By Mark Stuart, Managing Editor, Poker Player Magazine

There was a time when winning sit-and-gos was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Now, across all the major sites, there are thousands of multi-tabling SNG career players each playing hundreds of games a day for big profits! So how can the average recreational player hope to compete with these SNG geniuses. The answer? Level the playing field. The reason these players got so good and are now able to exploit every edge, is through maths, studying the SNG format and, perhaps most importantly, the use of SNG software. And one of the very best examples of this is SitNGo Wizard. I’ve been playing sit-and-gos for about three years now and have made steady profits over more than 5000 games by using these kinds of programs. If you haven’t been privvy to this kind of analytical software yet, it’s time to join the party…

How does it work?
Sit-and-gos are typically very shallow-stacked tournaments with quick blind increases. As such, there comes a point in an SNG when virtually all the players are short-stacked in relation to the blinds. At this point the game becomes a mathematical exercise, where you’ll be either folding, pushing all-in or calling an all-in, trying to make the optimal play based on ICM. If you’re unfamiliar with this term you should do an internet search for ‘ICM’ and read up about it, as it is perhaps the most important aspect of SNG endgame strategy. Briefly it’s a way of calculating whether you should push, fold, or call in any given hand when players are looking to make it into the money and then go on and win the game.
Unfortunately, unless you’ve got a brain the size of Stephen Hawking’s you’re going to have difficulty calculating in precise mathematical detail whether to push or fold in the time it takes for the timebar to count down. That’s where SNG Wiz comes in. After you’ve finished a game you can load your hand history into the software and it will assess whether you made a correct decision, an error, or sometimes whether it’s too close to call. (It’s worth noting that you can’t use the SNG Wiz while you’re playing – that would be cheating – and the software will stop you from using the functions while many of the poker clients are open.)

If you find the inputting of numbers and studying of push and fold tables all a little bit too tedious and geeky, you can also play the quiz, which is a neverending series of questions in a wide variety of situations where you simply have to take a look at the simulated table and say whether it is best to push, fold or call – it’s a nice little feature that should get you thinking about the dynamic of short-stacked play in no time.

How will it make you a better player?
Quite simply, by reviewing your hand histories and getting a definitive answer on which is the optimal play in a given situation you will start to make the right pushes, calls and folds more often, which should see you cashing much more frequently. In no time you’ll be the shark exploiting weaker players who have no idea of correct ICM play at key stages of the sit-and-go.

Any drawbacks?
It can be a bit fiddly inputting hand ranges and creating theoretical situations, but there is a video tutorial on the site for quick set-up and guidance, plus a dedicated forum. If you’re not an analytical person (I’m definitely not) you probably won’t end up studying all the graphs, charts and playing around with the wealth of stats that are available. The cost – $99 – might put some people off, too, but there is a 30-day full working trial, and a three-month money back guarantee offer, if you really don’t like it.

To sum up
In short, whatever stakes you play at and however many SNGs you play, you really need a piece of analytical software like SNG Wiz. It’ll pay for itself after just a handful of games, and you should start playing a near-perfect endgame strategy with just a few minutes study each day. The quiz section alone should improve your short-stack play immeasurably. One thing’s for sure, if you don’t find out where your leaks are and what the optimal play is, you’re giving up a huge edge on the competition. Because you can bet all the dollars in your poker bankroll that the very best SNG players are doing exactly that after most sessions.

Check Out SnG Wizard Now