It is not a lot of fun to have spent an hour or so of your time playing a Sit n Go and suddenly finding yourself short-stacked in the final stages. However, there is a way to play from this position that will at least give you the opportunity to make a come back. I am not saying that you can dig yourself out of the hole every time, sometimes you will get unlucky, but you can make a comeback if you are patient.
  
First rule: do not go all-in unless you are under threat of being blinded off. By this I mean, if you have $5000 in chips compared to the average stack of $16,000, you are ok if the blinds are still relatively small. (like $800-$400) You can afford to wait for some decent cards at that point. However, if the blinds are large like $4000-$2000 then you are in trouble and you need to push all-in the first time you get a high card dealt to you. Many, many times, I see players eliminated playing A-rag when they did not have to get in a hurry and could have waited for a better opportunity. They panic and figured any Ace is good enough. It isn't because a lot of times you will be up against a player playing a "good" Ace. If you have $500 and the blinds are $160-$80, don't get in a hurry. You have time to pick your spots.

Most of the time though, you may be able to stick around at least until you make the "money" by NOT pushing all-in at the drop of a hat. Many times playing multi-table Sit n Go's, I see players with $4000 in chips with 18 players left in the tournament, playing hands that they shouldn't be playing. You DO need to push all-in in these situations, but only if you have cards.

What are "cards"? Well, quit playing A-rag for one thing. That is rule #2 and a classic mistake made by many players. You are short stacked and in early position and you push all-in with A-4. Not a good play. One or more of the big stacks is going to call, just to try and knock you out. You need to have some big cards to fight back against this.

The cards I wait for in these types of situations are: A-K, A-Q, A-J, MAYBE A-T, or any pocket pair. Otherwise, you are likely just throwing away the last of your chips. A-6 is going to be out-kickered too many times in these scenarios, you just cannot play weak Aces late in the tournament short-stacked unless you are about to be blinded off.

The other thing you need to avoid is playing suited cards. Things like 8-6 suited or K-7 suited are just too risky to play in these instances. They are not worth pushing all-in with. You would likely have to hit a flush to make them stand up and the odds of that are seriously against you. The time for playing these cards was earlier on when you could afford to lose a hand. At this point, you have no lee-way, you have to win or you are out.

Give yourself a chance to do so, you may be surprised to find yourself back in the tournament just by waiting for some decent cards to come up. If they don't you can always push all-in with something less than desirable if the blinds get too large later on.  For more tips please click here to purchase my ebook.  It comes with my 100% guarantee.

Sincerely,

Chris Wilcox
InternetPokerCoach.com