SNG strategy, non card reliant for +ROI
This is not my concept, it wastaught to me by a mentor named "DonkyKong" (Spence at another forum) but it is the next step in my training as a student of the game.
Since my original post of this I have played 151 games, will talk about that in next post. Also his results playing at the $10-$20 buyins using this as well as multitabling 27 at the same time. Just backs up the theory.
It can be practised on SC or at micro stakes I used it to get my last token in one attempt. Spence and I also took a money account with a -100% ROI and turned it to a +/- 5% in 2 sessions.
STEP 1
Commit to 10 games to see results. It isn't a magic formula and requires dicipline to work.
You will play only the top 5 hands until the blinds hit 75/150 or around level 6. AA, QQ, KK, AQ or AK. JJ, KQ you play only for a minimal investment in good position and dump at any resistance.
The key is to remember a chip saved is more important than a chip earned.
STEP 2
When the blinds hit level 6 you will start to attack your weaker opponents and play position aggresively. 2.5 BB raises will bombard them. You will notice that half the table will have less chips than you and be short stacked, having entered many pots in the early stages and got the worst of them.
Cards will not determine a thing. Your "M" or pot commitment will. You may race with "rags". You will suck out and be sucked out on. What you will see is that the cards barely matter. Short stacks will fold and you will quickly accumualte blinds. Sometimes it works so well you end up being chip leader without ever picking up a hand! Try to leave the short stack in as while he remains the other two wait for him to bust and fold easier.
STEP 3
The bubble will pop...putting you in the money. You now must switch gears and play your best short handed game, followed by heads up practise if things go well. You play for first, not for second. It is now about getting comfortable with taking charge by smart confident poker decisions. Again pot commitment, practising leveraging and deleveraging to bust opponents and playing with minimal holdings and position.
Why it helps you all around as a player.
First off you get comfortable with weaker holdings and playing based on putting pressure on opponents at the right times.
This is the difference between winning poker and good luck.
It drives home the concept that chips are tools that can be most usful as raising weapons, not slot tokens. It takes the cards out of the equation that much more.
Success revolves around sizing up your opponents. Who will get out of the way and who will pay you off. It also shows that most hands are never really that far behind anyway. Need more proof? Watch the small ball videos.
It shows that you can't win them all. Luck is a factor, we just try to minimize it. It shows that in a long haul...solid poker tactics prevail.
Last thing
There will be hitchs...its hard to remain patient. Once the discipline to save chips is realized, maybe 30 games in. You can open up the starting SLIGHTLY. Setmine for dirt in position, play a few premium hands in perfect spots etc. BUT ONLY if you know why, are aware of your "M" and are willing to dump anything if it doesn't go perfectly. Once you have bled of only 200-300 chips beyond starting stack...you better be prepared to change gears and wait for Level 6.
There are software tools that can help analyis everthing learned. I will tell you what I learned when DK crunched a few dozen games in my next post as well and how my ROI improved next.
Since my original post of this I have played 151 games, will talk about that in next post. Also his results playing at the $10-$20 buyins using this as well as multitabling 27 at the same time. Just backs up the theory.
It can be practised on SC or at micro stakes I used it to get my last token in one attempt. Spence and I also took a money account with a -100% ROI and turned it to a +/- 5% in 2 sessions.
STEP 1
Commit to 10 games to see results. It isn't a magic formula and requires dicipline to work.
You will play only the top 5 hands until the blinds hit 75/150 or around level 6. AA, QQ, KK, AQ or AK. JJ, KQ you play only for a minimal investment in good position and dump at any resistance.
The key is to remember a chip saved is more important than a chip earned.
STEP 2
When the blinds hit level 6 you will start to attack your weaker opponents and play position aggresively. 2.5 BB raises will bombard them. You will notice that half the table will have less chips than you and be short stacked, having entered many pots in the early stages and got the worst of them.
Cards will not determine a thing. Your "M" or pot commitment will. You may race with "rags". You will suck out and be sucked out on. What you will see is that the cards barely matter. Short stacks will fold and you will quickly accumualte blinds. Sometimes it works so well you end up being chip leader without ever picking up a hand! Try to leave the short stack in as while he remains the other two wait for him to bust and fold easier.
STEP 3
The bubble will pop...putting you in the money. You now must switch gears and play your best short handed game, followed by heads up practise if things go well. You play for first, not for second. It is now about getting comfortable with taking charge by smart confident poker decisions. Again pot commitment, practising leveraging and deleveraging to bust opponents and playing with minimal holdings and position.
Why it helps you all around as a player.
First off you get comfortable with weaker holdings and playing based on putting pressure on opponents at the right times.
This is the difference between winning poker and good luck.
It drives home the concept that chips are tools that can be most usful as raising weapons, not slot tokens. It takes the cards out of the equation that much more.
Success revolves around sizing up your opponents. Who will get out of the way and who will pay you off. It also shows that most hands are never really that far behind anyway. Need more proof? Watch the small ball videos.
It shows that you can't win them all. Luck is a factor, we just try to minimize it. It shows that in a long haul...solid poker tactics prevail.
Last thing
There will be hitchs...its hard to remain patient. Once the discipline to save chips is realized, maybe 30 games in. You can open up the starting SLIGHTLY. Setmine for dirt in position, play a few premium hands in perfect spots etc. BUT ONLY if you know why, are aware of your "M" and are willing to dump anything if it doesn't go perfectly. Once you have bled of only 200-300 chips beyond starting stack...you better be prepared to change gears and wait for Level 6.
There are software tools that can help analyis everthing learned. I will tell you what I learned when DK crunched a few dozen games in my next post as well and how my ROI improved next.
Comments
Coles notes:
Read the Phil Gordon books
Read the Dan Harrington books
Use what you learn
Mark
This is where I always fail with this strategy. I try this all the time, but after a while I get bored and start playing more hands. I have tried multi-tabling, but still I can't get myself to hang back. I think this strategy can be profitable, but I need to work on my self-discipline.
What levels would you say this works on? What kind of win rate have you been experiencing from this?
Great post btw!
Myself, I would money at least one in 3 when playing right. I started with 3 small bankrolls and haven't broke one. Stars is close but was my starting site. VC I tripled my bankroll and CD I am siting at a 150% ROI but haven't used it much, so no variance yet.
I have been using the fundementals in the dime 360 turbos and quarter games and am moneying like crazy. I use official online ranking and sharkscope to see my overall performance. Overall, my stars is at 52% ROI for 2009 for Jon-tm1 in the 45-360 MT SNGs. For single I think it is 0% (even) 10% and 150% with each improvement coming as I build disipline.
When he graphed the initial 50 session we found I needed to tighten up just a hair in the begining stages and also refine my starting hand selection and aggression levels at the bubble. My curve was compared to his and it was easy to see where these changes would max out the potential.
I was still to use a wide range to raise, just not include hands with almost no petential like 9-2, 8-3 etc. Another pitfall I was experiencing was raising ATC then calling with mediocer hands for odds to bust the player.
9 times out of ten, they will not call the 2.5 with anything less than a PP or KQ and up.
While racing a short stack with a connector or semi decent hand on the bubble is ok, the other holdings where definetally a leak.
My other loses where good hands early in the tourney, BUT this is exactlly the opposite of why this works. Early play alot of people are looser and holdings are at the mercy of the cards. The idea is to win even bigger pots later without resistance, then play cards when the money starts.
Gotta run, hope this helps.
Jon
am i the only one who is questioning this? so i have AA. i try to play a small pot. opponents play back at me so i should fold because it's still within the first 6 levels?
i guess i understand your point to the overall post, but this specific advice to weakly play premium hands simply because the blinds are still low doesn't make a lot of sense imho.
At the expense of sounding cliche, "it depends".
You're never going to fold AA PF during the first six levels, however, depending on the # of opponents, the type of opponents, and the board texture, you might have to.
It's probably more acurate to say don't insta-fold, but don't automatically eliminate folding as an option just because you're holding a great PF hand.
Edit
I re-read, and you're right.. he's suggesting a very bad way to play these hands IMO. Most low-stakes games people go broke with draws / top pair.
I think this is a good setup for someone VERY new to poker with a limited BR, otherwise, well, you know better.
Mark
What I am saying is this, You make a raise with after some good preflop action with two black Aces. You have 3300 in chips and the table average is 1600. You are heads up with the chip leader who has you covered. The flop puts out both top and str8 possibilities. You8 know you are ahead and can double up. What you do from here is up to you.
Either would be good poker, but keep in mind even controling the pot you don't need this one hand to win. By the way, this is where I usually reraise himn all in and bust. Food for thought.
With regards to the ROI, there are a few things to note, my results are at the lower limits with up to a 20% rake being taken. I stick to the lower limits because I am also practising bankroll mangement using the 5 to 10% rule. As DK points out, the $5 and up take less of a rake, therefore better ROI.
It can be viewed as a beginner strategy, but lets call it a beginner strategy for those with a strong understanding of the fundementals and looking to practise playing the player and tourney pressure points and not just playing their hands. Advanced strategy intro.
While that maybe old hat to some, how many spent years playing TAG only because tight is right?
Lets call it a baby step to other things.
Keep the comments coming, love the chat!
Jon
Note the period after the AK. The JJ and KQ are suggested to be played with minimal investment and dump at resistance..not AA..at least that is how I read it...
1. It teaches beginners to play tight.
2. It teaches them to be aggressive.
Big Kudos to your mentor.
I would play much more aggressively in the early stages, but I can understand your mentors reasoning for nitting it up the $1 + .20 tourneys.
There are definatelly alot of different views one the value of this an an argument for each. Not playing AA aggresively is not something I am suggesting at all but the overall point some noticed:
1) Any great player will tell you that there is no good excuse to go broke with one pair, especially early in the tourney. In the example I used, I am up against AJ with AA. I am clearly ahead and most players will not fold here but....
2) Since he can afford to make the call and is getting good odds based on his outs he is right, even I showed my hand. The real message in the strategy is this.
3) We can agree alot of opponents will tkae more chances with these type of hands earlier rather than late. If he busts me, I did not truley even take close to a bad beat. Overcommiting to big starting hands is my worst leak, the leak of many an even bigger in SNG's because
4) with double the average stack, I control what will be a decent portion of the chips on the table later. I will countinue to accumalte my share of the (Chips)money against players and situations where I have my best advantage.
5) Later in the game, the shorter stacks will not be able to withstand my raises and I will accumalte the same amount of chips I would have in the earlier race, as more chips are in pre-flop. Because we are close to the money, opponents fold even easier, especially tight ones having to risk a draw. I should know my table well too.
At a consitent 10% ROI, I will be doing better than 80-90% of online players, Data Bases will show that sad but true fact regarding online.
Most players will also slightly tilt after losing with the top 5 hand that was clearly a favorite. As a result, they play another one, and are playing with a disatvantage of having the beat in the back of their mind. By learning to place more value on situation and percentage of chips in play and knowing the table and pressure points as aposed to any starting hand, you help yourself to play better poker overall. SNG's give a
the perfect tool to grind the perception and concept in, hands start to mean far less as apposed to the rest.
The old "it depends."
Again, for beginners a great place to start, for the more experienced a great reminder.
Love poker chat!
Jon
The trick is ti get in the mindset of why you should play that hand instead of just opening up and including more pp etc. Early is tricky, makes or breaks a tourney for alot.
I write alot from an absolute beginners perception. Remeber for every reply in a thread there are 10-20 views with people who might have a question but don't post.
Now that we have broken the ice, I am sure we will have alot of debate, hashing it up etc.
Thats whats makes forums the best way to learn away from the felts in my opininon.
there is a period. i missed it. that makes more sense then.
It's also true that there are lot of weaktight and their opposites stupid, loose fishy players on the lower levels. But don't underestimate your opponents! I must say I doubt that you on the $10-level will gain a longtime +10% ROI by just adopting a strategy that says "sit tight in the early stages and then push relentlessly with ATC when in position". I also doubt that a longtime profit of +30% or more is possible; even an expert like Phil Shaw suggests that 15-20% is a very good ROI and what you possibly can expect even as an expert player when playing lowstakes SnG.
Don't forget that there are many regs even on this lower levels. If you push ATC they will starting to look you up more often. Remember that in most situations an ATC-strategy is not ev-positive if your opponent has a normal calling range. You can still push a broad range of hands, but the fact that you're on the button doesn't make 92off an always playable hand. You must also adjust to the fact that many players (shall we say 2-3 on a fullring table on average) are LAG and will call with more speculative hands. Simple ICM-theory tells us that if villain has a broader calling range than the optimal one (according to ICM) we'll have to narrow our own pushing range. Else the other players on the table will benefit more from our confrontations in the long run than we ourselves will.
Of course there's also a lot of considerations that are not covered in a very simple strategy like this. It's true that many SnG:s on lower levels will be quite passive and leave plenty of space for your pushes when in position. But in many games you will find that the overall level of aggresesion is much bigger. Now you find that you're mostly unable to push from the button or even CO because some of the 3-4 players in the earlier position already did a raise. What to do then? Is it really profitable to re-raise with your Ace-rag hand? Or should you wait for an opportunity to push yourself? But then your position is worse and therefor the chance that someone has a much better hand than yours and will call with it increases (that's why ICM is very position dependant)
Last but not least: The more aggresive your strategy is, the higher your variance will be. Sure: You will have streaks when most players fold to your raises and you win most of the confrontations. Then you won't hesitate that your strategy is good. But you will also experience streaks when you get looked up for the 4th in a row by a blind with a JJ+hand or maniacs call you and somehow manage to have a slightly better hand or suck you out 8 times out of 10. Then you have to have the inner strength to not go on tilt or fell into a poker depression (I' m joking a little bit, but not much). If you can't do that, maybe a little less aggresive approach would gain YOU more in the long run since tilt and negative feeling can take a toll higher than the toll of a little bit to weak strategy. At least that's what I believe.
Are you using this on regular's, Turbos, Both?
I would guess that in a turbo you need to open up a bit more early on.
It is more about ramping up from a tag to bubble pressure approach than anything, or fine tuning my gears and playable range based on what point of the tourney we are at.
Turbo's I like becuase I don't need to wait so long for the table to sort itself out.
Sharkscope can be combined to really help peg players, but I don't use it except to check my own numbers. Depends on why you play I supose.