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"Don’t worry, nothing too complicated."
Chapter 11: 3 Basic Strategies for Spins (Beginner)
The chapter you've probably been waiting for.
Written by Gandalf, professional Spin & Go player and co-founder of Poker Sciences.
The goal of this chapter is to give you three simple and immediately applicable strategies to start developing a winning approach in Spin & Go.
You’ll notice that most of these concepts focus on preflop play. That’s completely normal, because:
Preflop decisions represent about 70% of the gameplay in Spin & Go.
Recreational players make their biggest mistakes at this stage.
That means you can gain a massive edge over your opponents simply by minimizing your own preflop mistakes and capitalizing on theirs.
⚠️ Note that since this course is mainly aimed at beginner Spin players, the strategies we’ll cover here are extremely basic. If you’re even slightly experienced in this format, you probably won’t learn anything new here.
If you're looking for a complete tool to master preflop play in Spin with the most profitable advanced strategies, feel free to check out the Spin Poker Sciences Ranges.
Strategy 1: Never limp on the Button (BTN) in 3-max
When you're on the Button (BTN) in 3-max, you should never limp. This is one of the most common mistakes made by beginners.
Your only viable options are:
Minraising with your strong hands.
Folding if your hand is too weak to play.
Open-shoving, which becomes interesting below 18 BB with specific hands.
Preflop range BTN 18–25 BB (from Spin Poker Sciences Ranges). As you can see, the range includes only Minraise and Fold. Advanced players may notice that the range is slightly tighter than a typical BTN MTT range, because there’s often no ante in Spins.
📌 Why should you avoid limping in this spot?
Limping from the BTN doesn't apply enough pressure on the blinds, and it also prevents you from building the pot with your strong hands.
You give the Big Blind a free flop, and the Small Blind gets an almost free flop, which means they can realize their equity without investing more chips.
🧠 Key takeaway: If you think your hand is too weak to raise, fold.
Strategy 2: From the Small Blind in 3-max, play tighter than you think
The Small Blind is the toughest position to play in 3-max. Why?
You're always out of position against both the BTN and the BB.
The BTN’s open range is usually quite strong, including hands like broadways, Ax, and medium pairs — all of which often dominate your hands.
👉 As a result, you need to play much tighter than you probably think, and use an aggressive approach with your best hands.
When facing a BTN open raise or limp, your strategy should include:
A lot of 3-bet shoves (all-in).
A few selective calls with hands that perform well postflop.
Preflop Range SB vs BTN Open 14–18 BB (excerpt from Spin Poker Sciences Ranges). When facing an open raise from the Button, your range should mostly consist of 3-bet shoves, with a few selective calls.
📌 Why prioritize the 3-bet shove?
It puts tremendous pressure on the Button, who will have to fold a significant portion of their range.
You avoid playing out of position postflop.
You maximize your fold equity, especially since recreational players tend to call too wide with dominated hands.
🧠 Key takeaway: Defend very little from the SB. Prefer 3-bet shoving over calling.
Strategy 3: Adjust your calling range vs open shoves
Most of your opponents will open shove too tight.
This means you should not call too wide, contrary to what theoretical GTO (Game Theory Optimal) strategies would suggest (we’ll dive deeper into GTO in Chapter 13).
For example, in Heads-Up (HU) play from the Big Blind vs SB open shove at 17 BB deep, it’s best to use a conservative approach and only call with the top of your range:
Preflop Range BB vs SB Open Shove 16–18 BB (excerpt from Spin Poker Sciences Ranges). Your calling range here is made up only of your strongest hands.
📌 Why take this conservative approach?
Recreational players tend to shove too tight, meaning their range is strong → it's better to fold often and wait for a better spot.
Even if a call might be slightly +EV, it’s not always optimal. We want to extend the match, avoid high-variance confrontations, and protect our stack to capitalize on future mistakes from the opponent.
📉 Warning: the lower the effective stack, the more you need to adjust your play and widen your calling ranges. It’s essential to know which hands to call or fold against a recreational player.
To help with this, the following chart shows which hands to call depending on the remaining blinds when facing an open shove (all-in) from the SB in Heads-Up.
This chart assumes the SB is a recreational player and applies an exploitative strategy (not GTO — more details on this in Chapter 13):
Calling Chart in Heads-Up — BB vs SB All-In
How to read the chart:
Example:
→ Call an SB shove with Q7o starting from 6 BB
→ Call with T5s starting from 5 BB
Hands marked with "s" (suited — e.g. J♦️8♦️) are above the diagonal
Hands marked with "o" (offsuit — e.g. J♦️8♣️) are below the diagonal
This chart is extremely valuable. Save it and refer to it regularly during your grind.
🧠 Key takeaway: recreational players rarely shove from the BB in Heads-up. Be cautious when they do.
