patry SnG's

[johnnybeef]

Does any one else here think that the sit n gos on party are difficult to beat? The blinds move up at a super agressive pace (at least relative to UB) and i have found that they are much more difficult to beat as luck becomes so much more of a factor. My strategy for these is to play super tight early on hoping to double up in the first few stages, and then as time moves on i become very aggressive (especially from late position). This is a strategy that has paid dividends for me on UB, but I am having great difficulty beating the party games. Any suggestions????

Thanks,
Johnny

[citanul]

keep doing what you're doing, if you are doing what you say you are doing, and you'll be fine at the lower level sngs at least.

you summed up in a couple of sentences the entirity of strategy for say, the 5s through the 55s. (meh, maybe not, but damn close to it.) in fact, you may have just summarized basically sng strategy entirely.

my suggestion then is to play more games, since your lack of winning more likely either has to do with a) not knowing how or when to switch to being aggressive/not knowing what tight means or more likely b) having a poor run when you started at party.

actualy, i can't say that's more likely, since a lot of people have a problem figuring out when to switch gears, and how much.

i doubt you actually have a problem,

citanul

[johnnybeef]

I like to get agressive usually by the third stage and/or by the time it gets down to 6-7 people. I feel that once i can get down to that level with a decent size stack I can win them through contiuously hammering at small pots and avoiding big pots unless absolutely necesarry. The problem i have is that the big blind in party gets up to 300 in quite a hurry. At this time a big stack is usually around 2000 +/- 250. with blinds at 300 a 3 bb raise is almost 1/2 of my stack. You can see the predicament this puts my playing style in....The only remedy I can see is to possibly lower my raise to a min raise which in my opinion is not a raise that announces strength to me....I want to hear from some of you tourney pros here, what should i do?

[citanul]

well, for lower level tournaments at least, at lvl 3, which is 25/50, the blinds aren't worth stealing yet. so chill with that, is an easy way to go about things.

from your summary of how you play, you're missing the obvious solution to the "predicament" you are in. instead of considering the move to a smaller raise, make the move to the all-in raise. every time you put money in preflop voluntarilly and you have <10 big bets, just go all in. unless you have a very, very specific reason for not doing so.

citanul

note: many people get hung up on this, but this does NOT mean tighten up to only hands that you are comfortable getting all in preflop with. it means broaden your comfort zone, so you are going in with many hands you might not have been comfortable with before.

[Unparagoned]

Is it still a good idea to push with a broader range of hands even when you know your opponent will call with any A or K? I run into this all the time...I have JTs, push all-in and will run into A2o,K4o or something like that. I play the 10+1's at party and have sort of come to the conclusion that if I'm not pushing an A or K then it doesn't seem to much matter which two cards I have in front of me (i.e. 23s is just as good as JTs for all practical purposes). If I am going to push an A or K then I want to make sure it has a higher kicker because that's what people are going to call me with.

[reecelights]

I agree this is probably too early. I may try my FIRST aggressive move at this level but usually only one with a less than nominal holding. I wait until there are only 5 or 6 (sometimes 4) and Level 4 (50/100) so that even the larger stacks that are more tightly bunched get a little more gunshy about calling. Also, be careful who you pick your first lower starting hand aggressive moves against; I try to pick the tighter, more passive people. There will be people who will call any smaller stack with any A or K or suited Q or J if there are still 6 or 7 at hand 22.

[citanul]

well, if you *know* what they are going to call with, then adjust accordingly.

Remember to be agressive IN POSITION. If you remember this, then you will minimize the chances that your opponents have one of these "wonderful" hands that they deem it necessary to call with. The idea is to win chips with no flops, and when called, be drawing live, if not be ahead.

citanul

[wiggs73]

I've actually had quite a bit of trouble with the party SNGs for the reasons you mentioned. Try moving to a site that starts you with 1500 or so in chips (there are several). I did and have had much better success since making the move.

[johnnybeef]

[ QUOTE ]
I've actually had quite a bit of trouble with the party SNGs for the reasons you mentioned. Try moving to a site that starts you with 1500 or so in chips (there are several). I did and have had much better success since making the move.

[/ QUOTE ]

absolutely, i am beating Ub's sng's with high frequency due to this. earlier today i multitabled a UB and Party Sng together. At Party they start with 800 chips whereas Ub has 1000. When i was doing this I got knocked out of party in 5th with the blinds at 100/200. Simultaneously on Ub (which i won by the way) the blinds were at 30/60. Go figure. Anyways, thanks to all who have responded. I am going to try tightening up until about 100/200 or 4/5 people if this doesn't happen i'm probably going to quit playing at party. I'll report back later.

Johnny

[ardie]

I would have to say that starting with 1000+ chips the opportunities to get away from hands early don't leave you crippled. I recently started playing pp 50/5 instead of 10s,20s,30s. I've noticed a distinct improvement in my itm and roi. Maybe its just short term but my results for today: 9 tourneys entered today 3 out of the money (1 4th), 2 3rds, 2 2nds, 2 1sts. So thats 495$ expended for a realized income of 1000$. I doubt this is sustainable but I haven't found a significant change in the skill of the players outside of they can laydown good hands. Well lots of luck. I guess as far when to shift gears, there is always a palpable change as the blinds go to 50/100 especially 100/200. Avoid min raising to steal short stack blinds when possible at this point unless your willing to cover an all in or be prepared to fold.

[Xhiggy]

while a smaller starting stack and faster blind increases take away some of the advantaged to the more skilled players, I would still confidently say that most successful players believe party's SNGs are the most profitable / hr. while you're winning at a lower percentage, you're able to play so many more tournaments in the same timeframe. this more than makes up for the losses.

in response to the earlier posts, yes, naturally you should open up more as the blinds get to 50/100 and higher. but the key is still the giant gap concept that exist in these tournaments. if, at this stage of the blinds, your stack is the expected 850-950 size, then you should be more than happy to open allin with K9 on the button (provided its been folded around to you), and you should be crying in frustrating when facing a standard raise from MP and you hold KQ in the SB (where playing the hand would practically commit you all-in).