Winning a 2 Table Sit N Go

DX had written an interesting guide to playing PLO MTTs online and I found it very useful. I have had a lot of success playing the WNP and Donkey Den 2 table SNGs and I thought I would share some of my insight on those games and how to win. I have had a great run at both of these games and I do not necessarily think the reason for this is anything other than figuring out a whole bunch of tricks on the blind structure.

Some background on WNP Blinds and chips:

The game normally attracts between 16 and 19 players in 2 tables, the final table will start usually between 8 and 10 players), Starting with 2000 chips, blinds are 20 minutes in duration with a break every 3rd blind level. Blinds are as follows:

Lev 1 10/20
Lev 2 20/40
Lev 3 30/60
Lev 4 40/80
Lev 5 50/100
Lev 6 70/140
Lev 7 100/200
Lev 8 150/300
Lev 9 200/400
Lev 10 300/600
Lev 11 400/800
Lev 12 500/1000 (it usually caps around here but might go as high as 1000/2000)


Basically some simple hints before we get started:

1) Have a plan. It may not be my plan or something along these lines but go to play with a plan. If you want to just have fun that is fine but you will rarely win. Keep the end in mind which is playing heads up with a chip lead and winning.

2) Have fun no matter what. WNP is for fun. The game was built on fun, has gotten serious at times but it is all about the fun. You will get sucked out on, people will make bad calls etc but have fun. I almost never do well when I am not having fun.

3) Always have 3 different plans for every play. For example, you are on the button with JJ, there is a raise and a call in front of you. Do not automatically re-raise without looking at the people you are re-raising. What if they both push? What if they call and the flop comes T24 and they are both all-in? Are you calling a preflop push? Put some thought to it before you re-raise or if you call, think it through, am I only set hunting? This is really just general poker advice but I think its important.

4) Know your opponents. At WNP you will play against the same players often so pay attention. It may sound weird but there are some great players at WNP who do the same things over and over that is not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing but it means if you pay attention to every hand you will learn a lot.

5) Always know how many chips you have. A lot of players do not count their chips during a tourney. The most important piece of information you need during a tourney is how many chips do you have? I will ask players a lot of times how many chips they have. I usually know the answer but I want to know if they are paying close attention to the game. Also a player who says "I have no idea how much I have", it tells me they really do not understand tourney strategy or they are completely new to the game.

5) Do not play scared. You cannot be afraid to bust. If you bust so what, everyone will bust at some point except for one person. Do not play the game like you are afraid to bust.

6) Some more general advice: Try to bust playing aggressively as a general rule it will work more than it will not work. If you feel beat, you probably are so be careful when you say call and blow precious chips.

Onto to the game:

As I stated in my simple hints, you need to have 3 different plans for every street of every hand. The same goes for every level of every game. You set a goal and say I want to have x amount of chips by the end of level X. However this doesn’t always work out the way you want, so have a plan B and C to fall back on. In my scenarios I will outline, there will be a Result A which basically means everything went to perfection. Result B means everything went OK but it was not exactly like Result A. Result C means you are still in the tourney but re-adjustments are required and a whole new plan needs to be developed. Basically if Plan A goes the way you want you end up with Result A. if it does not you will end up with Result B or C. Of course there will be nights where you fluke box and you hit everything, these are out of the norm and you do not need to plan, basically you play you hit, you bust people.


Level 1-3) Gather Momentum:

Plan A – Ideally in these levels you want to see flops, hit and get paid. Basically at these stages UNLESS THERE IS A RAISE AND RE-RAISE IN FRONT OF YOU, you will see every flop with any suited connectors, suited Ace combinations, pocket pairs. You also want to see flops with hands like JT,QT,QJ,QK. Basically you want to limp call with almost every hand from early position and you want to raise with these hands in late position. The great thing about these kinds of hands is it will establish your image as aggressive for later on. The biggest issue with these hands though is you have to be prepared to fold them if you do not hit the right flops and you also need to control yourself and do not automatically continuation bet a flop you completely whiffed on just because you are last to act. You raise, miss and fold from late position and limp, call, miss and fold from early position. If you hit with these hands, you are playing for your opponents stack and there are lots of creative ways to get their stack in the middle.

Plan B – you may follow plan A for a bit and all of sudden the game is 30 minutes old and you are down to between 1200 and 1500 chips. You need to quickly changed gears to plan B which is to basically tighten up and wait for premium hands. You cannot play suited connectors or suited aces, low pocket pairs need to be folded. Resist the temptation to push all-in to a raise with AK or a low pocket pair. You are not in the push zone yet, and this is a very big mistake a lot players make at WNP.

Plan C means that somewhere along the way you fell under 1000 chips and you are struggling. Again my belief is you do not have to push here but if you find a good spot you should. Under 1000 chips is almost useless after the break, so it is time to get moving. Try to stay away from the big stacks and play hands with players who have under 2000. It is very important that you do not give up at this point. Numerous times I have seen players with 150 in chips come back and win this tourney.


By the first break the ideal number of chips (result A) would be around 2900-3500. Anything more you are pretty much in the fluke zone but be careful, one bad beat or bad play and you will be back in the normal range. Result B would be around 1800-2500 chips and result C would be less than 1500.

Level 4-6 - Make It or Break It

In my opinion this is the most critical part of tourney equal to when you are the bubble. It is also the time where most people misplay their way out of winning the 2 table sng. 2 things that are guaranteed to happen during this stage of the tourney:

1) You will be playing shorthanded (anywhere from 4-6 handed)

2) A large gap will develop between the shortstacks and the big stacks. Some players will be as low as 1k and some can be as high as 5k.

These 2 factors are what makes this part of the tourney so tricky. So here is how I play this part:

Plan A - you have a lot of chips, you need to use them. The key to shorthanded play that so many do not realize is the value of raising becomes so significant because the % chance that someone has a hand that can call a raise goes way way lower than a full table.

For example your table looks like this:

Seat 1 - 4200 - you
Seat 2 - 1800
Seat 3 - 2900
Seat 4 - 1000
Seat 5 - 1400

Basically you can raise to 400 every hand and the only player who can flat call you is seat 3. The others really do not have any moves left but push or fold. In the meantime, no one can put you on a hand because you enter every pot with a raise. The tricky part is, you need to dodge a lot of all-ins etc. If you are at an aggressive table you may not want to take this approach but likely you will get a lot of folding. If seat 4 & 5 push into your raise you are basically priced in and hopefully you are no worse than 40%.

Things you need to be careful of:

1) Don't limp, really ever. Its not a smart play for many reasons but really you want your image to be that of aggression.

2) Do not bet with air. If you raise and someone calls, do not try to get fancy on the flop if you whiff it completely. You may give up your pre-flop raise but that's it.

3) Try to stay out of hands with the other big stack with marginal holdings. Do not call raises with weak aces or suited connectors against them out of position. For example you have 78s and they raise. You are playing heads up and the flop comes 8 high? Do you bet at it? Its just not an idea situation. I would call with any pocket pair because to me a set is the most powerful holding you can have and you will likely stack them especially if you established a loose image

4) Always raise from the button. You are shorthanded, you are in the most powerful spot on the table, if it is folded to you raise. Always. If people know you do this instinctively they will pay you when you hit. To make it worse for them, they will have no idea if you hit or you had a hand to start with and they are calling out of position.

During these levels plan A is to pick up many small pots and hopefully hit it big and win some big ones.

If you are at plan B at this point, you still have a shot but you are going to need to work quick. The biggest mistake people make at this point is trying to limp into the final table. They get to the final table and they have no chips, there are huge stacks and they basically get blinded out. However once in every 6 times, they have played this same way got very lucky and placed in the money so they think its an okay way to play.

Your goal at this point has to be to get into one big hand and take down a big pot. You do not have enough re-raising chips but you have enough to raise. So basically, you need to raise a lot. You have about half of the big stacks chips so they should not try to re-raise you without a substantial hand as you can really hurt them. There is an issue with raising a lot though and that is if a shortstack pushes you maybe priced in, so you have to play very careful around the shortstacks. Try to make your raise small enough to not commit you or big enough to show them you won't fold. For example if they have 1000, and you raise to 500, they would have to have no clue how to play if they push expecting you to fold. You have to really understand your opponents though because you may be playing with a shortstack who will fold even if they know you will not fold to their all-in.

Another thing you need to avoid here is going for the big score. For example intentionally racing with a big stack. You don't need to race yet although you may have to soon, I would avoid it now. So let's say the big stack raises to 400 and you have a pp below 88. If you push, they will get 2-1, they are probably calling with about 25-30 hands you are racing with or beat you. Its painful but you need to survive and folding will guarantee that.

However the same cannot be said about hands like AQ or AK. You want them calling you getting 2-1 here because there is a whole bunch of hands you have crushed and a bunch you are racing with. The nice think about AK and AQ is most of the time you aren't crushed. AK, you worry about 2 hands and AQ, you worry 4 hands. So you want to push into raises here. Hands like QQ, KK, AA are insta pushes obviously. I even push with JJ or TT likely. 99 is a bit of a thinker. The other thing to keep in mind is that if you are pushing on another shortstack, you might have them crushed, even if you have AJ. But you need to be careful and rely on your reads at this point.

Plan C at this point of the tourney is pretty simple. You double up or die. Some simple suggestions although this topic is very heavily debated so take my advice for what its worth:

If you have more than 8 x bb:
1) Push into unopened pots. Its folded to you push

2) Do not push into raises with bad cards. The worst thing players do is say ok so and so raised and I like this JT sooted so I will re-raise allin. However your allin isn't even the size of the raise so there is 0 chance you are getting a fold

3) Pick cards that will stand up well to high cards. In other words, K2, J5, Q6 are all bad hands to push with. I even try to stay away from bad aces (A2-A8) because if you get called you are dead. I like to push with hands that will be live against high cards so if I push with 53o and get called by AQ, I am live at least. The big risk in this is if a pocket pair like 77 or 88 calls, you are significantly behind but at this point, you are not winning this without a double up

4) Always act confident. You WANT TO BE CALLED 100% of the time. (You should think this in your head but really if your pushing with 4 high, picking up the blinds is nice.)

If you have less than 8 x bb:

If you got to this point, something went very very wrong. You didn't follow some simple advice I wrote about pushing with more than 8 x bb and now you are in the red zone. So.....

In this spot, I like to try to get a hand with more than a couple of callers. So basically if there is a raise and a call and I have anything playable, I am in. Really not playable is stuff like J5, Q2, K4 but hands like 97, T9 are great hands to get into a multi-way pot. This may be strange advice for most but put it this way: if you wait for aces and push which is like the dream scenario that probably won't happen and you get 4 callers, you likely are not more than 40-50% to win the hand. If there is a raise and a call and both players have high cards you are around 25-30%. Again the AA is a dream, it will not happen, you are probably looking at pushing with something like AT and you are getting called and likely losing.

That is the end of stage 2. At this point you have achieved one of 3 results: Result A: you have 6000 or more in chips and you are set for the final table quite well. Result B: you have around 3000 in chips and you are there but you have work to do. Result C: you are very short and have less than 2000.

Level 7-9 Stay Steady

During this stage of the tourney the final table will be set or it already has. It usually comes around level 8 but can go all the way to level 10. To me this is not a critical point of the tourney unless you are shortstacked. Here is how I play it:

Plan A - there is not much to say at this point. You have 6k, you do not need much more. Unless I have 8k or more, I slow down and save some chips. Its a gear change for sure and most people will not realize you slowed down. If you hit big you will get paid. They key at this point, is to let everyone else do the work. You have no need to play a big hand so don't. There will probably be one monster stack either busting everyone or redistributing chips. Just stay out of it. Steady is the best way to describe this stage.

Plan B and C are not really different than the way I described the last levels. With plan B, be careful, you are close to making it deep so don't mess with the big stacks. Plan C, what are you waiting for? Get your chips in the middle already.

Level 10-12 Go For The Win

The tourney is going to end at this point or come close to ending. My goal is to always get into top 3 before I open my game up again. This does not mean I won't take risks however I will take less risks than when we are 3 handed. The following concept is what I think makes my record in this games a winning record. Everyone knows about Harrington's M factor however he never goes into detail about the when the blinds get really big and everyone's M is low.

Your M is basically calculated like this:

Cost of a rotation (sb+bb+antes)/ your stack

Harrington's theory is that with an M over 20, you play aggressive, the closer it gets to 10, the more you look for a double up and if it gets dangerously below 10 you intentionally try to push for a race (any pp, and ace/face combo). Its a fantastic theory and I think it works however what happens if the whole table has an M below 10? It gets complicated at this point and there is no simple answer but basically every hand, your position on the table is so significant and you are likely shorthanded so big blinds are hitting shortstacked players quickly. What does this mean to you?

You need to be aware of what everyone's M is and their chipcounts. However fold equity becomes significant at this point because no one wants to bust. So you can play this one of two ways and it really depends on your opponents but basically if you have everyone below 10 and they are tight then you play the opposite. If there is one bigstack, let them bust everyone and try to get to heads up. Try to maintain your stack and unfortunately pushing is the only way in this case (see the pushing suggestions above). Bottom line is you cannot play tight at this point of the tourney so you need to take risks but controllable risks.

There is no real trick to the rest of the game. Its basic 3 handed and heads up strategy and really depends on your opponents. Sometimes 3 handed, I will play very tight to get to try to get to heads up and sometimes I play aggressive. As a general rule, I base it on the players. If I am playing with 2 weaker players 3 handed, I will play tight. If they are 2 better than average players I will open up my game and take some chances.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope to see you at the Donkey Den or WNP soon.