Step Tourney strategy help.

[Strollen]

On my 3rd attempt I got into a step 2. Bad play and a bad beat were what happened my first two time.

I am now looking at what do for steps 2 and 3. (I'll worry about 4 and 5 when I get there.)

In general, I am moderately loose and agressive (PT agression 1.2 VPIP high 20s for the 1st three levels) and have 50% more 1st place finishes than 2nd and 3rd place combined


In this tournament I was the chip leader early and still played agressively and had 8000 chips with 7 players left.

Now I realize that for the next 3 steps there is no advantage to finishing 1st and survival is much more important.

How do I do this? do I play very tight, with minimal bluffs? Or do I early on look for places to limp with good multipot hands like suited connectors or Ax suited and fold quickly if the pot misses.

I guess the big question is what changes do people recommend from Aleos SNG FAQ for playing in the Step tourneys?

[SmileyEH]

You are playing EXTREMELY sub optimally with an agression factor of 1.2 and VPIP approaching 30.

You arent loose aggressive, you are loose passive, and even if you were loose aggressive a low level party STT is definitely not the arena to be a LAG.

Tighten up considerably and use the resources on this board to better your game. I highly doubt you could be a winning player with these numbers.

-SmileyEH

[Strollen]

Well my ROI is 30% after 60 mostly $10 some $20 SNGs.

Yes I understand the consensus is very tight is good for SNGs and I am working to tighten my play. But I am still looking for strategy differences between Step and regular SNGs.

[Voltron87]

[ QUOTE ]
Well my ROI is 30% after 60 mostly $10 some $20 SNGs.

Yes I understand the consensus is very tight is good for SNGs and I am working to tighten my play. But I am still looking for strategy differences between Step and regular SNGs.

[/ QUOTE ]


60 is your sample size?

I'll let someone else explain.

[david050173]

[ QUOTE ]
Well my ROI is 30% after 60 mostly $10 some $20 SNGs.

Yes I understand the consensus is very tight is good for SNGs and I am working to tighten my play. But I am still looking for strategy differences between Step and regular SNGs.

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference is simple. 4th is the same as 1st. So if you have a big stack their is no incentive to play marginal hands. You should never be limping into a pot. Let the small stacks fight it out unless you have a great hand (AA,KK,QQ,AK) and make sure you are up against a small stack not a a large/medium one.

[Strollen]

Yes I know the sample size is too small....
In point of fact, if my sample size was 200 SNG instead of 60 SNGs the standard deviation of my ROI would decrease from 22% to 13%. Ok enough with the math.

Look, I appreciate things like the FAQ and some of the advice to newbies on the forum. I've read the FAQ, and even accept that yes I am playing too many hands.

But really I don't want a critic on my play, especially if it consists of references to read the the holy FAQ, which far to often seems to be how questions are addressed on the forum.

It seems to me that STEPs are fundamentally different than SNGs and way different than MTT.
In Steps, the primary objective is don't be eliminated really early, with a secondary objective of finishing in the top 20-40%.

Given these different objectives, it is possible that the tried and true method of winning SNG, may need to be altered for STEPS.

Anybody have any thoughts on how STRATEGICALLY how one should play STEP tournaments and how does it differ from regular SNGs?

Let me take a shot with my vast STEP /images/graemlins/wink.gif experience.

Conventional wisdom is since you don't need to get the most chips to win, you should play uber-tight, and really only make big raises with nuts.

I think this makes a lot sense, but I have two problems with it.
First in general, you want to adjust your style to be opposite of the table, i.e. play tighter in a loose game, and looser in a tight game. Since people in steps are going to play very tight on the final table. Maybe being looser makes sense?

Second, the basic SNG theory is avoid early pots which are likely to bleed chips. Instead save your chips until you get a monster hand then attempt to get all of the chips in a pot where you have a huge advantage in order to double or triple up. I wonder if in STEPS you try a different approach, avoid situations where you are pot committed. Instead try and win lots of little pots instead of a few big ones by going all in? Now how you would do this, I really don't know.

Any thoughts?

[nate1729]

I had some success in the Steps with aggression; people play remarkably tight. Don't overdo it, but do that all-important stack-building in the early-mid stages.