Low Stake PokerStars Sit & Go Strategy
When you play in low stake sit and go tournaments a lot of your competition will be new poker players. There still will be a big percentage of knowledgeable poker players in these tournaments, but for the most part you’re going to be going up against new players. Since you’re going to be going up against weak competition for the most part in low limit sit and go tournaments you need to make sure you understand their game. New poker players will often make a lot of mistakes and if you’re able to jump on the mistakes they make then you’ll often walk away a winner. We’re going to go through some tips and strategies that will help you beat the low limit sit and go tournaments consistently.
* A lot of low stake sit and go PokerStars players will limp into pots preflop in hopes of seeing a flop for as cheap as possible. 80-90% of the time you see someone limp preflop they have a marginal hand where they just want to see a flop. If you notice any players in your tournament that limp preflop regularly, you need to apply pressure on them. When you raise a pot preflop with limpers you’ll often find that they fold as long as you bet enough. If you only make a small raise then you’re most likely going to have a player or two call the bet.
* In sit and go tournaments that allow you to qualify for bigger tournaments, such as The World Series of Poker, you need to understand the value of your chips. Winning chips is necessary in a sit and go tournament, but it isn’t as important as preserving your chip stack. In a sit and go tournament you need to always play conservatively. When you do play a hand in a sit and go tourney you should always be raising the pot unless it has already been raised and you want to see a flop first. The reason you need to play conservatively in sit and go tourneys is because you don’t start with a lot of chips and therefore you don’t have many to play with.
* One mistake that I see a lot of players make in sit and go tournaments on PokerStars.net is that they will move all-in when they still have a lot of chips. Part of the reason why so many players move all-in in low stake sit and go tourneys is because they don’t want to be outplayed throughout the hand. They figure that if they move all-in and get called then they will just need to get lucky. The only time you want to move all-in is when the blinds are really high and you don’t have any other options.
* You should pay attention to every showdown during the tournament so you can identify which players are calling the river with marginal hands. I see tons of players in low stake sit and go tourneys that will call down to the showdown with top pair or something similar. If you can identify these players you’ll be able to soak them for a lot of chips when you have a decent hand. You need to make sure that you bet small amounts so that the other player is priced into calling.