5 Sit & go's

Hi everyone - just registered been reading a few weeks now.

I know many of you play these at Pokerstars, and I have recently changed to play these exclusively, from the low-limit limit games. I found that I was losing at the limit games and have made back my losses so far playing the no-limit S&G's. I have been keeping stats and have played 18 so far, and am in the money about half the time.

I have really been playing poker for only about 6 months now and know that many or most of you are probably better players but to those that play here and are keeping stats, how has it gone so far?

I am trying to figure out if I am on a good streak or if this is a realistic expectation. I have been making about 3.75 per tournament entered so far in my admittedly short time there. To me, that seems higher than I will expect long term.

On the other hand, my strategy seems pretty fool proof given the texture of these games, and that is to just play SUPER tight in the beginning, only playing premium hands, especially in early position, and wait for the dust to settle. There are usually two or three peope gone before I really start playing.

I usually get in the top 5 or so with one of the shorter stacks, but find I can usually pick my spot to double up or bluff a little more with my tight image. That seems to be working.

I guess my question pertains to wondering how successful those of you that play them have been? There seems to be a large difference between my success playing .50/1.00 (bad results) versus $5.50 S&G (good results) there, and I am wondering what others have seen.

Also, can anyone comment on the difference in quality from the $5 to $10 tables? Is there a noticable difference?

Thanks and great site.

Comments

  • I generally play the $5, so I don't have too much experience with other buy-in levels.

    I make it into the money about 40% of the tournaments, and I would say I'm a long run small winner. Maybe something like +$0.50 EV net (i.e. including the house drop in the losses). I'm clearly not playing these with the purpose of making money. It's mostly for practice (you get a lot of practice at shorthanded tournament play) and for fun.

    So, 50% in the money sounds like you're doing well, and that's certainly not an unreasonable result. However, don't forget to track your money profit/loss (or ideally, per hour). In the loing run, this is the thing that matters most in poker (or possibly the only thing that matters). Your +$3.75 per tournament is certainly annihilating my +$0.50 per tournament. 8)

    What sets off some alarm bells to me is that you are having trouble beating a $0.50/$1.00 cash game online. While the rake is tough at this sort if limit, this level game is usually soft enough to be beatable at most online sites.

    Keep in mind that the variance in poker is mind bogglingly high. If you say you've been playing for only 6 months (and I assume playing online for less than that?), your results are probably driven almost entirely by the variance. So it's probably hard to make conclusions yet as to whether you are playing well or poorly in either the cash games or the tournametns.
    On the other hand, my strategy seems pretty fool proof given the texture of these games, and that is to just play SUPER tight in the beginning, only playing premium hands, especially in early position, and wait for the dust to settle. There are usually two or three peope gone before I really start playing.

    This is generally how I approach these $5 SNG's as well. A decent strategy can even be to push the "sit out" button at the start of the tournament and taking 15 minutes to get a sandwich or something.

    Mmmm... sand-wich

    It's debatable what the "right" way to play the opening rounds in a NL tournament is, and I also agree with a lot of arguments out there as to the value of playing a *lot* of hands early if you think you have a good chance of limping in.

    I really end up using a mixture of these, and it depends heavily of the pre-flop texture of the game, and my pre-flop position. I'll play many more hands from the SB than from UTG (even though the post flop position is slightly worse), not because it's only half a bet to limp in (which hardly matters in the early rounds), but because I'm 2nd last to act pre-flop.

    I find that the best thing about a tight early round style allows me to steal blinds very effectively later on. And I try to pick up the blinds quite a lot in the middle rounds. (Poker Tracker says I attempt to steal about 67% of the time when in stealing position.)

    Well, good luck with the SNG's!

    ScottyZ
  • Thanks Scotty. I am tracking the per hour rate as well. Going from memory (I have the stuff on my home computer) I think it's in the $3.00 range. (and as with my per tounrament, this is after the 5.50 buy in is deducted).ld be happy with $1 per tournament long term. I Expect that is reasonable form what I have seen so far. I'm looking for confirming stories here!

    I only spent about 35 hours playing low limit poker on-line, and just found that I was getting sucked out on too often that I was getting frustrated LOL. I think I was posibly playing TOO tight there. I hadn't figured out what the proper style was, but had thought a top ten hand strategy would work. I think that was not correct for me, and possibly I have improved my play lately as well, since I started the tournaments.

    I know that I haven't played enough of either, but I'm sure I will dabble into the limit games again and we'll see.

    The other point of interest is that I built my excel worksheet to report my earnings by day of the week as well. Again, very small sample size, but FRI, SAT and SUN are BY FAR the best days for me (as I expected they would be). I have played most tournaments on these days, and overall, am probably a little negative while playing weeknights (only about 6 times I'd say - as I said, very small sample so far).

    The funny thing is, that I won the first two tournaments I entered! I thought I was the King! LOL..not really, but at least I am still a small winner even since then.
  • but had thought a top ten hand strategy would work

    If you are talking about Phil Helmuth's "top ten" strategy specifically, I can understand the poor results. These pages of his book are better used for other purposes (which I'll leave to your imagination) than learning about poker. (Some other sections of book do have some merit though, but overall I found this book pretty poor.)

    Get the Lee Jones or Dave Scharf books (or both) to get a strong low-limit foundation.

    That's interesting to track your winnings by day of the week. I used to track my B&M sessions by the *length* of session, but didn't really notice any striking pattern. I seemed to have both my biggest wins and biggest losses were in the longer sessions. This result is not the least bit surprising (or useful) of course.

    ScottyZ
  • I only spent about 35 hours playing low limit poker on-line, and just found that I was getting sucked out on too often that I was getting frustrated LOL. I think I was posibly playing TOO tight there. I hadn't figured out what the proper style was, but had thought a top ten hand strategy would work. I think that was not correct for me, and possibly I have improved my play lately as well, since I started the tournaments.

    As Scotty mentioned as well - not enough time to correctly establish and trend your results.

    If you are interested in playing any low limit ring games, I would highly recommend investing in Lee Jones' book - "Winning Low Limit Holdem", assuming you have a basic understanding of poker (and I think you do...)otherwise, another good start is "Poker for Dummies."

    hork.
  • Yes, I admit the Phil Helmuth book is the only Book I have read so far. I do a ton of reading on-line at the usual places as well. I have to get some more literature, that's for sure. Thanks for the recommendations.

    I suspect that since there is ususally not a lot of pre-flop raising, the more correct strategy is to play most if not all suited cards, especially connectors, as well as all pairs and some unsuited connectors, and dump it if the flop doesn't work. Proabably need to play at least twice as many starting hands.

    Does that sound about right?
  • I don't think playing looser is going to be the answer. In fact you're *better* off erring on the tight side pre-flop. However, IMO what Phil H doesn't even come *close* to explaining correctly is how to play after the flop (and beyond) to beat a low limit game. In fact, the post-flop strategy he recommends will more likely get you killed than help you in a low limit game. Actually, you nailed the concept which Phil misses completely:
    and dump it if the flop doesn't work.

    As for the specific hands you mentioned pre-flop, I agree (in a typical low limit game) with playing any pair. I would play suited connectors T9 and above and unsuited connectors KQ and above. (Actually, the fact that the "unsuited connectors" are connected is hardly relevant according to this standard.)

    You're never going to make a mistake by playing a low limit game too tight pre-flop, *especially* a raked game. IMO your real edge comes playing correctly on the flop. If you can fold optimally on the flop when your opponents are not folding enough, this will surely help to get the money flowing your way.

    ScottyZ
  • I think i played 2-300 of these durng about a 3 month period.

    About halfway through that tally i moved to 10$ and didnt' notice much of a difference..I still was in money > 50 % of time.

    I think it starts to become quite good at the 20-30 which I would play from time to time if I got my bankroll over some psychological milestone.

    I think a key comment for winning the low ones (5,10) is never slowplay..at least that was mine. If you have it go all in because someone will call an overwhelming % of them time on a long shot draw or without a hand that even approaches nut.

    Over the 3 months i went from 30 dollars to about $470. As hork mentioned they are quite long at PS 1-1.5 hours is avg..but I would just walk my treadmill while I played.

    I played almost exclusively NL heads up 1/2c NL before for about a month which might have been good practice...?

    I currently play almost exclusively .5/1 NL ring games with a tournament if I want to be on treadmill.

    NOTE: When i started on PS with my small bankroll my goal was to learn poker and get a Hat with FPP. The 5 dollar tourney is the best bang for your buck from FPP point of view in tourneys....they base the fpp on 5/dollar of tourney fee rounded up. So a 5 is 3FPP vs 5FPP for a 10, 10FPP for a 20....so when FPP mattered to me nd bankroll was tiny I tried to restrain myself from leaving 5$....after I got my hat and mug I stopped caring and then if you play .5/1 NL ring games they sky rocket anyway...but worth mentioning.
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