the online poker tournaments that you will play in, you’ll most likely be folding many of these starting hands, and folding early are the best times to start in Sit and Go poker.
Best Start?
If you have watched a few poker tournaments, you’ll most likely have noticed the favored hand of the pros – AA. Since it’s the best starting hand, it’s important to understand why it’s favored and how top players do it. Most often than not, big chip players will only play Aces in the early stages of a poker tournament, and you’ll be able to take advantage in many pots. If you’re not playing in the blinds, once you have raised preflop, you’re in.
Try to play hands such as pocket sevens, and pocket twos, that are performing well and aren’t too far behind. Both hands are great for starting but once the blinds start getting real high, they aren’t too comfortable. This is why once the blinds get high, you should look to only play premium hands, unless you’re in early position and no one has raised the blinds yet.
Once you’re in the hand, you’re going to have to make a decision on how to play. If you’re in early position, you’re going to have to look at your chip stack and how many players are in the hand before making your decision. If you’re in middle or late position, then you’ll have to think about how the chip stacks are in front of you, and what your opponent’s could have, before deciding what you’re going to do.
If you’re in the blinds, you obviously have a much smaller chip stack than your opponents, and you can’t really use your big hands much in the blinds. Since you play a lot of small pocket pairs, and other hands that are going to catch the blind, you can really only compete by raising preflop or making a big raise after the flop. If you try and play cards in the blinds that are likely to get raised, you’re going to get whittled down a lot faster than if you were playing from early position.
The flip side to that is if you have a big stack in early position, you have to play a lot more hands from middle or late position. When you’re short stacked in those positions, you’re not in a very good position to try and double up unless you steal the blinds, which doesn’t happen very often. Also, most of the time if you raise from early position, you will get a call from someone in late position, so you’re limiting your play to just premium hands from there.
Don’t play online DewaGG when you’re short stacked. Stick to doing whatever works to get you a double up or near enough. You may not win these every time, but with a little patience you can definitely build a nice stack for later on.
If you’re short stacked and you get a relatively good hand such as AT, AQ, or something in the premium raiser range, try to get some information on the others in the hand. Be aggressive against short stacked players, but be wary of calls and re-raises. The goal is to at least double up, but if someone calls or re-raises, you’re going to have to ask yourself if they have an excellent hand or not.
