General SNG early blinds and betting strat. [Archive]

Poker_God

03-19-2005, 04:56 PM

I just have a general question for anyone who plays internet tourneys. To me it semms like the internet games are a little harder to beat and require a little bit more luck than skill. Now i hate saying that but as of lately it seems to be true with me seeing two outers catch more than open enders, now my question.

Ok lets say your only ten minutes in blinds are 10-20 or 15-30 and you are average stack around 1500. Ok, do oyu think the best play is to wait on killer hands and position to bet out early because it seems the table is a lil bit loose until at least 25-50 or 50-100 or just play your regular game and hope for the best? It seems to me I waste alot of money playing my regular hands out of position like being cautious playing such hands as AJ suited and AQ. Now my play usually doesnt change, i consider myself aggressive when the opportunity presents itself for a payoff playing that way and tight when i am waiting for the donkeys to shoot themselves. It just seems that early on regardless the bet youll get some callers calling with Q8 or 78 and ive even seen a raise out of position with 10 7 os and hit trips...lol. But later on the people it seems like get a lil more scared or wary of actual good hands entering the pot.

Second question:

Ok now betting on the internet. Lets say i am BB have A9s and alot of people have entered making it a family pot. Now do i raise to show strength or just check seeing as many people would call almost anything for a bet and all-in is too risky. So i just call and the flop comes out A /images/graemlins/club.gif 9 /images/graemlins/club.gif and 7 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. I just missed my suit completely and have really no redraws to a better hand except a boat. I check planning on reraising a bet from someone with Ax even though i dont fear Ax. Also i want someone to come out with a semi-bluff hoping to get them to fold the flush or the str8 draw. Now MP bets 150 into a 100 pot and two people call. Should i all-in it here and try to take it down or just call planning on betting out if the scare card doesnt come or just reraise the pot?

Just curious on betting strategies online with alot of people in the pot with a strong flop hand that could easily get outdrawn...just wondering how you all would play good flop hands that could get outdrawn or called down til the river.

citanul

03-19-2005, 10:49 PM

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I just have a general question for anyone who plays internet tourneys. To me it semms like the internet games are a little harder to beat and require a little bit more luck than skill. Now i hate saying that but as of lately it seems to be true with me seeing two outers catch more than open enders, now my question.

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as you asked, i'm not going to reply to this paragraph full of nonsense, since you didn't ask a question in it. i'll respond to the later stuff, since you apparently only want to hear about that. in the future, just lay off this first paragraph, since you apparently didn't want responses to be directed towards it. a note: 8 outers clearly hit more often than 2 outers. over the short term this could not hold true. that's poker. on to your questions.

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Ok lets say your only ten minutes in blinds are 10-20 or 15-30 and you are average stack around 1500.

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i'm guessing you mean that there are timed levels, or something, in this sng, not that it's entirely important to the rest of the question.

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Ok, do oyu think the best play is to wait on killer hands and position to bet out early because it seems the table is a lil bit loose until at least 25-50 or 50-100 or just play your regular game and hope for the best?

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well, waiting for killer hands and position to bet out early sort of *is* my regular game. so i don't understand the question i guess. i'm not going to really argue about this, but weak tight is the "proper" strategy early in a tournament. early on, it's reasonable to say that you should be looking for reasons to fold a hand, not reasons to not fold it. kinda. meh.

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It seems to me I waste alot of money playing my regular hands out of position like being cautious playing such hands as AJ suited and AQ.

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perhaps if you are losing money with hands, you should either analyze your play of those hands, or consider that they are not hands that you should consider "regular" in various situations. you have said you have pokertracker. look at your hands. maybe post some. but playing KT, KJ, KQ, QT, QJ, AT, AJ, and AQ badly early in a tournament is a major leak.

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Now my play usually doesnt change, i consider myself aggressive when the opportunity presents itself for a payoff playing that way and tight when i am waiting for the donkeys to shoot themselves.

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huh? are you trying to contrast tight vs. aggressive? you can contrast tight v loose, or weak v aggressive, but tight and aggressive can be at the same time done. hell, i guess you can even do loose and tight at the same time, just on different streets. you keep referring to "my usual play" and the like. what on earth is your "usual" play? the point is that early you should be looking for opportunities to bust donkeys. so you play tight, and aggressive. depending on the structure of your sng, you may be able to get away with some suited connector type hands, but the hands i mentioned above like KT, AJ, etc, are ones that it may or may not be possible for a given player to play profitably in a cash game, but probably should just be chucked in early levels of most sngs. again, i don't know what you mean by this whole "usual" play stuff, but you seem to misuse words and stuff.

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It just seems that early on regardless the bet youll get some callers calling with Q8 or 78 and ive even seen a raise out of position with 10 7 os and hit trips...lol.

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this is my main problem with this post. it seems to be up to this point mostly a thinly veiled long term both bad beat whine post and a "i clearly am superior to the opposition, but am frustrated at my occasional losing streak" type post rolled into one. i'm not a fan of those things.

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But later on the people it seems like get a lil more scared or wary of actual good hands entering the pot.

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again, you need to proofread, or something. your sentences just don't fit together one after the other very well usually. do you mean that they are wary of the fact that *you* or the *raiser* may have a big hand? well duh, to call a raise later in the game takes a higher % of their chips. even a dumb player will intuitively, without even thinking about it, have fear of calling 1/2 of their stack, while not caring about calling off 75 chips on level 1. it should be mentioned that if you're going to hand them your entire stack every time you flop a pair and they flop better, they aren't necessarilly making a mistake doing so. in general, the point is that with small blinds, it's a relatively minor mistake that a bad player doesn't think about to call a raise to say, 50 out of 1500 chips with T7s. later in the game, it's clearly a huge mistake to call a raise to 600 with 2000 chips, and T7s. capiche?

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Second question:

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ok, killer, shoot.

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Ok now betting on the internet. Lets say i am BB have A9s and alot of people have entered making it a family pot. Now do i raise to show strength or just check seeing as many people would call almost anything for a bet and all-in is too risky.

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well, seeing as how your hand is weak, i don't really see how you would want to show strength. i think you have some starting hand valuation problems by several of the points that have been in this post. if you're going to consider raising here, i like the play better with bigger than the minimum blinds, but clearly, the out of the blinds raise to steal the limps is a play that should on occasion be used. the point is that garbage is equal to a "decent" hand in this situation. you're in general not looking for callers here, just to take down the limped chips. again, if this isn't clear, A9s is a bad hand. it is not a good hand. you should check here, assuming that it is no raise to you, and try to flop big for free.

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So i just call and the flop comes out A /images/graemlins/club.gif 9 /images/graemlins/club.gif and 7 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. I just missed my suit completely and have really no redraws to a better hand except a boat. I check planning on reraising a bet from someone with Ax even though i dont fear Ax. Also i want someone to come out with a semi-bluff hoping to get them to fold the flush or the str8 draw. Now MP bets 150 into a 100 pot and two people call. Should i all-in it here and try to take it down or just call planning on betting out if the scare card doesnt come or just reraise the pot?

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silly things like stack sizes, blind sizes, number of players, etc are usually helpful when you ask about advice for how to play a hand. the fact here in this hand is that your hand is good enough that if you're beat by a set, you're basically just going to have to lose all your chips, unless after you check your hand, you get a couple of really strong bets and calls or whatever before it gets back to you. i'd personally bet out my hand here, since giving a free card could be tragic. but if i had reasonable certainty i'd get a bet from behind me, i'd of possibly go for the checkraise. i'd be looking to get all my chips in with as many callers as i can here. when it was a 150 bet with 2 callers, i'd push in a heartbeat.

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Just curious on betting strategies online with alot of people in the pot with a strong flop hand that could easily get outdrawn...just wondering how you all would play good flop hands that could get outdrawn or called down til the river.

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well, if you're curious about betting strategies, what can i tell you, there's a zillion situations, and a zillion different right answers. you can only really ask about individual hands, or perhaps you know, ask a question at all, instead of just saying "i'm just curious about it" and expect people to come back with full fledged answers telling you everything you need to know about betting in nl. it's not going to happen that way. in general, in nl, a good rule of thumb in big pots with lots of opponents, where you think you have the best hand but think it's possible you can get out drawn is "eh, sometimes you get outdrawn, try to make them make a mistake by calling" so don't bet small to try to lure people in to calling, don't minicheckraise, and don't slowplay. getting all your chips in is rarely a mistake. since there's many paths to getting all your money in, try to take one that makes your opponents do something dumb in order to call you.

good luck.

citanul

ps: i don't, and no one else does, care about your 75,000 hands.