zephyr
08-04-2004, 01:02 PM
I’m still rather new to SNG play, having played around 500 in the past few months. In order to accelerate my learning of the game, I’ve decided to post a number of short “essays” over the next few weeks. My hope is that in writing these posts, I will not only learn some of the material within them, but will also be privilege to a review on my thinking process by the great combined intellect of the form. So here we go, feel free to tear these posts apart, tell me I’m destined to be a life time losing player, tell me that your 10 year old nephew who plays poker for gummy bears would devour me, even tell me that I should consider taking up roulette instead, but please do tell me something, I will appreciate any and all responses.
Just as a note, all of these posts will be directed to low-limit ($5-$30) NLHE SNG’s at party.
Week 1: Weakness in Opponents
“The greatest weakness of all is the great fear of appearing weak” – Jacques Bossuel
Over and over I’ve heard how bad the general level of play at low-limit ($5-$30) SNG’s at party are. Of course I have to agree that for the most part the play is pretty poor in these tournaments, but, simply stating that the play is poor brings a player no closer to being able to defeat these weak players. Ultimately, the goal of any serious player is to be able to profit from these mistakes. However, before one can exploit these mistakes, they must first define them, which brings me to the topic of this post: what are the most common mistakes made by weak players in low limit SNG’s.
I’ll start with bad player’s psychological desire to gamble. Many of the players in these tournaments came to poker because they saw high stakes poker being played on ESPN. They’ve watched the final few hands of the big tournaments, times when the blinds are so high that it becomes necessary for players to become hyper aggressive. They’ve seen millions of dollars hanging in the balance with two players all-in on a coin flip: the excitement, the thrills, the miracle river, all staged under the camera lights at Binion’s. They figure that if this is how the best players in the world play, then it must be correct. Of course what they fail to realize is that these players are only playing hands in this fashion because the structure of the tournament dictates it. Specifically in SNG’s, I’ve seen players pushing pre-flop in the first few rounds with any ace or any pair, sometimes with much worse hands (i.e. low suited connectors). Too often they find themselves dominated, and find that their tournament has ended in round 1. They chalk it up to “bad luck” saying, “what are the chances that someone would have AK when I hold AJs?” By risking all of their chips early, on hands that at best are a coin flip, weak players are making a huge mistake in low limit SNG’s.
Next we have the good starting hand trap. There are some players who play quite opposite to those mentioned above, having extremely stringent starting hand requirements. They often fold the first 30 or 40 hands of an SNG. They’ve actually stumbled onto an extremely important concept in the play of SNG’s, but, having navigated around a large set of rapids, they find themselves heading towards a class 6 waterfall on the river, well on the flop and turn as well. These players wait for 30 hands and finally pick up KK. They become excited, they think: “great, my patience has paid off”. They bring the hand in for a raise, get a couple of callers, and the flop comes up AJJ with two diamonds. There’s a bet, and then a raise before the action gets to them, they call. Turn: 10 of diamonds. A bet, then a raise, and they push all-in, thinking: “my hand deserves to win; all I need is a Q of K on the river”. All of the gains they’ve made by playing disciplined tight pre-flop strategy have been for nothing as they push the other half of their chips in on a six outer, possibly still second best hand. They’ve allowed themselves to become married to a hand, refusing to fold because “it deserves to win”; even though all signs point to the fact that it’s a loser.
Another mistake made by weak players is taking draws too far. Many of the players in SNG’s have come from playing limit ring games. Even though they don’t know much about pot odds and implied odds, they’ve always chased their four flushed and open ended straights, and typically were correct in doing so in limit games, and so they’re damn well gonna chase them in a NL SNG as well. However, they now find themselves in a situation where their pot-odds are drastically worse and where the money is quite shallow. The players are calling pot sized bets, often putting themselves all in, on the turn as 4 to 1 underdog. The times that they do complete their hands they have only a few chips left to bet with on the river. Over a number of tournaments they end up costing themselves heaps of chips by chasing draws when pot-odds and implied odds don’t come close to justifying it.
I’ve often found myself heads up at the end of a low limit SNG with approximately even stacks and blinds at 250/500. I move into hyper aggressive mode and push 4 hands in a row. I can’t believe it when my opponent folds every time, even the time that he min raises from the small blind and then folds 1000 chips to my all in push. I have over 6000 chips and see a message in the chat box: “really imaginative play bonehead, do you even know how to play poker”. I type no response. I get dealt K9 in the small blind and again push, as quickly as my chips go in I’m called and he flips over QQ. I flop a K and the game is over. The chat box goes nuts and all I can do is type gg. In my experience, it seems that the player’s who would benefit most by being all-in on coin flip situations at the end, are the players who seem to avoid them the most. The weaker the player is the more they think that they can outplay, and outlast you. They throw half, sometimes more, of their chips away and then are outraged when they lose a 60/40. Too frequently when they double up, they still have less than half of the chips and are again willing to fold many hands pre-flop. Because of the payout structure of 1st-50%, 2nd-30%, this mistake costs a bad player a lot of money in the long run.
These are only some of the mistakes that I witness on a daily basis by weak opponents in low-limit SNG’s. An area that I didn’t cover is weakness on the bubble, but that is because it could probably use an entire post. Ultimately a players needs to be able to benefit from the mistakes that our opponents make if we want to beat them. This brings me to next weeks post: Exploiting Weakness in Opponents.
Thanks for reading so far. I realize that this post deals with many issues that are rather obvious to many players. I thought that this would be a good first topic for me as it was somewhat of an apparent one.
Flame away!
Zephyr
Just as a note, all of these posts will be directed to low-limit ($5-$30) NLHE SNG’s at party.
Week 1: Weakness in Opponents
“The greatest weakness of all is the great fear of appearing weak” – Jacques Bossuel
Over and over I’ve heard how bad the general level of play at low-limit ($5-$30) SNG’s at party are. Of course I have to agree that for the most part the play is pretty poor in these tournaments, but, simply stating that the play is poor brings a player no closer to being able to defeat these weak players. Ultimately, the goal of any serious player is to be able to profit from these mistakes. However, before one can exploit these mistakes, they must first define them, which brings me to the topic of this post: what are the most common mistakes made by weak players in low limit SNG’s.
I’ll start with bad player’s psychological desire to gamble. Many of the players in these tournaments came to poker because they saw high stakes poker being played on ESPN. They’ve watched the final few hands of the big tournaments, times when the blinds are so high that it becomes necessary for players to become hyper aggressive. They’ve seen millions of dollars hanging in the balance with two players all-in on a coin flip: the excitement, the thrills, the miracle river, all staged under the camera lights at Binion’s. They figure that if this is how the best players in the world play, then it must be correct. Of course what they fail to realize is that these players are only playing hands in this fashion because the structure of the tournament dictates it. Specifically in SNG’s, I’ve seen players pushing pre-flop in the first few rounds with any ace or any pair, sometimes with much worse hands (i.e. low suited connectors). Too often they find themselves dominated, and find that their tournament has ended in round 1. They chalk it up to “bad luck” saying, “what are the chances that someone would have AK when I hold AJs?” By risking all of their chips early, on hands that at best are a coin flip, weak players are making a huge mistake in low limit SNG’s.
Next we have the good starting hand trap. There are some players who play quite opposite to those mentioned above, having extremely stringent starting hand requirements. They often fold the first 30 or 40 hands of an SNG. They’ve actually stumbled onto an extremely important concept in the play of SNG’s, but, having navigated around a large set of rapids, they find themselves heading towards a class 6 waterfall on the river, well on the flop and turn as well. These players wait for 30 hands and finally pick up KK. They become excited, they think: “great, my patience has paid off”. They bring the hand in for a raise, get a couple of callers, and the flop comes up AJJ with two diamonds. There’s a bet, and then a raise before the action gets to them, they call. Turn: 10 of diamonds. A bet, then a raise, and they push all-in, thinking: “my hand deserves to win; all I need is a Q of K on the river”. All of the gains they’ve made by playing disciplined tight pre-flop strategy have been for nothing as they push the other half of their chips in on a six outer, possibly still second best hand. They’ve allowed themselves to become married to a hand, refusing to fold because “it deserves to win”; even though all signs point to the fact that it’s a loser.
Another mistake made by weak players is taking draws too far. Many of the players in SNG’s have come from playing limit ring games. Even though they don’t know much about pot odds and implied odds, they’ve always chased their four flushed and open ended straights, and typically were correct in doing so in limit games, and so they’re damn well gonna chase them in a NL SNG as well. However, they now find themselves in a situation where their pot-odds are drastically worse and where the money is quite shallow. The players are calling pot sized bets, often putting themselves all in, on the turn as 4 to 1 underdog. The times that they do complete their hands they have only a few chips left to bet with on the river. Over a number of tournaments they end up costing themselves heaps of chips by chasing draws when pot-odds and implied odds don’t come close to justifying it.
I’ve often found myself heads up at the end of a low limit SNG with approximately even stacks and blinds at 250/500. I move into hyper aggressive mode and push 4 hands in a row. I can’t believe it when my opponent folds every time, even the time that he min raises from the small blind and then folds 1000 chips to my all in push. I have over 6000 chips and see a message in the chat box: “really imaginative play bonehead, do you even know how to play poker”. I type no response. I get dealt K9 in the small blind and again push, as quickly as my chips go in I’m called and he flips over QQ. I flop a K and the game is over. The chat box goes nuts and all I can do is type gg. In my experience, it seems that the player’s who would benefit most by being all-in on coin flip situations at the end, are the players who seem to avoid them the most. The weaker the player is the more they think that they can outplay, and outlast you. They throw half, sometimes more, of their chips away and then are outraged when they lose a 60/40. Too frequently when they double up, they still have less than half of the chips and are again willing to fold many hands pre-flop. Because of the payout structure of 1st-50%, 2nd-30%, this mistake costs a bad player a lot of money in the long run.
These are only some of the mistakes that I witness on a daily basis by weak opponents in low-limit SNG’s. An area that I didn’t cover is weakness on the bubble, but that is because it could probably use an entire post. Ultimately a players needs to be able to benefit from the mistakes that our opponents make if we want to beat them. This brings me to next weeks post: Exploiting Weakness in Opponents.
Thanks for reading so far. I realize that this post deals with many issues that are rather obvious to many players. I thought that this would be a good first topic for me as it was somewhat of an apparent one.
Flame away!
Zephyr