Limit SnG Pointers -

[John Paul]

Hello everyone,
I have played limit ring games for a few months and I am trying to learn to play limit tournaments as well (I plan to pick up on no-limit in a few months, if all goes well). I have noticed that there is not a lot of limit info on the forums, so I am trying to get a thread started for folks who are interested in limit to discuss their strategies.

In general I am playing very tight early on - not calling preflop with many drawing hands and being very wary about getting into raised pots. I also raise less frequently than in a normal ring game as no one folds to a raise, and it seems safer to wait until the flop to try to get extra value. That said I will raise hands like AA and KK from the get-go.

How do other limit SnG folks play? What do folks do with middle and low pocket pairs muck or play and from what position? What about hands like Axs or KQo?

Hopefully we can get a good discussion going.

John Paul

[Phil Van Sexton]

I've found that my strategy for limit tournaments is very similiar to limit ring games.

This is not really true for NL SnGs where blind stealing is the key to success, whereas blind stealing in NL side games is not important.

I've also found the players in Limit SnGs to be worse than in NL. Unfortunately, it's hard to exploit their bad play like you can in NL. In Limit, you actually have to win hands at showdown.

Here is my strategy in limit SnGs...
- Play very tight early, just like in a .50/1 game with terrible players. Drawing hands, small pairs are fine. I'll play them just like a side game in the early levels.

- As blinds get higher, winning the hand is the most important thing. Drawing hands like JTs are good in a side game, but middle/late in the tournament, you need hands that win a higher percentage of the time. You cannot afford to draw and miss. Focus on high percentage plays. Even if you are winning small pots, these small pots are big compared to your stack.

- Medium/small pairs are fine in the middle levels from good position. You can call or raise and usually get away quickly if the flop is no good.

- When entering a hand, almost always raise to thin the field, and then keep pushing unless you are clearly dead. You cannot afford to slowplay.

- If a raise post-flop won't thin the field, you can just go into check/call mode. For example, if heads up vs a maniac and you flop 2nd pair, I would often just call him down.

- Value bet less often. The turn/river bets are double in limit, so it can be very expensive if you get raised while making a value bet on the river. For example, I have TT and a K comes on the river at the 100/200 level. In a side game, I'm definately betting. In a tournament, I'll check. It's not worth risking a raise to pick up a few more chips.

- Do not panic with a short stack. In NL, if you get down to 300 at the 25/50, you are going just push pre-flop with a lot of hands to try to steal blinds, and maybe double up if called. In Limit, you will need to win at showdown, but you will often triple or quadruple up when you do. Therefore, you should be patient and wait for a good spot to try to triple up.

- In late rounds, when the blinds are enormous and my stack is small, I play as if I'm all-in when I enter a pot. For example, I have 900 at the 200/400 level and get 88. I'm going to raise pre-flop and keep betting on the flop/turn until I run out of bullets. Don't get scared by the flop, just keep betting. I'll do the same with AK/AQ even if I don't pair up.

- Even though I said to play like you are allin, don't get into a raising war pre-flop. If re-raised preflop, just call, and then bet/raise on the flop. Give your opponent another chance to fold on the flop.

- With a big stack late, you can't really bully the table. Raise with good hands, and call from the blinds with decent hands. Be aware that the desparate short stacks will bet/raise with nothing as described earlier, so feel free to call them down with marginal hands.

[John Paul]

Phil,
Thanks for taking the time to write all of this out - lots of good ideas.

I have a couple of questions:

Do you play unsuited broadways as you would in a limint game? I am usually dumping hands like KTo or QJo even when I am in late position and the pot is unraised.

Also, I find I am finishing 5th alot - I get to be a short stack and I make the all in move you talk about. How good a hand should you have? Last tournament I was in 5th place out of 5 and had about 2.3 BB left. It was folded to me in the SB and I raised with J9o. BB who was a bigger stack called, flop was J33 - I go all in. BB shows A3s. Was I too deperate to make a move with J9o?

Thanks,
John Paul

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you play unsuited broadways as you would in a limint game? I am usually dumping hands like KTo or QJo even when I am in late position and the pot is unraised.

[/ QUOTE ]

If it's folded to me, I'd probably raise from LP, but I wouldn't call and I wouldn't raise if there were limpers ahead of me. Just my standard limit play.

[ QUOTE ]
Was I too deperate to make a move with J9o?

[/ QUOTE ]

J9o is slightly better than an average hand. With only 1 player left to act, I think your play was fine. Alternatively, you could have called, and then bet on any flop. It's unlikely he'd fold pre-flop, so your chances might be better if you saved some chips to bet on the flop.

If you weren't in the SB, I'd fold J9 and wait for a better spot. There's a good discussion on this in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players if you haven't read that yet.

[TheAmp]

Thank you phil and john paul for this Important thread.

S.J.

[benfranklin]

Limit SnG Strategy (http://teamfu.freeshell.org/tournament/limit_holdem_sng.html)

[John Paul]

Thanks for the website - it was worth reading. I hope I can get some discussions going. so that we can get a bit more in depht.

[wuwei]

This post is worth bumping.

If you don't mind sharing the info, Phil, I'm curious how often you play limit SNGs and how much of a difference you see in ITM and ROI (assuming your sample is big enough to make sharing it worthwile) between limit and NL?

If anyone else has played a large number of both, I would be curious to hear about your experiences.

I've played a small number of limit SNGs, half of which came by not paying attention to what I was entering. I've had decent results, but my thought has been that your edge is bigger in NL because you can get a bigger payoff after flopping a big hand. That, and the benefits of blind stealing late in the game.

Phil's comment in the current thread about there being nothing for free in a limit SNG gets to my other problem with them. We've all had plenty of SNGs where we make the money or even win seeing very few good hands. In limit, this seems unlikely. If you run cold, you're in trouble.

edit: just reread your other post, and your comment on efficient markets probably answers my question.

[scatter shot]

I also thought this thresd was worth bumping.

I don't have much experience (playinh for about 2 months in ring and few SNGs), but wondered if my observations were valid. At low limit (5+1) SNG, I have found the following:

1. You really need to have playable/good hands during the first 2 or 3 levels. In a ring game you can withstand lots of folding with poor hands and eventually make it up, but in the SNG you get too far behind the leader which leads to

2. In the middle levels, it is hard to come back once there is a substantial difference between you and the leaders (say, 2-1)

3. In the middle levels, even those playing tight early on seem to loosen up so much that any read you have on them is now useless.

Are any of these observations valid?