silvershade
07-05-2005, 06:45 AM
Hi, I've been playing poker for around 6 weeks now, until yesterday this was purely limit ring games in which I'm doing pretty well, these will remain my main focus but I really want to add some tournament play in to mix things up a little for when I just dont fancy a grind.
Yesterday I decided to play some SnG's and I started over at Party playing $10+1. I played 4 tournaments adopting a conservative approach for the early rounds ( basically eliminating drawing hands from my game ) and managed top 5 finishes in all of them ( 1st, 5th, 5th, 4th ).
On the occasion that I did make it to the last 3 I didnt find it really hard to play there compared to what went before. My normal aggressive short handed style seemed adequate here and obviously I caught some cards and was able to bust the other 2 out ( to be honest they seemed pretty clueless 2 or 3 handed, letting me pick the fights on my terms all the time ).
My problem is that I have trouble playing when there are 4 or 5 players left and the blinds are rising quickly, in all but one SnG I've entered the last 5 with the 4th or 5th largest stack. With a big stack this seemed not to hard, just stay out of trouble really but with a small stack it was another matter, obviously the blinds start hurting.
What approach do you adopt when trying to reach the top 3 when you are currently lying 4th or 5th, so far I've been attempting to double up by engineering an all-in confrontation when I have a strong hand, this seemed better than getting eaten by the blinds, each time i've ended up busting out though ( though twice I think I was quite unlucky running into pocket AA vs AK and KK vs JJ ). Is this the right stratagy though? Would they even have played back if they werent sitting on monster hands? If not would a strategy of blind stealing perhaps be a better way of surviving? I'm finding this area tricky so far and was wondering if anyone has advice or maybe can link to a guide.
Yesterday I decided to play some SnG's and I started over at Party playing $10+1. I played 4 tournaments adopting a conservative approach for the early rounds ( basically eliminating drawing hands from my game ) and managed top 5 finishes in all of them ( 1st, 5th, 5th, 4th ).
On the occasion that I did make it to the last 3 I didnt find it really hard to play there compared to what went before. My normal aggressive short handed style seemed adequate here and obviously I caught some cards and was able to bust the other 2 out ( to be honest they seemed pretty clueless 2 or 3 handed, letting me pick the fights on my terms all the time ).
My problem is that I have trouble playing when there are 4 or 5 players left and the blinds are rising quickly, in all but one SnG I've entered the last 5 with the 4th or 5th largest stack. With a big stack this seemed not to hard, just stay out of trouble really but with a small stack it was another matter, obviously the blinds start hurting.
What approach do you adopt when trying to reach the top 3 when you are currently lying 4th or 5th, so far I've been attempting to double up by engineering an all-in confrontation when I have a strong hand, this seemed better than getting eaten by the blinds, each time i've ended up busting out though ( though twice I think I was quite unlucky running into pocket AA vs AK and KK vs JJ ). Is this the right stratagy though? Would they even have played back if they werent sitting on monster hands? If not would a strategy of blind stealing perhaps be a better way of surviving? I'm finding this area tricky so far and was wondering if anyone has advice or maybe can link to a guide.