Hawkeye27
03-07-2005, 03:32 PM
First of all I'm running bad and may be grasping for straws so bear with me.
The formula for beating these lower level SnG's simplified: Get to Level 4 without risking chips. Actively start trying to steal the blinds from vulnerable stacks based on the gap theory. They will only call with x% of hands because they wont risk busting out with less valuable hands. Base your steals on stacks sizes, position, looseness of opponents, and your cards. Build your stack with these blind steals to reach the money. If you get called its usually a coin flip so half the time you'll win.
Here is my thoughts on a typical blind steal.
Blinds $150/300
UTG 1900
CO 2300
Hero 1100
SB 900
BB 1800
Folded to me with K9s on the BTN. Ok I have folding equity here. I havent seen these players make questionable calls. The small blind only has 150 invested and will probably only call with 10's on up, AQ and AK. The BB is a bigger stack and shouldn't feel the pressure to call. He may call with 99 on up, AJ, and KQ. I may not get a better chance than this to steal the blinds. The number of times they fold coupled with the number of times they call and I win make this a good push.
The problem I have is the range of hands. I cant see the cards that they throw away, but it seems like I am constantly getting called with hands I never would have guessed they'd call with. In fact it seems like they are calling with the same range of hands I'm raising with. Any pair, any ace, and decent kings. No matter what position, chip stack, or bubble situation. It's just "I have a good hand (KJo, 66), I call". If I factor those hands into the equation it makes pushing these hands bad moves (or does it because of my short stack?).
Lorinda posted awhile back something to the effect of "Base your play on what your opponents WILL do and not what they SHOULD do." Even though I havent seen this player makes dumb calls and he's been folding to every steal so far he's still a typical Party Poker $20 SNG monkey.
I've probably posted 50 questionable pushes over the last 3 weeks and seem to have a good feel for what the forum feels should be push situations, but I'm starting to feel like I may be playing too aggressively and should just sit back and let the monkeys make mistakes more often. Especially the way they usually play 3-way or heads-up.
This is based on over 1000 SNG's over the last several weeks. Is my thinking biased based on results or a bad run? Is it simply the result of never seeing the hundreds of times the monkeys throw away their 77 or KQ?
Sorry for the length but this has been bothering me for some time.
The formula for beating these lower level SnG's simplified: Get to Level 4 without risking chips. Actively start trying to steal the blinds from vulnerable stacks based on the gap theory. They will only call with x% of hands because they wont risk busting out with less valuable hands. Base your steals on stacks sizes, position, looseness of opponents, and your cards. Build your stack with these blind steals to reach the money. If you get called its usually a coin flip so half the time you'll win.
Here is my thoughts on a typical blind steal.
Blinds $150/300
UTG 1900
CO 2300
Hero 1100
SB 900
BB 1800
Folded to me with K9s on the BTN. Ok I have folding equity here. I havent seen these players make questionable calls. The small blind only has 150 invested and will probably only call with 10's on up, AQ and AK. The BB is a bigger stack and shouldn't feel the pressure to call. He may call with 99 on up, AJ, and KQ. I may not get a better chance than this to steal the blinds. The number of times they fold coupled with the number of times they call and I win make this a good push.
The problem I have is the range of hands. I cant see the cards that they throw away, but it seems like I am constantly getting called with hands I never would have guessed they'd call with. In fact it seems like they are calling with the same range of hands I'm raising with. Any pair, any ace, and decent kings. No matter what position, chip stack, or bubble situation. It's just "I have a good hand (KJo, 66), I call". If I factor those hands into the equation it makes pushing these hands bad moves (or does it because of my short stack?).
Lorinda posted awhile back something to the effect of "Base your play on what your opponents WILL do and not what they SHOULD do." Even though I havent seen this player makes dumb calls and he's been folding to every steal so far he's still a typical Party Poker $20 SNG monkey.
I've probably posted 50 questionable pushes over the last 3 weeks and seem to have a good feel for what the forum feels should be push situations, but I'm starting to feel like I may be playing too aggressively and should just sit back and let the monkeys make mistakes more often. Especially the way they usually play 3-way or heads-up.
This is based on over 1000 SNG's over the last several weeks. Is my thinking biased based on results or a bad run? Is it simply the result of never seeing the hundreds of times the monkeys throw away their 77 or KQ?
Sorry for the length but this has been bothering me for some time.