Folding Your Way Into the Money

"They also serve, who only stand and wait."

If you ever watch the beginning of a no-limit hold'em sit-and-go tournament, it's like watching bumper cars being driven by 12-year-old boys. Players are going all in as if they're playing with Monopoly money, with hands that one can only assume they've misread. For instance, I recently played in a $50 sit-and-go event on a very well-known poker site. By the way, many of you are aware that I'm the poker room manager at PokerStars.com. Like all staffers at PokerStars, I am not permitted to play for real money on that site. So, this sit-and-go was at another site. Anyway, on the second hand of the tournament, four players got all in preflop, all of them starting the hand with their original amount of chips or very near it. Amazingly, none of them managed to turn over pocket aces or kings! The best hand going in was Q-Q, but the pot was won by Q-10, which rivered a ghastly one-card straight. Suddenly, we had seven players, and the chip leader had quadrupled his stack.

I couldn't have been more delighted. Here, with the starting gun still echoing in our ears, we'd eliminated three players, and the guy with all the chips thought that Q-10 was a hand with which to jam in a four-way pot. I was going to point out that we could do an even seven-way chop at that point and we'd all show a 30 percent profit on our $50 plus $5 buy-in, but I was pretty sure that Mr. QT wouldn't go for it.

As the tournament progressed, it was clear that not only did Mr. QT think he was "running hot," but he was. Of course, rushes are only in the rearview mirror, but the laws of probability say that sometimes what you see in the rearview mirror will accidentally reflect what happens to you in the future. In this case, our chip leader could do no wrong. His small pairs flopped sets and crushed big hands. His ace-bad kicker flopped Ace-HisBadKicker-X and busted A-K. It was a sight to behold, and the players at the table could barely believe what was happening.

Me? I all but sat without moving and watched the carnage. Once, I got A-Q and made my standard raise of about three times the big blind. I got three callers (including the chip leader, of course). The flop came jack-high rags, somebody bet out, and I quietly folded. I limped a couple of times with small pairs, but flopped no sets, so I was quickly done with them.

But as I continued doing nothing, the other players continued smashing into each other and the chip leader, until we were down to four players – the bubble. I had a pitiful $500 in chips, and with blinds of $100-$200, I was about to be forced to play a hand. The chip leader had $6,000 in chips, and the other two players had $1,700-$1,800 in chips each. I was desperately looking for an ace or a small pair to play when a truly miraculous thing happened. The other three players managed to get all of their chips in preflop. The second- and third-place players had A-K and A-Q, and our chip leader had 3-3. His 44 percent chance of winning held up when no ace, king, or queen fell. Suddenly, I had gone from being the almost certain bubble person to a guarantee of second-place money.

Of course, my few pitiful chips were quickly swallowed up. Actually, when I finally busted out, Mr. QT went into the hand a dominating favorite, with A-7 against my K-7. This time the odds held up, and I was out.

But, of course, I was almost giddy. My opponents' misplay had moved me from losing one buy-in to winning three.

There are two key lessons here, and they are the backbone of successful sit-and-go play:

First, the sit-and-go is a relatively new beast in the poker world. Many folks play dramatically more hands than they should and get involved in potentially "fatal" situations when there is no reason to do so. Do not get involved unless the cards virtually demand it.

Speaking of beasts, have you ever watched those wildlife specials on TV, and seen the big, dominant males of some species biting, butting, clawing, and otherwise tearing each other up for the privilege of mating with the females? Sometimes I wonder if the females are thinking, "Hmm. Perhaps we'll go cozy up with the fellow over there who's staying out of the whole thing and hasn't been clawed, bitten, or butted. Maybe his brains and body are still intact." It's just something I think about.

Anyway, the other point is this: When you get down toward the bubble, it is crazy to risk busting out when you can almost certainly ease into the money. It is fine to make an aggressive move here and there to pick up a few chips that will help you advance from "in the money" to "first place." But, don't let your ego (or that of your opponent) get you into a situation similar to the one those two guys did in my event. Even if they hadn't tangled with the chip leader, it was foolish for them to run up against each other. The almost certain outcome was that one of them would be busted out, or nearly so. And that would almost guarantee my survival into the money. Because the event is a zero-sum game (ignoring the rake), my gain would have to come at their collective expense.

So, if you'll forgive my paraphrasing John Milton:

"They also cash, who only sit and wait."