When you play sit and go tournaments online you’ll have noticed that you can usually choose between a regular tournament or a turbo tournament. In a regular tournament the blinds increase every ten minutes typically and in a turbo tournament the blinds increase every five minutes. Now if you plan on stealing blinds then a turbo tournament is by far the better option, but you can choose either or.
When the blinds are small they aren’t really worth stealing so in the early stages you should pay tight. This means you should only play your top hands and fold everything else until the blinds start to increase. Whether you’re in a regular or turbo tournament the blinds will increase in no time so get ready to start stealing blinds.
Let’s assume you’re playing a Turbo SNG at Cake Poker. If you’ve played tight throughout the sit and go tournament up to this point then you’ve done good. Now that the blinds are 50/100 at a minimum there worth stealing and you should start playing more aggressively. Now if you haven’t won any hands yet you’ll need to win some chips just to get back to even and you should do that now.
You should wait for a middle position and then raise the blinds 3-4x the big blinds so that you put pressure on every other player left to act. Generally most people will fold their hands to your raise simply because of how tight you’ve been playing. If they don’t then in most cases they have something good and you should be weary after the flop. Depending on what happens with the flop will determine whether or not you’ll come out with a continuation bet. If you think your opponent hit no piece of the flop then you should come out betting large and in most cases they’ll fold. If they don’t then you need to get out of the hand because they have you beat and it doesn’t look like they’re folding.
In most cases you won’t need to know how to play the hand though because the people will fold. Not many people like calling a raise when it’s from a tight player. As you start doing it more often the chances of being called becomes a lot higher and you need to be more careful. Don’t over-raise the pot ever because in the likelihood you do get called or raised you don’t want to have too many chips invested.
Stealing blinds isn’t going to win you the tournament, but as the blinds increase you can assist yourself in finishing in the top three which equals money. The goal in sit and go tournaments is to finish in the top three minimum each time so you never lose money. By stealing blinds you should be able to increase your stack enough to outlast the other players and finish in the top three. Once it’s down to the top three stealing blinds won’t work much anymore because the action will be loose. Once you’ve made it to the top three though it doesn’t really matter what you do now so you might as well just go all-in on your next good hand. Stealing blinds is a powerful move and although it can’t be the only move in your arsenal it should definitely be one you’ve mastered and use frequently.