Sit-and-Go Essentials Part 2: Medium-Blind Play

Adjustments:

Once the blinds start increasing it's time to make some adjustments. For one, limping should almost completely be eliminated. Open limping is pointless at this stage of the game.

The average stack is just over 20 BBs. Limping for 5% of your stack is giving away money. If you are going to enter a pot, enter it raising or don't enter it at all. The time for limping is over. Your goal now is supplementing your stack either with cards or without.

Playing from early position doesn't change that much between low- and mid-blind play. You'll still be playing very tightly. There are still going to be pots contested on the flop and playing out of position makes this very difficult since you are almost always playing for your stack on the flop.

You want to continue to play your strong hands hard and fold your weak ones. Do not try and get creative from early position.

In middle position your strategy is similar to early position. You want to protect your chips when you're weak and you want to come in raising when you're strong. From middle position there's no reason to get maniacal; however, you can open up your raising requirements the closer you get to the button.

Late position is always where you want to be in poker. However, in sit-and-go play it is even more important - it's where you build your stack. From late position it's time to get creative.

Your goal is to steal blinds - you need to add to your stack with or without premium hands. In a sit-and-go you can't just wait around for aces. The blinds are increasing all the time and if you decide that you're only gonna play monsters, then by the time you actually get one it won't matter if you double up.

Late Position

Late position is the bread and butter of a sit-and-go player. Now that the blinds are getting up there, it's time to switch gears. Your goal now becomes accumulating chips. As we know, the best way to accumulate chips is by stealing blinds.

Does that mean we can just start raising any two cards all willy-nilly because we have position? No. Well then what types of hands make suitable steal hands?

Can you just start raising any two cards because you have position? No.

The best candidates for steal hands are ones with a reasonable chance of making something on the flop in case you're called. So random trash hands are still exactly that, trash. Though position is an incredible advantage, it doesn't mean you can all of a sudden start opening up 7-2 profitably.

Think of it this way: Which hands would you play from early position in an extremely passive cash game? This is roughly the range of hands you can now start raising from late position. A hand like 7-8s is an excellent candidate for a steal-raise. A hand like J-2s, not so much.

Your goal, of course, is to take the pot down without a fight. However, you are going to get called sometimes. This is why your hands must have at least some value on the flop.

USC ;)