How to Increase your Profitability as a Sit N' Go Player

There are several ways that someone who is already playing sit and go tournaments can increase their profitability. These are increasing the number of games played at once, moving up to higher limits, table selection and spending time on study to improve your game.

In online poker the number of tables you can play at once is really only limited by the amount that you can focus on! Some sit and go players are comfortable with 1 or 2 tables while others play 4, 12 or sometimes even more.

Playing a large number of tables will generally reduce your profits for each table played. However this is made up for by the increased number of tables. For example someone playing 2 tables with $10 profit per game may only reach $7.50 profit per game when playing 4 at once (due to less reads on opponents and less time to make the best decisions). However while 2 tabling their total profit was $20 per hour while 4 tables net a total of $30 per hour.

An alternative to adding more tables is to play sit and go tournaments at higher limits. Like all forms of poker there is always the possibility of a bad run of cards, it is thus important to have a bankroll big enough to withstand losing several games in a row.

Another consideration for moving up limits is whether you will still have a profitable edge against more skilled opposition. A trial run where you allow yourself a limited number of matches before moving down can often help to ensure you can still compete at the new level.

Table selection is another important factor in increasing your profitability as a sit and go player. At most poker sites there are online ‘regulars’ at many levels who are winning players themselves. This is particularly the case for the biggest online poker sites where there may be a large number of people ‘grinding’ many low to middle-limit tables.

Spend some time working out who the winning regulars are. If you log on and see 2 or 3 of them already signed-up for a sit and go then simply move on to the next one or wait 10 minutes until one with weaker opposition appears. Increasing profitability at poker has nothing to do with trying to ‘prove yourself’ against good players – the profits come from selecting the weakest opponents available.

Finally, learning poker strategy and locating areas of your game to improve will lead to greater profitability playing sit and go tournaments. Time spent analyzing your hand histories, with a friend or peer is particularly useful. Not only can you find hands that you could have played better – you will locate the things you do well too, enabling you to build on these in future games.