How to Beat the Micro Stakes SNGs

From personal experience I can tell you that the micro stakes sngs can be tough to beat. They’re different than the small to medium stakes. Players at the micro stakes don’t fold, dish out bad beats like it’s going out of style and the payouts are much smaller, making it harder for you to boost your bankroll and move up.

It’s frustrating.

But they are beatable, despite what you may think or what your friends have told you. I recommend reading my tips below and putting them into action right away. If you can do that, run good and stay sane in the process, I think you can make the jump to the small stakes before you know it.

10 Tips to Help You Beat the Micro Stakes Sit and Go’s

1. Play ABC (SNG) Poker

This is worn out advice, for sure. But it works. Stick to the fundamentals and you can’t go wrong.

Why?

Because your opponents don’t know or care about the fundamentals. And doing the opposite of what they’re doing is often a good strategy.

So what is ABC poker, at least in regards to sngs?

• Raise when you have a good hand
• Bet your good / made hands
• Fold your unmade / worse hands
• Shove or fold with 10 big blinds or less
• Play according to position
• C-bet, bluff and steal blinds less often
• Don’t slow play

If you aren’t using ABC poker strategy, and make the switch now, I’m sure you’ll see a noticeable improvement in your wins, cashes and overall hourly rate.

2. Learn Push/Fold Strategy

Push / fold strategy is key to being a sit and go winner, regardless of the stakes you play. But many beginner and/or losing sng players don’t know what it is, why it’s important or they cannot get over the awkwardness or fear of shoving random hands.

So lets cover those points briefly.

Push/fold strategy is shoving all in or folding when you have 10 big blinds or less. You don’t raise or call, unless it’s a tactic to eventually go all in. The reason why we push or fold at 10 big blinds or less is because a) you don’t have enough room to actually play poker, and b) whenever you commit chips with 10 big blinds or less you’re committing a large portion of your stack. It’s a mistake to call or raise, then fold with so few chips and so much money in the pot relative to our stack.

So that’s the basic idea. To learn push/fold strategy you’ll want to pick up a tool like SNG Wizard. This takes your hand histories, figures out the ICM and helps you figure out what hands you should shove and when, based on stack sizes, your opponents’ ranges and more.

3. Abuse the Bubble

Abusing the bubble is a solid tactic in the micro stakes, because random players are really wanting to make the money. They’ve been playing for 30, 45, 60+ minutes, so they want to cash at all costs.

Constantly shoving over / into them is a great way to exploit that fear.

It comes with one caveat though — as I mentioned above, random/fishy players aren’t good at folding. So if a player calls you (light), you’ll want to keep that in mind for the future. That way you can adjust your range versus that player.

4. Don’t Continuation Bet Often

Because you have less fold equity at the micro stakes, I recommend not continuation betting very often. What will often happen is that you’ll c-bet the flop, the random player will call, and you’ll wonder what to do on the turn. You just end up spewing chips. So I recommend giving up more often than not if you miss the flop.

5. Raise Your Good Hands 4x-5x

A standard raise is between 2-3x, depending on the level. However, in the micro stakes you have little fold equity that you can get away with raising more with your good hands — like 4x-5x.

Don’t worry about your opponents catching on to your betting sizes — they’re not paying as much attention as you think.

6. Limp Small Pocket Pairs

I usually advise against limping your hands when you’re the first player in the pot. It’s nearly always better to raise, because you can build a pot, induce folds and so on.

However, at the micro stakes it makes more sense to limp your baby pocket pairs — 22s through 10s. This is ideal for a couple of reasons. One, many players will over limp, giving you multiple players to win money from if you hit your set. Two, it’s a small investment on your part if you’re re-raised and you have to fold. Three, since you can hardly c-bet, it doesn’t make any sense to raise and bloat the pot.

7. Don’t Isolate Too Often

I don’t raise too often to isolate limpers / weaker players in the micro stakes for the same reasons mentioned above.

For example, one mistake that I’ve made a few times is re-raising a hand like AJ or AQ from early position. I have the best hand often, but what ends up happening is that you get multiple callers after you that all have position on you. They bloat the pot, too, so you can’t c-bet without risking your stack. So it’s more cost effective to over-limp a hand like this from early position, and then just play the hand aggressively if you hit the flop.

8. Review Your Hands Often

Reviewing your hands often will give you the opportunity to see if you’re following my advice above. Are you shoving or folding with 10 big blinds? Are you getting out of hand with small pairs or AK? Do you play too much from the blinds? You’ll only know if you review.

9. Play Too Much in the Blinds

One leak that I had personally was playing too much from the blinds. I think I played from the blinds because I had a so-so hand and it was cheap to complete. The problem, however, is having a hand like K7s or A4o and catching a piece. You might have the best hand, but often times you won’t or will be outdrawn later. Being out of position makes the entire hand awkward, too. I recommend playing from the blinds only if you have a strong hand, or a suited connector or ace that you’re willing to fold even if you connect (think like weak pair or two pair).

10. Don’t Overplay AK or Pocket Pairs

Another mistake I see from beginners is that they will happily stack off with AK or their small pocket pair. The problem is that if you’re called (or you’re doing the calling), you’re usually a flip at best, and at worst, you’re crushed.

Sure, being a 51 or 56% favorite is still a favorite. It’s winning long term. But it’s a high variance play, meaning that you’ll see big swings in your favor and big swings not in your favor. Instead, you want to look for spots where you’re a 60, 70 or 80% favorite. That way the variance you experience (that many beginners cannot handle) are small, manageable and quick to get through.