3 Questions (General, Long)

[closer2313]

Background: I play limit hold em online and have been doing pretty well at it. For my home game we play NLHE SNGs.

I was wondering if you could give me some general strategy to try for my home game. I use to have a much easier time playing it, but it seems that my competition has gotten alot better by playing more and playing online some. Here is the structure.

Starting Stack t2000
Starting blinds 25/50
Levels are 25/50 - 50/100 - 75/150 - 100/200 - 150/300 - 200/400 doubling every increase.

Blinds go up every 40 mins.

I have an image as very tight, very good, and tricky.

This structure gives alot of play. We usually have between 6-9 players playing. Now this is really general, but I know that typical SNG strategy is to play really tight early and stick to really premium hands, then once the blinds get really high, start to steal the blinds based on ICM calculations.

Is this still the best strategy for my game? I was thinking I should play moderately tight, but try to hit some hands in which I could bust someone early. This way I could use a big stack to put pressure on my opponents when the blinds get higher.

I find myself being the shortstack on the bubble which is where I have been busting lately. If not I barely squeeze into the money with very few chips and go out 3rd.

I would rather win then just get into the money, but I usually lack the chip stack to do it.

So, what do you think I should try to do?
Play more aggressively, play tigher, play looser, any ideas?

I know this is really general, but any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Second Question

I think that the ICM theory is really neat, but I have a question. I use this site here (http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~sharnett/ICM/ICM.html)
to calculate the $EV. How exactly is this calculated. Is it % / of total chips x Prize pool? I was thinking about this, and tell me where I am wrong.

10 people start with 1000 chips each. This is a ten dollar tournament with a total prize pool of 100 dollars. Payouts are .5/.3/.2. If you end up with all the chips you win 50 dollars. So isn't each chip worth $.005 ? With 1000 chips isn't your $EV 1/10 of 1/2 of prize pool? So isn't your $EV at the start 5 dollars?

I also see that if you start headsup, down 8000 to 2000. Then your $EV is 1/5 x (difference between 1st and 2nd) + 2nd place. So his EV is .46 and yours is .34. That makes sense. I just don't see why its that way before you make the money.

3rd Question.

Is there any reason to pass up a reasonable +cEV (expected chip value, I think thats the abbreviation) in an SNG?. If so how small of an edge does it have to be.

5 People left out of 10, You are a medium stack. 50-100 Blinds
UTG (3000)
MP1 (1500)
You (1800)
SB (1500)
BB (2200)

Preflop: 2 folds, you raise on button with Q/images/graemlins/heart.gifJ/images/graemlins/heart.gif to 300. BB Calls.

Flop: T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif 2/images/graemlins/heart.gif
BB goes all in. You know he could do this with top pair. You also know he likes to defend his blinds.

Board: Td 2h 9h
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1: 37.0683 % [ 00.37 00.00 ] { ATs, KTs, QTs, JTs, ATo, KTo, QTo, JTo }
Hand 2: 62.9317 % [ 00.63 00.00 ] { QhJh }

Call or Fold?

What other considerations would you need to think about before you decide?

Thanks alot, I know it was long, any help you can give will be greatly appreciated.

[lastchance]

For the early levels, I really like playing standard regular poker, slowly tightening up as you go along until you get in a position where you need to start picking up blinds, which mostly depends on the size of your stack.

With 10-20x BB, there are very few hands you should play. Above that (as long as your opponents are around the same level), you should play standard ring-game. Below 10x BB, it's push/fold time.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
This structure gives alot of play. We usually have between 6-9 players playing. Now this is really general, but I know that typical SNG strategy is to play really tight early and stick to really premium hands, then once the blinds get really high, start to steal the blinds based on ICM calculations.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well that is really more of a strategy for beating Party SNGs, with 2000 chips stacks and longish blind levels you are gonna have to get in there and play some poker, build a stack and worry about the other stuff as the stacks get shorter.

[ QUOTE ]
I think that the ICM theory is really neat, but I have a question. I use this site here
to calculate the $EV. How exactly is this calculated. Is it % / of total chips x Prize pool? I was thinking about this, and tell me where I am wrong.

10 people start with 1000 chips each. This is a ten dollar tournament with a total prize pool of 100 dollars. Payouts are .5/.3/.2. If you end up with all the chips you win 50 dollars. So isn't each chip worth $.005 ? With 1000 chips isn't your $EV 1/10 of 1/2 of prize pool? So isn't your $EV at the start 5 dollars?

[/ QUOTE ]

You are ignoring the chance of winning 2nd or 3rd place prize money. As you say 10000 chips only gets you $50, but thats becasue the other $50 has already been payed out.