SnGs: What do you do in this situation?

I've started playing fake money SnGs at pokerroom.com (yeah yeah, I know -- totally diff than real money!) to force myself to stop playing super tight.

They are usually $100 buy-ins, starting at 5/10 blinds with 1500 chips.

My problem is, in the beginning some dude will land a great hand, and a few "maniac retards who just want to fool around with fake money, but are probably around in $5-10 real money SnGs" go all in.

Ok, now, after 1 or 2 hands, 1 guy has 6,000+ chips vs everyone else who has 1,500.

He now controls everything. I guess if you're really solid and know what you're doing, you can close in on his chips, and hopefully even take some away from him.

Problem is, in all the SnGs I've competed in, I'm usually stuck with 3000ish chips vs someone with 10000+ chips when it comes time to go head to head. I find it nearly impossible to overcome them in a heads up.

Other than "well, next time be the guy with 10000+ chips", what do you do in these situations?

From my POV, it feels like it's 100% luck/0% skill in these situations. With that little stack and blinds being more dangerous than your opponent's cards, you have to just pick 2 cards and hope they're better than his/hers.

Heads up. one word

RAISE

you want to be the agressor.

Make him call your bets, set the pace of the match.

Get him folding to you, giving up his big blind.
Don't let them limp in, re-raise it.

3x is usually enough.

Now don't get me wrong you can't raise EVERY pot, but i'll raise more than my share

Think about it, oyur heads up, folding and limping. You catch AA and raise, of course the guys going to fold. Don't give them any info!

Yeah. That's definitely the way to go. I learned that after my first heads up, and got trashed (I'm not used being aggressive).

But, what happens when your chip stack is 3 to 4 times less than his when you begin?

It's not easy to win pots when he can just call your weak bets down.

With blinds being as high as 250/500, you don't have much time to act, making it appear as if you're short stacked in a HU, you have pretty much no chance of winning at all -- unless lady luck is on your side and you get a streak of amazing cards (making it totally luck based).

Unless I'm missing something (quite possible since I'm a newbie)?

I think you are missing how quickly it can turn around. If he has 3x your stack, and you double up, you're even already.

Yeah, I realize that.

With nasty blinds though, that 3x almost instantly turns into 5x or even 10x after a hand or 2. Making you an almost guarenteed loss, unless your first hand (or maybe 2nd, depending on how aggressive you both play) is better than his.

Seems like a flip of a coin to me (total luck).

After playing nearly 10 sngs today I did see that most of the time the chip ratios aren't that bad. Quite a few today were 2:1, or closer to being even.

Maybe someone has a hand history or 2 coming back from a major chip disadvantage? I'd really like to see a few.

Sounds like you're playing on a site that has too big of blinds at the end of it. They all aren't that bad.

If he takes one or two of your blinds and his stack goes from 3x yours to 5 to 10x yours, that's pretty ridiculous.

If that really is the case, you'd obviously have to go all in on the first or second hand, and yes, that'd be almost completely luck, and there'd obviously be nothing you could do to change that.

Blinds are usually 250/500 when it comes time to heads up, I don't think I've seen them go higher than that.

2 hands = 4x chip advantage with no other betting.

When I gave that 10x figure, I was assuming you were delt an ok hand and possibly bet a little.

I only play at pokerroom.com because it's the only site I've found where they hold ring, sngs, and mt play money tournaments.

There are also many games to choose from. If a $100 buy in tournament fills up ($100 is the least amount you can use with play money) another one gets created instantly. I think the MTTs work the same way (I plan on playing my first one tonight).

Definitely good practice, once you get past the maniacs going all-in after the first hand or 2.

Edit:
Doh, looks like they don't have free money MTTs.