Pre-bubble trouble

[hummusx]

I started 4-tabling the 22s on Party this week, and when I look over the 120 games so far there's a few interesting things:

-When I finish ITM, I'm 1st more than other positions
-I bust out in 4th a lot
-I bust out in 6th more than any other position

It's this last one I want to talk about. It's usually right around the time we're going from level 4 to level 5. I'm typically sitting with less chips than I started with. If I hadn't played any hands I'd have 800 - 15 - 10 = 775 - 30 - 15 = 730 - 50 - 25 = 655 when we move to level 4. Of course there are exceptions. Maybe I limped with a pocket pair and missed, or maybe I raised PF at level 2 and ended up just winning the blinds. A good portion of the time I'm at 800-900 here, but probably the most common amount is somewhere in the low 600s.

So here comes the problem. There's usually 6-7 people when we move to level 4. So if I'm early-mid position (as I will be 65% of the time) and one of the next couple hands isn't great, I'm going to be in the BB before I get a chance to steal. Assuming it's raised and I fold, that leaves me ~550 in the small blind and then only ~500 on the button. I can still steal with this of course, but with 6-7 people someone has often raised before it gets to me on the button. Often again in the CO. It seems like I usually only get 1 decent opportunity to steal before the blinds go up again, which leaves me in a pretty precarious position with only 3x the BB or so.

Is this typical or am I playing the early game incorrectly? I expect to be low stacked sometimes here, but this is by far the most common scenario I'm finding myself in. Am I just on a bad run of being called/beaten when called?

[tomdemaine]

I seem to be having exactly the same trouble at 22's. Plus looseish callers make it very difficult to steal with 3XBB in my experience.

[GtrHtr]

I had a similar issue about 2 months back and this may not be the best way to play this, but it has fixed the problem for me.

As the blinds move into the steal level (level 4ish) with 6-7 players remaining, I have adjusted my steal play when in CO or on the button with a 3xBB raise ahead of me to ALMOST an UTG hand selection criteria. In other words, if you push, you will likely have a showdown so your hand needs to stand up. Otherwise, I fold. You will have many other steal opportunities as the field thins and the blinds get even higher.

[JasonP530]

I find myself in the same situation. I have a lot of 5th and 6th place finishes. Here are some of the reasons I think this happens. If someone could jump in and improve on my ideas or tell me where I may have gone astray, I would appreciate it.

If you are playing the correct sit and go strategy, you should not be eliminated in 8th, 9th or 10th very frequently, since the blinds are small and you are not gambling as much as your opponenets. Since you cant finish in the money all the time, the only remaining slots are 1-7.
This would tend to weight you towards those spots much more heavily than 8-10.

In addition, if you are playing tight, you may not have had a chance to accumulate chips, so your stack could be weaning a bit as the blinds begin to get higher. Seeing this, and not really caring whether you get eliminated in 6th, or blind down and come in 4th or 5th, you gamble by trying to steal the blinds to bring your stack up. If you are sucessful several times, you will have a decent stack to play, or be right in the thick of it if you are lucky enough to double through.

In summary, you dont accumulate enough chips(because youre not always gambling) and you therefore need to gamble when there are 5 and 6 people left.

[hummusx]

[ QUOTE ]
I seem to be having exactly the same trouble at 22's. Plus looseish callers make it very difficult to steal with 3XBB in my experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true, not that it matters much since you don't want to raise to 300 when you only have 650 left. Which really just contributes to the problem, because with 6-7 people left and me pushing my chips in on steals, it really seems to increase the likelyhood that I'm going to be called sooner rather than later. I don't like pushing with A5 only to have someone call me with A6. I mean, I'd never make a call like that in this situation, but there seems like a lot of people that will.

[hummusx]

[ QUOTE ]

As the blinds move into the steal level (level 4ish) with 6-7 players remaining, I have adjusted my steal play when in CO or on the button with a 3xBB raise ahead of me to ALMOST an UTG hand selection criteria.

[/ QUOTE ]

At this point, that's not really a 'steal'. Yeah, if someone has already raised 3xBB and I only have 6xBB, I'm not getting in the hand without premium cards. That's not really the issue though.

[ QUOTE ]
In other words, if you push, you will likely have a showdown so your hand needs to stand up. Otherwise, I fold. You will have many other steal opportunities as the field thins and the blinds get even higher.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not really the case. Unless you have really good cards, you only have about 2 hands per round that you're in good steal position. If you don't take advantage of one of those, and the blinds come by again, you are now down to 3xBB and now you have almost no FE.

[GtrHtr]

Understand. So I'd look at your early play as you indicate in your original post. What hands are you playing UTG-MP2? You indicate pocket pairs but what is your standard for entering a pot with pocket pairs from EP-MP? Are you generally playing a lot of Ax? How do you play a raised pot vs an unraised pot with 3-4 limpers?

In general terms - you may feel you are tight early but are involved in a lot more pots than you think you are.

Multi-tabling, I tend to play about 20-30% more hands than when I single table.

[hummusx]

[ QUOTE ]
Understand. So I'd look at your early play as you indicate in your original post. What hands are you playing UTG-MP2? You indicate pocket pairs but what is your standard for entering a pot with pocket pairs from EP-MP? Are you generally playing a lot of Ax? How do you play a raised pot vs an unraised pot with 3-4 limpers?

In general terms - you may feel you are tight early but are involved in a lot more pots than you think you are.

Multi-tabling, I tend to play about 20-30% more hands than when I single table.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm the opposite. When I single table, I play too many hands because I'm bored out of my mind. In fact, I think part of my problem has been that I'm TOO tight early on.

In early position I'll open limp the mid pairs, probably JJ-66, maybe lower depending on the table. I'll limp behind limpers with the same. I'm raising 3xBB + 1-2xlimp with AA, KK, QQ, and AK. In most scenarios I'm playing all 4 of these for all of my chips PF if possible. I'll occasionally throw in a raise or limp behind limpers with KQ and very rarely AQs. Otherwise, the only other cards I play are whatever I have in the BB when I'm not raised out of it. Oh yeah, and I will play a few other high value hands from the SB.

I avoid Ax like the plague, although I have to admit occasionally winning a pot with this in the BB. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[JoshuaMayes]

The biggest danger in the situation that you describe is losing your fold equity with alot of players left. If you don't get a chance to steal when its "your turn," you might consider making a steal from an earlier position than you otherwise might to preserve your fold equity. With 6-7 players left and blinds this big, you can't really play to squeak into the money when you only have 5BB (soon to be 2.5BB) left. Maintaining enough chips to steal the blinds is critical at this point in a SNG, imo.

[hummusx]

[ QUOTE ]
The biggest danger in the situation that you describe is losing your fold equity with alot of players left. If you don't get a chance to steal when its "your turn," you might consider making a steal from an earlier position than you otherwise might to preserve your fold equity. With 6-7 players left and blinds this big, you can't really play to squeak into the money when you only have 5BB (soon to be 2.5BB) left. Maintaining enough chips to steal the blinds is critical at this point in a SNG, imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely it is, and that's why I'm posting this. Once you are stealing where there are 2 people plus the SB and BB, your chances of getting called are going up a LOT. Especially if it's not the first time you pushed on a steal. Since a lot of people don't understand the <10BB = push or fold concept, they view this for what it is...a steal.

But, even if you do get your steal in, all you did was stay at your existing chip level, you didn't increase. So you stayed afloat, and when the blinds go up your FE goes down. When you have this few chips, your making it to the money depends on either a) situations continuing to align themselves to allow you to steal (ie no one raises when you are in steal positions) b) a lucky coin flip c) other people get stupid and bust out.

b) is just that, a coin flip, and c) is a long shot with 6-7 left (happens now and then). So then you are really relying on situations continuing to go well. It really only takes one circuit without getting your steal in and you are left with only b) and c) as viable hope.

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Understand. So I'd look at your early play as you indicate in your original post. What hands are you playing UTG-MP2? You indicate pocket pairs but what is your standard for entering a pot with pocket pairs from EP-MP? Are you generally playing a lot of Ax? How do you play a raised pot vs an unraised pot with 3-4 limpers?

In general terms - you may feel you are tight early but are involved in a lot more pots than you think you are.

Multi-tabling, I tend to play about 20-30% more hands than when I single table.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm the opposite. When I single table, I play too many hands because I'm bored out of my mind. In fact, I think part of my problem has been that I'm TOO tight early on.

In early position I'll open limp the mid pairs, probably JJ-66, maybe lower depending on the table. I'll limp behind limpers with the same. I'm raising 3xBB + 1-2xlimp with AA, KK, QQ, and AK. In most scenarios I'm playing all 4 of these for all of my chips PF if possible. I'll occasionally throw in a raise or limp behind limpers with KQ and very rarely AQs. Otherwise, the only other cards I play are whatever I have in the BB when I'm not raised out of it. Oh yeah, and I will play a few other high value hands from the SB.

I avoid Ax like the plague, although I have to admit occasionally winning a pot with this in the BB. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]


The only answer I have at this point is in the final sentence in your original post. You are just having a bad run and everything will work itself out over time.

[bluesbassman]

[ QUOTE ]
I started 4-tabling the 22s on Party this week, and when I look over the 120 games so far there's a few interesting things:

-When I finish ITM, I'm 1st more than other positions
-I bust out in 4th a lot
-I bust out in 6th more than any other position

It's this last one I want to talk about. It's usually right around the time we're going from level 4 to level 5. I'm typically sitting with less chips than I started with. If I hadn't played any hands I'd have 800 - 15 - 10 = 775 - 30 - 15 = 730 - 50 - 25 = 655 when we move to level 4. Of course there are exceptions. Maybe I limped with a pocket pair and missed, or maybe I raised PF at level 2 and ended up just winning the blinds. A good portion of the time I'm at 800-900 here, but probably the most common amount is somewhere in the low 600s.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hear ya. That's why I've never had much success playing the $11-$22 SnGs at Party. Like you say, I play tight and end up with about 650 chips in level 4. Then I end up going all-in on a steal or value bet, get called, and either lose a coin-flip or get out drawn. I burned through a few hundred dollars that way before switching to Stars.

It frankly mystifies me how many people on here apparently do so well playing the Party lower-limit SnGs. To me, it seems like a "Wild West" crapshoot out there. Perhaps I'm not making those critical near bubble decisions very well.

On Stars, given the bigger starting stack and slower blind structure, I can be patient, play a number of speculative hands, and outplay people post-flop. You still have 2-3 maniac fish per table who end up giving away all their chips before the "real" poker starts. In fact, on Stars, levels 1-4 are often about who among the decent players are going to get the weak players' chips. (Even if a fish gets lucky early, there is sufficient stack size and time to to win the chips back.)

I suppose if you want to maximize ROI per hour and multi-table (which lends itself to simplified decision making), Party is a good place to play. I just can't seem to make the adjustment to the stack/blind structure, nor deal with the increased variance. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[ewing55]

I'm having the same problem. Only playing AA, KK, QQ, AK & PP for the first 3 levels. I usually don't get those hands so I at about t650 which is 13xBB at level 3 (good), but then the blinds double on level 4 which puts me at t650 and 6.5xBB which is desperation mode.

I'm thinking I need to open up my playing in late position. If no limps throw a 3xBB bet out there with decent cards and try to steal a blind or be in a good postion to play an hand or two. Then when level 4 comes around I'll have t750 to t800 which is a lot better place to be.

Thoughts/Comments?

Last 4 games: 4th, 4th, 4th, 6th (my AA was flushed by a AKo Arg!!!)

[nova]

I've opened up my early game recently and it's led to some very good results in finishing in the money for the last handful of SnG's I've played in.

Try to stay in front of the blinds by accumulating chips steadilly: there's no worse feeling than getting chipped away and waiting for a hand. How many times have you waited paitently for a hand, only to be called by some loose player with a large stack? I got frustrated with that approach and started to try to build the stack over a more gradual basis. While it's not advised to raise with any 2 cards, maybe from middle position try larger raises but still vary them. Obviously when the blinds are at 10/15, a raise of 30 is a 'whatever'. However a raise of 60 has some clout, especially out of position. Following the flop, a continuation bet of around half the pot will win it for you many times regardless if you made your hand or not.

If people percieve you to enter a few pots and play those pots strong, that's a good thing. However if you get someone who's a loose caller with a big stack, you can be expected to be called if you move all in with hands as weak as Ax or Kj.

[hummusx]

I'm still waiting for a few of the heavy hitters to step in here and give their two cents.