When we reach the last stages of a Sit & Go Casino Malaysia tournament, it becomes even more important to make a good evaluation of our opponents, this will give us a great advantage because it will help us determine how to play against each of them. In principle, we will base our poker strategy on the size of your stack.
If our opponent is a short stack, we will be facing an opponent who has a better chance of going all-in with marginal hands, since they feel the pressure of the increasing blinds. When we are in a hand with a short stack we should bluff less, since this type of opponent is more willing to put the rest of his stack in play, especially if they have already invested a good part.
When we enter a pot with a marginal poker hand, we need to make sure how he has played the short stacks up to that point in the hand. If he played before us and folded, then we won’t have a problem with him. But if the short stack hasn’t played yet, we can consider entering the pot. There is a good chance that the short stack will move all-in, so if we have a marginal hand, we have two options: fold or call and hope for luck.
If we’re in the small blind with a strong hand, and the short stack is in the big blind, we can play another way: if it’s our turn, we call, since the short stack is likely to push all-in; if we raise, our opponent is likely to fold, and we lose the chance to win a bigger pot.
The opponent who has a medium stack is the one we should focus our attacks on in the later stages of the Sit & Go tournament. This is because the mid stack is trying to get money from the short stack. Aggression is essential when playing poker against a mid-stack, as they are the most likely to fold when faced with an aggressive bet.
If we’re in the small blind, and the mid stack is the big blind, we should try to steal the blinds more than we normally would. We need to raise more frequently, as the middle stack will probably play conservatively to get into the money.
If he calls our raise and comes to the flop, we should stop pressing: his stack is down when he sees our raise, and he’s likely to go all-in on the flop, even if he doesn’t have a big hand.
The large stack is the most dangerous opponent in the later stages of a Sit & Go tournament. He is the one who is more likely to take some risks, and get into pots even without having a great hand. If we have a mediocre hand, we should avoid bluffing against a large stack.
But if we have a big hand, like A-K, for example, and the large stack raises pre-flop, we should call his raise as he will probably try to fold us next, probably with a bluff. Against a large stack we can safely double our chips, unless we assume that our opponent has connected on the flop. If the flop cards are high, then we will avoid the showdown.
