Poker Tournament Stop and Go

A stop & go is used under these circumstances in a free online poker tournament.

You are in the blinds, and have what is (probably) the best starting hand.
A player in front of you has raised.
You are short-stacked enough that if you re-raise all-in you will almost certainly be called, which you do not want. (i.e. you've got a small to medium pair, which does not want to give overcards a full board with which to work.)

So the way out of this is to call the raise, and then push no matter what cards come. Remember that a scary board for you is a scary board for your opponent.

You need to have enough chips left after the call preflop to buy the pot on the flop. A pot sized bet or slightly bigger on the flop is ideal.

I generally prefer to stop-and-go with a made hand like a small pair. What I'm trying to do is: (a) conceal my hand; and, (b) defer the other player's all-in decision until he has fewer effective outs (outs x cards to come.

This can also happen when, for example, you flop two pair on a draw-rich board. Rather than push here -- where your opponents have two cards to come -- I will often wait and push if the turn blanks. Now they have only one card to come, and they're more likely to release their draws.

The underlying theory is that, when you have a made hand that is not likely to improve, against an unknown hand or a draw, you want to pressure your opponents at the time they are most vulnerable. A lot of hands look good pre-flop. Fewer look good on the flop, and fewer still at the turn in a free online poker game.

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The Stop-n-Go Technique

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