How NOT to Play a Big Stack in Sit N Go Tournaments

I played several $20 + $2 Sit N Go tournaments on both UltimateBet and FullTiltPoker over the weekend and was appalled by the poor play of my opponents when they held the chip lead. Rather than solidify their position and cruise into first place, they repeatedly made errors allowing their opponents to build their waning chip stack. Needless to say, this helped make them easy pickings.

While these chip leaders had the right idea by playing aggressively when playing as the large stack at the table, they lacked the knowledge of how to effectively implement this approach. Rather than execute well-timed, strategic raises, the norm was to make exorbitantly large raises frequently with little information. Although they frequently picked up what amounted to immaterial amounts from the blinds, they would take huge hits to their stack when they finally ran into premium hands.

You do not make calls just because you can afford to do so. Rather, you’d either have a chance of making a hand, or plan to steal the pot from your opponent in a later betting round.

I am a big proponent of using your stack to your advantage. However, this must be done intelligently. Specifically, you want to make moves that will slowly drain your opponents chip stack, but never do you want to double them up.

The Greedy Gecko