Fixing SNG Leaks

[Aces]

Think I may have broken through and fixed some chronic leaks I've had. Had 4 winning days in a row over the past few days. The material in this forum and and especially in Soupie's essay have helped immensly, as most of his points relate to SNGs as well as MTTs. Most of these are common sense, but it's amazing what I forget/ignore in the "heat of battle". Some of these may seem basic, but I'll start with this one:

Leak#1 Playing like a short stack when you're not

I play Party SNGs exclusively, and I noticed I'd start getting anxious as my chips dwindled form 800 to 700, 600, 500 with a bad run of cards or just not hitting any flops. At some point, usually at level 3/4, I'd see I was low chip stack and think I needed to make a move soon, often being too aggressive with marginal cards. Occasionally this will work, but obviously not a good idea. Even w/500 chips and near or in last place at the 25/50 level, you're in OK shape. Have to remember there's still lots of poker left to be played. Just in the past few days I've come back from being last in level 3/4 to winning the SNG by just playing smart and not getting overly agressive.

I see many others go through the same thing as their stack dwindles or they go TILT after losing a big pot. They go all-in with complete garbage trying to pick off a few limpers, or make horrible calls. Avoiding this pitfall can make a huge impact on your ITM%.

At some point, when your stack is only some smaller multiple of the BB, or possibly if you have substantially less then everyone who is left, of course you need to play more aggressively to stay alive and go into short-stack mode, but doing this too early is a huge mistake.

Moral: Don't play as the short-stack until your stack warrents it

[RD Olivaw]

I think this concept relates pretty closely to Soupie's King Kong post. There are few things more frustrating than going from chip leader to wounded in just a few hands from making these mistakes.

[LeFou]

Aye, I think 10 BB is nothing to get alarmed about.

I'd put the "short stack" cutoff right around 7 BB, 8 or 9 if they're going up soon.

[a500lbgorilla]

When you have 3 times the Big and small blind is when I'm short stacked and really get in gear with any two cards. Course it doesn't hurt to find your hand when you're at 7 or 8, but I'll still show some patience.

-'rilla

[AJ]

I couldn't agree more. I went through the same revalation about 6 months ago. Now, I rarely play a less than premium hand in an SNG in the first 3 rounds. Even if I fold every hand with the blinds at 10/15, 15/30 and 25/50, I'm still left with 655 chips (Party 30+3).

Typically, this leaves me as 2nd or 3rd low stack (sometimes even low) but there are 2 or 3 of the maniacs gone. Obviously, It's even better if I have been able to play a really premium hand and pick up some additional chips by this point.

At the 50/100 blind levels a few things happen. Stealing blinds starts to have a value. Also, you have developed a table reputation of being tight and will be given more respect, making stealing a little easier.

This admittedly very simple strategy has yielded 48% ITM and 24% win rate over just about 100 SNGs over a 45 day period. My ROI is 70%. I realize that 100 games is not terribly statistically significant, but I beleive that the trend is real.

If the trend holds over 200 games, I'm thinking of moving up a level (50+5).

[Aces]

Leak #2 Playing AK or hi/mid PP too aggressively pre-flop

In early levels of SNGs, I'd find myself in MP with a good hand like AK/QQ/JJ and maybe a few limpers and a min raise in front of me. Thinking this would be a good shot to pick up some chips, I'd reraise big only to get reraised bigger again or put all-in. Of course with anything other then AA or KK this should be an easy laydown, unless you have a read on the guy. Occasionally I'd get stubborn and either call the big bet only to fold on the flop, or call an all-in and see that, duh, they do have KK or more likely AA and no miracle cards bail me out.

Another scenario is being UTG or UTG+1 w/AK and raising a std 3x BB, getting put all in or raised big once or twice. Again, this should be a fairly easy laydown but I would occasionally call or reraise all-in. Usually following Soupie's advice to use your allotted time helps me remember that QQ or especially AK can easily be dominated when a big reraise has been made.

These examples assume neither you nor the reraiser is short stacked, it's not shorthanded play yet, and you have no read or reason to think they're tilting. In some cases, of course, it would be acceptable to make these calls

If they did happen to either be bluffing, or reraising with something like TT or AQs or worse, then more power to them, they'll probably be gone soon anyway.

Moral: If there are two or three raises preflop and you're holding AK/QQ/JJ or worse, you're probably way behind.

Post 100

[xbones]

I was actually thinking about this earlier. AK early on I think is a horrible hand, blinds aren't big enough to be worth stealing, people tend to be a bit crazy so it's difficult to put them on a hand, and I rarely get help from the flop. What would be a suitable raise? 3BB - a raise of 30 (even to 100) isn't enough to scare idiots off.

[AJ]

bones, you're not trying to scare the idiots off. You said it your self, early on, the blinds aren't worth stealing. A raise of 3BB is entirely appropriate. In my mind, it does three things: 1) it juices the pot a bit if people call and you hit the flop, 2) it allows you to get away from the hand if someone makes a big raise behind you (and yes, I will fold AK to a big raise early in an SNG) and 3) it allows you to "hide" your strength when you do hit the flop.

Finally, at least for me, if my raise of 3BB is just called and I miss the flop, I am very cautious - even when it checked to me. Remember AK looks pretty but loses to a pair of dueces every time.

[DBL0SVN]

Just considering the other side of getting AK or QQ early on and getting heavily reraised/pushed all-in. There is a good chance that some maniac is going all in with ANY low-mid pocket pair or AQ, AJ or even A10. Admittedly, low pocket pair vs AK is coinflip and I'd lay AK down too. However, QQ dominates all hands except AA, KK and AK. In this situation in a SnG, I'm tempted to call (unless I already know the player is tight). If I win, I've doubled up and should make it ITM fairly easily. If I lose, I can get back into another SnG straight away, although I think I'd be winning more often than not given the number of maniacs in $5-$20 SnGs. In a big MTT, I may play it different since there is unlikely to be another big MTT to enter if I get busted out of this one.

[lolzzz_321]

Aces means "your" not "you're" at the end of his first post in this thread, I promise. I want to be editor for this website.