I've been pretty much exclusively playing Sngs lately, and I've noticed a trend in players that can be profitable to take note of, so I thought I'd share. Don't know if this has been covered before, but if it hasn't... oh well.

In SNGs, particularly early on, I've noticed a funny trend amongst players. Let's say a player is in a pot. He Starts with nice raise... and plays the hand properly, and one of a couple things happens.
1) He was beaten the whole way by a slowplayer
2) He was the recipient of a bad beat
3) Or he was bluffed out of a big pot...
4) Or He Thinks he was bluffed out of a big pot, but doesn't know because there was no showdown.

This leaves the person shortstacked, and somewhat on Tilt. I cal this 3S Syndrome, or "Sudden Short Stack Syndrome." Great players avoid it, and Good players can recover from it, but there's a window of opportunity where you have to decide to either exploit it or avoid it.

You're in fairly late position, and the person with 3S Syndrome is to your left, or in the blinds. You look down and a 10-J suited, which could easily be limped from where you're at. You have to do two things for the next 4-5 hands when analyzing.

1) You have to look at the stack of the tiltee.
and 2) You have to decide if you're willing to call for that amount of chips.

People who are suddenly short stacked develop an immediate sense of desperation, more often than not. Any decent cards, and I'm talking pairs, connectors, big faces, anything... and they WILL move all in on you about 70 percent of the time, and more often than not, you're gonna have to muck your marginal limping hands. This is true of any big raise, but you can be more certain that one is coming if you watch out for the symptoms.

That being said, more marginal hands like a KQ might be worth a call, because he could be shoving with anything... and your Massive hands... They SKYROCKET in value here.

By being aware of this simple factor, I've saved myself some chips, and I've won myself some nice pots by capitalizing. I've found that if he survives 4-5 hands, they'll USUALLY settle down and play more rational poker, so your window of opportunity is small.

Avoid and Exploit.

Thoughts?