PP SnG's Wild Roller Coaster and Super/System

[coolhandsun]

Four nights ago I was playing a 20 dollar Party SnG. Somehow I managed to go heads up 17 hands in. And by hand 25 I had won the tournament. Usually it takes between 50 and 70 hands to do this for me. Of course, the table was incredibly fishy and I was catching big pocket pairs. It had nothing to do with skill. Ironically this was just after reading a lot of Super/System. I go on a little bit of a streak after this and win about 25 buy-ins in 10 games.

Since then I got burned a couple times by playing aggressively a la Super/System's advice. I read up a bit on this sight about more specific advice for single table tourneys. The general gist about the early levels is to play the premium hands and be very conservative.

But now I've found I keep getting blinded off without playing many hands and get forced to go all in with 300 chips in level 4. I've finished in 5th and 6th ten of the last twelve.

Is this just a bad run, or am I playing TOO conservatively? I've been relatively successful at the single tables but ever since I've tried to improve I feel I've taken a step back.

Last night I played two tournaments, for a total of 70 hands and didn't win a single hand.

Is there such thing as too conservative on Party SnG's?

Does anybody else find themselves going 3 or 4 rounds playing real conservative and then getting forced to go all in with marginal hands in the 4th or 5th?

This used to happen occasionally but I feel its started to occur more frequently.

I like to think the more conservative style is my maturing as a player, but I'm not seeing the results like I used to.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Gavin

[reecelights]

I just went through the exact same thing you are going through now. I was ITM more often, but my ROI was down because I was getting a lot of thirds and seconds. At one point, I went 7 straight ITM out of about 20 SnGs without a win. I don't have a big enough sample to show consistent results but here is what I found:

I spent about three hours looking at my Poker Tracker and found that by playing this tight, I was ignoring position. My attempt to steal rate went from 29% to 21%, and I was putting money in the pot only about 22% of the time instead of 30% in CO and Button positions. Also, I track my hands won/tourney which went from over 8 to about 5 for the period of the past three weeks. I went through my known hands database and identified the top 30% of hands as far as win pct goes and made a list of starting hand requirements in steal position.

I don't try to steal in the first 15-20 hands, the blinds are not worth it, and at that point I feel it is more important to establish a tight table image, even one where they see you folding hands from steal and SB positions. This gives more credence to your later steal attempts. I've also found myself playing more aggressively as we get closer to the bubble.

At a particularly loose table, I'll also allow myself to play some drawing hands in late position earlier in the tourney (before hand 30). Suited connectors, Aces and some suited Kings.

By increasing my aggression and stealing more pots in late position I have in my minimal amount of play this week--14 tourneys, again probably not a large enough sample--I have finished ITM 36% and have an ROI of 55%. 4 first place and 1 third out of 14. The sample may be small, but I sure started feeling better about my game very quickly.