Your Cutting-Edge poker tournament results Resource

Sit And Go Poker Strategy - Getting It All In Ahead
By http://www.card-game-poker.com/

The phrase "getting it all in ahead" has been used by many pros in their articles and comments which are meant to be used as valuable lessons to players learning the game or building their bankroll. However, getting it all in ahead is used far too often as a strategy in tournaments when given certain circumstances, it actually should be avoided.

Let's clarify the phrase first. If you put all chips in the pot pre-flop with AA and your opponent calls you holding QQ, well you for sure got it all in ahead. In fact that's about the best scenario you can hope for as you are better than a 4:1 favorite, and hey I am all up for plays like that.

Similar situations would be your pocket JJ versus a caller with 99. With a pair over pair your hand will do much better than say your AA showing up against suited connectors. But at 4:1 your +ev is so impressive that you should take that risk even during early stage, low blind levels of a sit and go tournament.

Now how about if you had pocket JJ and your opponent had the AcQc and you both went all in pre-flop? Sure you are likely to be ahead and you guessed right but your JJ is only a marginal favorite against AQs. It will win approximately 54% of the time. You got it all in ahead all right, but is it worth it?

Well in a cash game scenario if you did this all the days long, you will come out ahead, but not without some trials to your psyche. In a spot like this, playing sit and go poker tournaments with either hand, I want to see a flop and make sure it's a flop that either helps my hand, or doesn't help my opponent's hand.

Because

both are quality hands there is good reason to invest in them pre-flop, but not your whole stack!

In fact, your first concern should be to preserve your stack in early in the early going when blinds are low. Part of the reason for this is that low-entry, online tournament players often over play their hands enough that they create huge pots with marginal situations and although they may be right, there are usually victims in these hands too! But a fair amount of low limit players don't really care about this either, they just want to play bravado style and show you they were right, even if they get sucked out on. Speaking of suck-outs, in the low limits going in ahead full charge, you better learn to deal with suck-outs in a big way.

The other major point about going all in early is that you often lose the chance to make the money later in that same tournament because you were willing to let it ride. If you really want to play like that, go play in the micro limits or free games because that's where you can really push marginal edges and not really bother with the outcome. Suffice to say, while building your bankroll pushing 55/45 hands is not going to build your bankroll online.

Marty Smith is webmaster and player that has been playing poker for nearly 3 years now using money won from opponents. He teaches the basics of sit and go poker with a free videos series. He also rates and reviews all the online poker calculator software allowing you to see a product in use before you buy it.

Resources

start to play online poker-download

Poker Tournament Programs
Poker Tournament Registration
Poker Tournament Results
Poker Tournament Rules