General SnG strategy/babble

[ihategnomes]

I really had never played a PP or affiliates SnG before a few weeks ago. I had primarly played at stars. But I believed I learned a lot more at PP than I have at stars in the last few months and I hope that some of this helps you.

Early Play:

Tight is right. A few months ago, I wouldnt have believed you. I was mostly playing $20's, playing very laggy and doing very very well for about 100 SnG's. Then I ran into a huge wall. I stopped winning and I couldn't figure out why. When this happened, I took some time to figure out a few things. While I was a decent live cash player, I really didnt know as much about SnG's as I thought! After understanding a few concepts, things started to turn around.

Tight is right, yes, but why? Well at Pokerstars, you play tight cause you can. Your stack is relatively large compared to the blinds. Pots are small on the flop. You have little folding equity unless your overbetting the pot. I generally dont even engage untill level 3 or later. Pay very close attention to the players, I know its a lot easier to get reads and notice a players style by being in pots with them but try to get a feel for the table and the players without playing marginal hands so when level 3 or higher comes, you know how to address the situation.

You play tight at Party Poker cause you have no other choice. You have 800 chips, that is unless you are playing the $50's or above. You can't afford to risk any of them on marginal hands. Play tight, then its all about the bubble play. Once you get near the money, you should know who you can shove around and the ones to leave alone.

Bubble play is what I learned from Party Poker. Once I applied a simular mentality at poker stars, I started to really crush the games.

Preflop raising amounts. A lot of people have different approaches. I use the typical 3xBB raise for everything I do, except when I have more than one limper infront of me when I have a strong hand. I will then generally do 3xBB plus 1-2BB(depending on the table) for every limper.

Middle to Late Stages:

Agression, Aggression, Aggression. There will be no limping here, unless I am trapping. You want position and authority. A few times when you can deviate from this, when you have a big stack and have good reads, taking some marginal flops can be good, cause you can still outplay and even bust them postflop. Dont lie to yourself about your reads. I use to, and it busted me quite a bit. I am starting to feel more comfortable about the range of hands I can put someone on, it just takes repetition/practice.

Biggest Difference between PP and PS during Middle to Late Stages.

During the period at stars, you could have folded and still been in decent shape. But at PP with all the fish, they tend to bust early. While this happens at stars some too, it doesnt directly effect the blinds like it does at PP. At PP the blinds move by the hands played, the shorter-handed you get, the faster the play is, the faster the blinds move around. I feel more comfortable camping longer in a stars SnG, than I would at a PP SnG.

So to sum up the general middle to late play, survive to this point, then use you existing knowledge of the players to bring you ITM with a moderate to good stack. One you get there its another beast, which I wont cover in this thread, as I have rambled enough. HU / 3-way is probably the next aspect of my game I am going to breakdown. When I do, I will probably write another thread. This is really my first strategy/babbling thread I have made so let me know what you think. Im sure there are many grammatical errors, I apologize, me no good at grammer

In conclusion:

The most important lesson I have ever learned. You dont have to play marginal hands when the blinds do not have a direct impact on your stack.

PS. Thanks to ilikeaces and Radashack for explaining some basic strategies that made all of my knowledge click. Thanks to everyone else at FTR, you have all been helpful in one way or another. I was missing something in my game, but I think I have found it.

[UG]

Great post, 'gnomes. As I told you in vent I'm thinking about possibly changing things up with my own game and playing more SNG's. This post will help me.

One thing I am wondering, though, is this. You say that tight is right early on. Assuming others know this strategy too, doesn't that mess your reads up for later on? Don't you think to yourself, "OMG this guy is a tight mother, I better not mess with him," but really he is just switching gears?

That's one thing I've always wondered about.

[ihategnomes]

A lot of players like to limp early on. You can still spot your maniacs. Call stations still call. Tight maybe, your reads are more based on postflop, what does he raise, what does he call, what does he check-raise and my favorite, how does he fold. That sort of thing and by he I mean he/she.

[Jade Priest]

I play mega tight in the beginings and stupid aggression later on. I need to learn to hold a little tighter in the end, I always chase the wrong hands when there is about 5 ppl left in the game. I do not know how many 5ths I have more than any other placement. but I love these guildes and will read them all once or twice.

[homerdash]

A lot of players like to limp early on. You can still spot your maniacs. Call stations still call. Tight maybe, your reads are more based on postflop, what does he raise, what does he call, what does he check-raise and my favorite, how does he fold. That sort of thing and by he I mean he/she.

Exactly right with the limping. True tight players don't even bother screwing around at the beginning. I find that projecting this image by mostly coming in preflop with raises and folding your small blind if you have crap like 35o (unless you're getting like 7 or 8 to 1 on your completion) pays off significantly in later blind levels.

By 50/100 I like to have shown at least one or two strong hands down where I was the aggressor. If you've got something really nice early on, if you think they would fold to a bet on the river then check so they have to showdown and you get to show without purposely doing it (aware players might think you're showing now to not have to show later when you don't have it).

Table image is super important in SNGs because of how the bubble works and that the good players will be the ones left unless a poor player is getting lucky. Them thinking you're tight = you taking all of their chips on the bubble.

[RHCNNN]

One thing I feel a little differently about is playing very tight at the beginning of the game. I feel that limping, or even calling raises when there are multiple people in the pot, with hands with potential (connectors, suited face cards, small pairs) are well worth the while because the extremely bad players who usually bust first will pay you off if you hit your hand.
For example, i have 79offsuit in the cut-off, in early position someone raises like 3x BB and there are 3 callers after him. I call, so it just cost me like 60 chips to take a look at a flop with 360 chips in it. The flop is 6,8,10 with 2 suited cards (not mine). The original guy raises, gets reraised by someone else, I re-reaise with my flopped straight. They both call. Next card is something irrelevant. They both check I go all in and they both call. One has AA the other has 2 pair.
I know this was a picture perfect scenario for me, but believe it or not this does happen, and sometimes it will be 2 pair, or sometimes an open ended str8 draw. And you can bet that people don't always know how to protect their top pair.

The way I look at it is, a small percentage of my stack now will not drastically change my situation for the following hands I will play. You can get a cheap shot at getting paid off big, and if you miss its easy to dump the crap. Maybe I'm only aware of the style of play at $10 SnGs, but thats all I play so far.... anyhoooooo I should be working (filing shit and taking deposits blah blah blah.)

[homerdash]

One thing I feel a little differently about is playing very tight at the beginning of the game. I feel that limping, or even calling raises when there are multiple people in the pot, with hands with potential (connectors, suited face cards, small pairs) are well worth the while because the extremely bad players who usually bust first will pay you off if you hit your hand.
For example, i have 79offsuit in the cut-off, in early position someone raises like 3x BB and there are 3 callers after him. I call, so it just cost me like 60 chips to take a look at a flop with 360 chips in it. The flop is 6,8,10 with 2 suited cards (not mine). The original guy raises, gets reraised by someone else, I re-reaise with my flopped straight. They both call. Next card is something irrelevant. They both check I go all in and they both call. One has AA the other has 2 pair.
I know this was a picture perfect scenario for me, but believe it or not this does happen, and sometimes it will be 2 pair, or sometimes an open ended str8 draw. And you can bet that people don't always know how to protect their top pair.

That scenario is way too picture perfect. Your biggest payoffs come from your opponent having second best hand. You can hit a flop of 933 with 93 all day, but you're probably not going to get any action unless they have A3 or 99 and one of those hands crushes you. The best hand you can hope to flop with any sort of consistency is 2 pair, which can be a huge trap when the lower of the pairs gets counterfeited on the turn.

Before the flames start, small pairs are good to call a normal raise or limp with assuming stacks are still near equal. If you're in position, add *good* (JTs, T9s, QJs) suited connectors to that list.

Doing the things you describe in a tournament is bad practice. Even if you double up early on in a SNG, you're not guaranteed shit unless you fold your way to 3rd. Using decent odds to hit things in cash games makes sense, because over the long term you'll be profiting.

[RHCNNN]

93 is not a hand with decent potential. And you get paid off from people with overpair/top pair ALLLLL the time (in low buy in SnGs anyway). Wouldn't you think AA is good on that flop? Shit, you might even think top pair is worth calling/betting one small bet.
And if I double up early in an SnG why would I have to fold my way to third? Why would anyone? Assuming you can play a big stack well ( and I am fully capable of weilding a big stack) then the chances of me placing ITM is much greater when I double up early. I'm not recommending taking coinflips for your whole stack early to double up. Where the downside is busting out. I'm saying chasing for affordable bets has a huge potential upside, and small downside.

I didn't mean to endorse a calling station style or anything, but I do believe chasing flush/straight draws when they are an affordable portion of your stack early on can reap great rewards especially against the morons who go all in with top pair in the first 5 hands of the tourney.

As for this being bad practice, I have repeatedly built huge stacks off of plays like this. I know its not a very large sample size, but out of my last 14 $10 SnGs i have:
6 1st
3 2nd
1 3rd
4 losses
^^^^don't mean to sound lame, just a little evidence to support my case hopefully?

[ihategnomes]

I generally wont call with these types of hands early in SnG's. Cause I have and it didnt work. I also need every chip I have to play later when the blinds are bigger and hopefully my hand is too.

[RHCNNN]

Why do you need EVERY chip you start with for later? Are you planning on pushing or folding? Even if you did, does it really matter if you double up to 2800 chips as opposed to 2600 chips.
Also I think you need to be competent at post flop play to play with those kind of hands. You need to be able to asses the situation case by case. Sometimes u call with your suited gappers and miss completely, but you can still rep that ace after he checks... or still reraise his feeler bet.

[ihategnomes]

Cause you dont need to rep early. Remember the number 1 thing I learned. Dont play marginal hands when the blinds dont have an impact your your stack. Its not for the double up now, but my double up later. For the most part I only play 20's and up, if your play lower, strats could change a bit.

[ihategnomes]

don't mean to sound lame, just a little evidence to support my case hopefully?

Not really, I play this many SnG's in a day. Thats a very small sample size. That stuff might work at the 10 were the average player is mediocre at best. At the $30's and above, people know how to play poker. Im not saying your a bad player, I'm just saying stating what I did to clean up my game, as I played the same way you did, and it worked well for 100 SnG's, did you even read that part?

[Jade Priest]

I always play tight I let others go out before me. Hell even IRL I play this way. I know I usually become small stacked but if I can play tight into the money then go aggressive seems to sound alright to me.

[gabe]

I also need every chip I have to play later when the blinds are bigger and hopefully my hand is too.

quoted for truth. you don't want to waste chips early on because when the bubble comes around you are going to need everything you can get.

RHCNN, try playing a SNG on party/empire. you will learn ALOT about bubble play and the important of playing tight early on (and not leaking chips). although identical play will not win you SNGs with better structures, it will teach you something.

[RHCNNN]

you guys are probably right. Your strategy is probably much more efficient at the games you are playing.
You're also right about not getting involved with mediocre hands early on when you don't need to.
Maybe I didn't articulate my ideas well enough (im sitting in class as I type this so not fully undivided attention).
I guess my main point was just that I like to be a little loose at the start of tournies cuz I feel I can afford to splash around with 10% of my stack and not be in a drastically worse position than I would with my full stack in later rounds.

[Bmxicle]

What about when every single player in the sng is atleast a decent player, and they are all playing weak tight like you are "supposed to". Do you think it is reasonable to loosen up and play hands on the button? These are pokerstars 100 dollar sngs and they are different from the lower buyin ones. Earlier on while everyone is playing weak tight seems like a good time to acquire chips and i've had success so far playing like this. Any opinions?

[ihategnomes]

Once you get to the level you are playing at, a lot of this is moot. I was gearing this toward the lower 10,20,30 buyin tournaments. Where generally you get paid off. I have never played the 100's. I am sure I will be in to them by July or so. Ive been ironing out a few holes in my game down in the 20,30,50 range. I believe they are good for honing your tools. You will get a good variety of play. Bmxicle: What kind of play are you seeing at the 100 level? Id imagine a lot of tight/aggreessives with a splash and fishy gamb0lers?

[Bmxicle]

I haven't played alot of them, but for the most part everyone is solid. There have been a couple fish, but even they are kinda tight cause its alot of money for them. I've also seen some plays where i couldn't tell if the person was a genius or an idiot, which kinda scared me haha. However, I don't think they are really hard to beat, because alot of people tend to play quite tight and you can take advantage of that. Also i can't see me multitabling these in the near future, when i play these i am 100% focused on every action from every player because what wins you these sit n goes is your reads.