If you like to live life in the fast lane then the Turbo Sit and Go (SNG) was tailored just for you. Offered at sites such as Full Tilt Poker, Turbo SNG’s are just like regular single table tournaments with the added excitement of shorter rounds. To be a long term winner at Turbo SNG’s requires changes to poker strategy. In fact, some of the tips that you’ve read in the older poker strategy books will have to be completely tossed out! We’ll dive into the reasons why later in this article.

Turbo Sit and Go Strategy

Typically rounds in a Turbo Sit and Go are only three minutes, which makes for a quick pace, even quicker if you like 6 handed Turbo SNG’s. Faster rounds equals faster decisions so when the action reaches you, it’s best to have a general idea of what you’re going to do with a hand. Stalling in the early stages of a SNG only puts more pressure on ALL of the players, including you. Now stalling in later stages is another story but we’ll talk about that shortly. Because the action will move quickly early on, be prepared with a good idea of your starting hand range. Position always plays a role in poker strategy so I hope you’re familiar with how to play positional poker as well.

Early rounds require patience

Early rounds in Turbo Sit and Go are no different from standard SNG’s or multi table tournaments (MTT’s). Take your time and avoid big confrontations early. With low blinds relative to your stack, even the clock isn’t your enemy here. Yet. Pick your spots and play small ball until the middle rounds come and people begin making mistakes. Play ABC poker at this point because even stealing blinds here aren’t going to make or break you.

Middle and late play in Turbo SNG’s

During the middle rounds you will have to risk more chips and begin to toss out conventional wisdom on starting hand values and drawing odds. Because the blinds will begin going up very quickly after this (100/200 and above) you will need chips to play. Period. Your $ equity here becomes a bigger deal because if you only have 8% of the chips in play as the latter stages come, you should open your starting hand values to the point playing almost anything (5 6, 7 9, etc). Let’s face it, with such a small share of the chips in play your equity is practically worthless at that point anyway!

Late round play

Take Super System and trash it! Well, not really but don’t rely it so much in these types of SNG’s. So how do you take the practical tactics and strategies taught in the “old-school” books and apply them to Turbo Sit and Go? Considering these fast action games weren’t in existence when books such as Super System were written, you should temper some of the lessons learned from that book when playing Turbo SNG’s. For example, in Super System's poker strategy there’s a lot of talk about post-flop play. Honestly, if it’s late (100/200 blinds or later) in a Turbo SNG there shouldn’t be much post-flop play at all. Again this comes back to equity and how many chips you have.

If you’re holding 2400 chips and the guy UTG (holding 1900 chips) raises 4X the BB then he’s already committed 42% of his stack pre-flop. If you’re looking at a hand here worth calling off 33% of YOUR chips then honestly you should put him all in before the flop. He’s likely committed anyway but to let the flop come and be faced with a decision if he continues to fire at the pot here is a bad move. The blinds at this point are just too large vs. the average stack to try and chase drawing hands.

In summary, you want to press action here and many times will have to do so with less than stellar starting hands. As your game progresses as a player you will get a better feel for how to play these marginal hands. The good news is that the other players face the same challenge so it’s a level playing field. After all, you’re the one that likes life in the fast lane.

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