HOH preflop recommendations: Applicable to sng's?

[luckyplayer]

Hello all,

Been playing home game tourneys for about 18 months now, and just started playing sit n gos a couple of weeks ago. I've been doing a lot of reading on the board and in the archives, and I'm really learning a lot.

Anyway, I bought HOH to help with my play in my home games and have read through it 3 times. I was wondering how most people feel about his preflop recommendations and how they apply towards STT's. He has a lot of problems at the end of each section, and he routinely does things like raise strongly with JJ and TT and even AQs with several people in the pot. His recommendations seem fairly tight aggressive to me, but they are much looser than some of the advise on this board, such as aleomagus's 10+1 PP guide.

For a person who will be spending his first few weeks/months playing at the 5.50 level, do most people think it would be better to stick to the extremely tight preflop advise for the Lower level games, or would it be more advisable to start out with a strategy like that recommended in HOH.

This all assumes early in the game, before the blinds have gotten too big.

[raptor517]

there is absolutely no reason to stray from the super tight advice in a 5.50 sng. maybe in the 215s its correct to loosen up a bit more early. stick to being super tight in the first few rounds, the fishies will go to war with KQo and A9o, while you just wait them out, and believe me, just doing that you can be a winning player. holla

[Bigwig]

Aleo's guide is fine for beginners at the very low levels (10 & below) and that's it. Aleo is obviously a good player, and has helped a lot of people, so I hate to sound like I'm bashing his guide, but I don't like it. I'm tight, and his guide is so much tighter it makes my excrement turn into engagement jewelry.

HOH is more for MTT's. His recommendations aren't bad for STT's, but they're a little too loose for the first couple of levels. For later levels, they're pretty good. But don't worry about his randomization stuff, unless you're playing $100's or above against much of the same competition. Even then, if you're multi-tabling, it's probably not an efficient way to play (the randomizing stuff, I mean).

[lastchance]

If you're playing at Stars compared to Party, be warned that there is a big difference in how you should play. An extra 700 chips will do that.

At Stars, you should be pretty loose, at least compared to Party and Aleo.

[raptor517]

well, aleos guide is about how to beat the PARTY 10+1s. obviously, almost double the chips certainly makes different play correct. i still hate limping with big cards though. i would definitely be more apt to raise pf with sutff like 57s though.. 3uo

[syka16]

in a T1500 SNG nothing wrong with big broadway in LP.

[Rolen]

I'll provide some thoughts..

1) Let's say you start a $10 tournament and get 1000 chips. Each chip at the start of the tournament is worth $0.01, since that's what you pay for them. BUT.. If you win ALL the chips, you win $50. If each chip was truly worth $0.01, winning every chip (10,000) would mean you would collect $100 for winning the tournament. In short, the value of chips you win is less than the chips you risk to get them, so you should only be putting them at risk when you are sure you have a clear advantage. This is why you should be super-tight when the blinds are small..There are usually so many players seeing the flop that your advantage over 'the field', without a premium hand, is not enough to cover the 'cost of risk'.

2) Late on in a tournament, different peoples' chips are worth different amounts to you. Example..

There are 4 players left, everyone started with 1000 chips, blinds are 100/200.

You have 1300 chips after posting blind (in the BB)
Seat 2 has 1400 chips after posting blind (in the SB)
Seat 3 has 4000 chips on the button
Seat 4 has 3000 chips UTG.

Seat 4 folds and Seat 3 goes all in. Let's say you have A8s. If you call and win, you will have won 1500 chips BUT you will not be much closer to making someone else bust out, and could still finish 4th. I would fold in this spot.

Now, in this case, Seat 3 folds and Seat 2 goes all in. This time, if you call and win you will not only win 1500 chips, but you will also be guarenteed at least a 3rd place finish. I would certainly consider a call with A8s in this spot, and I would certainly be MUCH more likely to call seat 2's allin than I would seat 3's, even if I knew for a fact that seat 2 is more likely to hold a better hand.

Put simply, you should be more prepared to call or aggressively steal from stacks that are close to busting out, because winning their chips is more valuable than winning some from a big stack.

Hm, this has turned into a bit of an essay. Oh well, I hope it's useful. Best of luck! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Peter Chabot]

there is just no need to play as many hands (i wonder if harrington ever thought the phrase 'as many hands' would be applied to him?) if youre going to play 5.50 or 11 with the short stack (ie party, etc). just sit around and wait for marquee hands on the first few levels while other people blow themselves out. as you move up or change to a deeper stacked game these things obviously will change a bit...

[microbet]

[ QUOTE ]
Put simply, you should be more prepared to call or aggressively steal from stacks that are close to busting out, because winning their chips is more valuable than winning some from a big stack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Being more willing to call is one thing. As for stealing, I think it is best to go for who you think is most likely to fold, rather than whose chips are more valuable.

p.s. I liked HOH a lot. I think PF he is a bit loose early rounds for the $5 games because in those games you will get paid off a lot better on average when you have a really good hand.