Heads Up With Scott Fischman and Steve Zolotow

Scott Fischman got his poker upbringing online, and is known for his sit-and-go skill. He recently sat down with Card Player TV to talk about six-handed sit-and-go strategy.

Kristy Arnett: Players are mostly familiar with nine-handed sit-and-go strategy. What should those players who are making the transition from nine-handed to six-handed sit-and-gos keep in mind?

Scott Fischman: I think you have to keep in mind the structure difference, and the range differences and hand choices. It’s just a different game. Don’t even pretend that it’s the same thing.

KA: General sit-and-go strategy is to play tight early and aggressive when shorthanded, but in six-max sit-and-gos, you start shorthanded. Should you play aggressively, as you would in a nine-handed sit-and-go once it gets down to six, or should you still start out playing tight?

SF: Definitely start out playing tight, but other people are going to play really loose from the get-go, so you do have to loosen up your calling ranges a little bit. That’s the big difference. I still wouldn’t be coming in raising with K-Q, A-J, and none of that garbage, but they will, so when you have pairs, you need to call more. When other people are raising, you need to call their raises more. But I play pretty tight on my opening ranges.

Card Player columnist Steve Zolotow is a longtime poker pro with $1.9 million in tournament winnings and two World Series of Poker bracelets. He recently sat down with Card Player TV to discuss establishing a table image in a tournament, and he emphasized the danger of losing while attempting to create an image.

Kristy Arnett: I read a column that you wrote about establishing a table image in a tournament and how it might not be profitable because it can cost you a lot of chips. Can you talk about that?

Steve Zolotow: It’s a very difficult thing to establish a table image in general, because what you’re doing is advertising, and advertising costs money. In a tournament, even if you don’t know some of the players and they may get the wrong impression of you, tournament officials may break your table, and you’ve spent a lot of chips to convince people you have this image, and they’re gone. It’s not like a cash game, where you play six, eight, 10, or 12 hours, and establishing an image means a lot. My general theory on establishing an image is to sort of let the cards do it for you. If you’re picking up a lot of good hands, you’re going to be raising a lot of pots and playing aggressively, and you’re going to create sort of a loose-aggressive image, so go with it. Don’t try to steal pots, because people think you are loose. Wait for a good hand.