Cash vs. SNG

I'm late to the game here so forgive me if I am asking previous questions. Please point to the correct threads. I am experimenting with HU and I'm not sure about the correct game plan for either cash or sng.

I have watched some vids at cardrunners and grinderschool and I am seeing that cash is a little looser than sng because the blinds don't increase and you can reload. Therefore, my conclusion is that you need to be playing a little more standard and tightly in sngs. Are my assessments correct so far?

I understand that in both, you want to pay attention to your opponent and exploit their weaknesses. I'm not sure what hands to play when either on the button or oop for both. Please help me with understanding what are reasonable hands to play and when. Yes, I know that it depends and it's situational, but humor me please. :wink:

I guess that my biggest problem is that I have a hard time selecting hands when my stack is rather big compared to the blinds. I consider myself a decent short stack player and know when to get my chips in when short. That's from strictly playing MTTs.

Lastly, I tend to fair better playing cash HU than HU sngs. I think that it's because I am able to be more flexible since I can reload. This leads me to believe, as I said earlier, that I need to select my hands more carefully in HU sngs.

Theres a thread by ISF in here (shouldnt be hard to find, theres not many total :p) where he gives some advice on cash HU. Everything in there seemed to apply fairly well to SnGs.

You should find sngs easier I'd have thought. I've always found that one edge I generally have in the SnGs is that I understand shortstack play better than my opps, so I'm kind of at my best if they get the advantage over me, and I understand how they should play and how to counter that if its them thats short.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Theres a thread by ISF in here (shouldnt be hard to find, theres not many total :p) where he gives some advice on cash HU. Everything in there seemed to apply fairly well to SnGs.

You should find sngs easier I'd have thought. I've always found that one edge I generally have in the SnGs is that I understand shortstack play better than my opps, so I'm kind of at my best if they get the advantage over me, and I understand how they should play and how to counter that if its them thats short.

---

Yeah, I actually feel more comfortable when I'm short. But, I don't want it that way. In the early stages I feel lost. Especially when I'm raising a decent range and miss. I tend to follow-up with a c-bet quite frequently and then I go into losing too many chips early. I am playing fairly low buy-ins, and guess what, they don't fold that much. :)

I guess that I need to tight-up considerably in the early going and play standard ABC. Question, should I be checking flops that are wet and play pot control, or should I be c-betting almost 100% until they show me a reason to stop and fear being check raised? I guess I can answer this to some extent by saying that it depends. I would think that I should check wet flops if I'm playing a loose passive station. They're not folding.

I c-bet about 80% of missed flops until I get a reason not to. I dont mind checking one down early where I missed but had decent cards, to get them thinking that I only bet when I hit.

Often in these low stakes tourneys I find its about getting them thinking one thing about your game so you can take advantage by playing the opposite. Usually they dont catch on until its too late. For instance, especially if I'm a bit card-dead early, I'll play a passive nit game, esp postflop. They read you that way and assume you only bet when you have the goods, you steal a few big pots (because theres no way a weak passive nit would 3-bet that flop with nothing, he must have the nuts!) and before you know it their run of 40 chip pots is well outweighed by a few 300 chip pots going your way and you're 2000:1000 in chips and they're cursing the poker gods for letting you get so lucky.

I also find at the low stakes (I'm talking $10 here) that the majority of your opponents gravitate too far to one style of play. They're either over-aggressive (let them hang themselves), overly passive (only bet their made hands, dont bluff if they bet, but bluff a lot if they check, I tend to vary my streets v's them so its not too obvious), or they're a calling station (raise PF widely, c-bet often, slowdown if called, value bet the heck out of your good hands). Solid players are few and far between, you really need to just mixup your game so you dont become too predictable v's them.

DailyVariance gives a pretty good review regarding poker training sites if you want more options.