A Big Surprise For You...
Monday, August 28, 2006
...some actual content, for a change.
Wow, it seems like I haven’t written anything worth reading here in a LONG time. I could have posted something last Thursday night, but after reading the drivel I had written, I didn’t feel like even putting it up. For that, I apologize. I was then gone all weekend dodging storms and lightning bolts on the lake and hanging out in a microwave trailer (the AC quit this weekend) for the rest of the weekend. When I finally got home yesterday, all I wanted to do was sleep inside in a cool room. And sleep I did, all freaking afternoon.
I woke up around 5 pm and while the wife was cooking dinner, I thought I would fire up some Party Poker and sit down and play. I did for a few minutes, but it didn’t take me long to realize that my heart wasn’t in that either, so I logged off and spent the evening watching my Rangers finally take a game from the A’s. It looks like another disappointing finish for my Rangers this year, but, there’s always next year! I also watched almost all of Deadwood on HBO last night. I’m not sure if that was the last episode of the season, but I sure hope not. It is really starting to get good and I look forward to more of it next week.(like I do every week)
We have a busy karaoke schedule in the coming weekends, so it will leave me little time for playing poker except during the week. This Friday night will be the exception to that statement. We do have to do karaoke on Saturday night this weekend, but I have to work on Saturday morning, so I will be at home Friday night, probably alone, and left to play some poker without interruptions. So, it could be the Crazy $3 Re-Buy time on Stars this Friday night. We’ll just have to wait and see.
___
Now for lack of anything better to write about, I present:
Low Limit SNG Tournament Strategy
Part 1
Early Game:
There are differing theories of how to approach the early portions of a SNG and really, there are many good strategies that can be employed. You can start out as the aggressive maniac, trying to build a stack early and coasting into the money. Good strategy that works very well if you indeed build a large stack of chips. You can also start out the early stages of a SNG playing the tight, rock, only entering pots for raises with premium hands. This is the strategy that I use most often and it works well when you catch good starting hands or hit a few flops hard.
The key to the early portions of a single table tournament is to build chips and avoid coin flips. I won’t put all my chips at risk early in a tournament unless I know that I’m ahead when the money goes in. I shy away from confrontation for the most part, unless I know that I am dominating the other player. I want to be able to make it to the middle portion of the tournament regardless of what my chip count is and getting three-outered early on in a tournament defeats my purpose.
My purpose in the SNG’s is simple. Make it to the money. Of course, I want to win every single SNG that I play, but you cannot win a SNG without making it into the final three spots. I tend to stay out of the way for the most part until I have made it into the paying spots. Even if I limp into third place with the short stack, that is the immediate goal.
Once you have started to build a stack in the early portion of a tournament, you have several more options available to you. You can sit back and play only strong starting hands and try to pick off the short stacks or you can become the table bully and push everybody around with your big stack. I’m not very good at it but there are a ton of folks out there that live and die by this strategy. It usually ends up in one of two ways. They either continue to catch cards and crush all the other players or they are quickly busted back down to an average stack or dispatched from the tournament before the money. These are the players that I try to trap at every opportunity.
My personal strategy in the early stages is that of the tight rock. I know that probably comes as a shock to most of you, but I am what I am. I do play a few more hands early on in a tournament than I would ordinarily play in the middle stages of the tournament. I like to limp in and see cheap flops with hands that could turn into monsters. Small pairs looking for a set, or suited connectors, looking to flop big are typical hands that I will come into a cheap pot with. These types of hands are the types that can certainly double you up with the right flop and set you up to be a competitor in the middle to late stages of the tournament.
My own opinion of early stage play is to play tight and avoid confrontation at all costs, unless you know you are ahead. Not think, but know, that you are ahead. I prefer to do my gambling in the end game. My only goal during the early stages of a SNG is to make it to the middle stages. If I happen to double up or build my stack up a bit during the early stages, that is just gravy, but as long as I make it to the final 6 players, I am happy, because you cannot make it to the money without first making it to the middle stages of the tournament. Harrington said it best: It’s all about survival baby!
Part 2
Middle Stages
The middles stages of a SNG are normally where the play starts to tighten up across the board from all the competitors. Nobody wants to go out before the money and the play during this portion of the tournament reflects that.
My own strategy during this portion of the tournament is to play only very strong starting hands and play them for a raise every single time. I don’t limp into very many pots during this time unless I have a commanding chip lead. If I have a lot of chips, I will play a few more hands and see a few more flops, hoping to flop the big hand and pick off the short stacks. Like I said before, I don’t take on the role of bully very well, so I usually avoid it at all costs. That doesn’t mean that I won’t take a coin flip at this point in the tournament if it means I have a legitimate chance to knock somebody out.
If I don’t have a lot of chips, I pick my spots very carefully at this point. Often times when we get down to 6 people left in the tournament, I will have played only a few hands and have a bit less than the starting 1500 chips. If this is the case, it is still no time to panic. More times than not, the blinds are still very manageable at this point and there is absolutely no reason to lose your mind and start playing hands any differently than you have thus far.
One of my main strategies during any stage of a SNG is to vary the size of my raises and/or bets. You can bet that at least a couple of people at the table are paying pretty close attention to what is going on at the table, as you should be, as well. You should be noting all sorts of different things that are going on, whether you write them down or not is up to you, but a mental note should definitely be made any time you see something that you could possibly use to your advantage later in the tournament. Back to the point, I vary my raises from (gasp) min. raises to standard (4x the big blind) raises to larger (often 5 or 6 times the big blind) raises, depending on my hand. The thing that I’m trying to accomplish is to make it near impossible for my opponents to put me on a range of hands. I also never show down a hand unless I get called down. In my opinion, this is free information for your opponents and I don’t believe in giving out any information that they don’t pay to see. As soon as you start showing down hands, your opponents start to develop their own thoughts regarding your style. The more thoughts they form about your style, the more ammunition they have to use against you later in the tournament. The early portions of a tournament usually don’t involve a ton of strategy. Normally, the poor players push their poor hands and are scooped up by the better players. When you make it down to six players left, they are usually 6 decent players. Occasionally, this is not the case, but for the most part, the middle game is populated by players that have a decent understanding of the game and the play normally reflects that.
My only goal, once I have made it to the middle stages, is to make it into the money. If I have a big stack, I will usually steal a bit more than I do in the early stages, but, that doesn’t mean I will try to steal with any two cards, because there is nothing worse than being priced into making a call when you are holding trash. One or two of those situations and you have depleted your stack a bit and given somebody on the respirator a second life. Bad business and I try to avoid that situation at all costs. Often, that means throwing away a speculative hand before the flop, rather than trying to steal with it. If you have a read on the players behind you, this situation becomes a bit clearer, but you still have to treat each situation very carefully. Remember, at this point in the tournament, you are looking to make it into the money. Worrying about moving up a spot or winning the whole tournament comes later.
Part 3
End Game
I break the end game down to three levels. Bubble, ITM and heads-up and I will try to discuss all three of those here.
Bubble play.
Obviously, you have not made it into the money at this point and that is your first goal. If I am the big stack in this situation, I tread very lightly and look for every opportunity to pick off the short stacks. Often, this means slow-playing some pretty strong hands in situations where I wouldn’t normally play slow. Pocket pairs in the big blind with only one caller is my favorite hand to slow play, especially if he just calls and I flop my set. Most of the time, a large bet post-flop will scare off your opponent, so you have to give him a chance to hang himself. A lot of times, a simple check-check will accomplish this task, especially if they are down to desperation time with their chips.
Remember, when you are on the bubble, you are one bad call or one lucky flop from going to the rail with no money coming back into your account, so take that into consideration at this point. Most of the time, there is one and sometimes two short stacks that are in desperation mode. The rule of 10 or M of 8 says that they push most of the time at this point, so you want to be very careful with the cards that you enter a pot with.
If we get to this point and I am the short stack, I have one move – all-in. I fold everything but decent hands and I push at every opportunity, hoping one of my opponents gets impatient and calls me with less than stellar hands. Until I get to a point that I am not the short stack, I am pushing or folding. There are opportunities to slow-play at this point, but I do not advise it, nor do I do it very often. Slow-playing A-A in this situation will get you three callers, a very coordinated flop for someone else and you, muttering about a bad beat to yourself. It works on occasion and I use it on occasion, but slow-playing a big hand pre-flop is just asking to be sucked out on, in my opinion.
On the other hand, slow-playing post-flop in this situation is a move that I use often. If I happen to see a free flop and flop a monster, I will invariably check, hoping for a bet from someone else. My ultimate goal here is to double up and continue on in the tournament and a bet, often times, will lead to nothing but folds. Just know this about slow-playing: It might still be a bad beat, but you are the only one responsible if your Aces get cracked because you slow-played them. It might have been a terrible call on his part, but scooping the blinds with a raise or push is a lot better than someone flopping two pair with 10-4 off-suit, because you limped in.
In The Money
Once you have made it into the final three players and have cashed for sure, you can loosen up your play even more than before. In fact, you have to loosen up your play more, because, at this point, the blinds are becoming a factor and if you are still in fold, fold, fold mode, you will be blinded into oblivion before you catch a hand. Also, if you are still not playing any hands, you will not get any action from the other two players when you do finally catch a hand and raise it up pre-flop.
At this point, you have accomplished one of your original goals: Making the money. Now, your goal becomes moving up from 3rd to 2nd position or protecting your chip lead and ultimately, winning the tournament. With a substantial chip lead, I move into a more aggressive mode with my bets, raises and starting hand selections. I play a lot more hands than I’ve played earlier in the tournament and I raise with a lot more hands than I raised with earlier. Hopefully, at this point, the other two players have tagged you as a solid, rockish player that hasn’t gotten out of line too much during the tournament. This will lead, at least for a while, to them still showing respect for your raises. Obviously, if they are severely short-stacked, the respect goes out the window, because they will be pushing with any decent holdings, but you should already know this and not get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, trying to steal their blinds.
This is also a spot where I will slow-play a big hand, given the opportunity. You want all of your opponent’s chips in the middle and a chance for you to scoop them. Again, sometimes it is best to let them hang themselves. Overall, I am an opponent when it comes to slow-playing big hands, but there are certainly good opportunities for it, especially during the final three or heads-up portion of the tournament.
Heads Up
Playing an opponent heads up at the end of a tournament requires a much different strategy than you have used up to this point. I like to raise or fold in every single spot when I am heads up. I try to vary the size of the raises in order to keep my opponent guessing as to my holdings. I raise big with poorer holdings and min-raise with big hands for a while and then change it up to just the opposite the deeper we get into the tourney.
Playing heads up requires a lot of practice to become accomplished. I don’t think anybody is a good heads up player at first, I know I wasn’t. It wasn’t until I had made it into that position many times that I finally started to realize what worked and what didn’t. I don’t play any heads up matches on-line, unless it is at the end of a tournament, but I feel like I have become a better player at the end of the game than I was before. Again, it was only after doing it many times that I started to get into a groove and really felt like I could outplay my opponent more often than not. Good cards helps, but they only go so far. You have to be able to outplay your opponent heads up to win a tournament more often than not.
That is about all I have to say on the subject of low level SNG strategy. Obviously, these are just my modest recommendations and they come with no guarantee that they will work. You have to develop your own style in order to be successful on a regular basis. These are just some tips that have worked for me. Good luck to you.
G
posted by GaryC @ 3:32 PM,
