Super Systems: SAGE

The System

	This system gets a ‘FAIL’

Lee Jones’ Sit-And- Go Endgame system (SAGE) for no-limit Hold’em heads-up play

The Game

$100 worth of online heads-up matches 3 x $10, 1 x $20, 1 x $50

How we got on

Lee Jones is the author of Winning Low Limit Hold’em and cardroom manager for PokerStars. Jones, alongside maths teacher James Kittock came up with the Sit-And-Go Endgame system (SAGE) to help players open up in heads-up situations. Too many players tighten up, they argue, when in fact loose/aggressive play is a better strategy.

SAGE encourages players to get aggressive in jam-or-fold situations. It doesn’t evaluate the difference between the two stacks, merely the ratio (R in the table, right) between the short stack and the big blind. With just a couple of calculations SAGE will dictate whether you should jam the pot (if you’re SB) or call an all-in (if you’re BB), with the idea that as a short stack you’re giving yourself a chance to get back into the game or, as the big stack, wrap things up.

The system only kicks in once the short stack is around seven times the big blind, whether it’s you or your opponent that is getting close to the felt. As a short stack you have to decide whether to call for all your chips or, as the big stack, move all-in and risk doubling your opponent up.

SAGE comes in particularly helpful if your opponent is constanly pushing you all-in as it gives you a rough scale of what is giving you the best value to call mathematically. There’s no point getting blinded to death if someone is making a move every hand with any two cards. The J-10 suited power index score of 34 would see you moving in if you were the small blind or calling an all-in if you were the big.

If you apply the system directly and without prejudice (as we always do) it does ignore betting patterns so it was with great reticence that when two cautious players pushed all-in we had to call with Q-4 and J-6. On each occasion the other player had around a quarter of the chips in play and we lost to A-K and K-Q respectively. Also, there are no hard and fast rules for what you should do if you’re facing just a minimum raise from the small blind.

To test it fully we altered the way that we played heads-up poker by keeping the pots small so that the chips didn’t all go in before the blinds got too large. This did put us at a slight disadvantage as we weren’t looking to get maximum value on winning hands but merely cripple the other player so we could start applying the system. This allowed players to get back into the match where we could have already finished them off.

Result

$100 stake $20 return

We didn’t win our fair share of races which, when you’ve adopted a pre-flop all-in mentality, is the kiss of death. An 80 percent loss shows that passing responsibility over to the poker gods isn’t always the smartest move.

Lessons Learnt

If you normally have trouble getting your chips in when there’s a big difference between the stacks SAGE will help educate you as to the power of the all-in push and to spot when someone’s on the take. Any two cards can win of course, but if you think that you have someone in your pocket then you also have to evaluate whether you think it’s worthwhile giving them a chance to get back into the running. We also had a torrid time in our races losing the vast majority which, when playing this jam-or-fold method, is vital.

As an instant pick-up-and-win system SAGE will not give you instant success in the way Scott Fischman’s sitand- go or Sklansky’s all-in-or-fold tournament technique can. This is not to say that it’s without its merits but you need to get to the heads-up stage first.