Adjusting play for lower buy-ins (blind steals)

Long time reader, first time poster... I searched but couldn't find a solid answer.

I've been watching a lot of Step 5 and Step Higher 5 games over the past few days while waiting for a deposit to clear, trying to study the styles of winning players. It seems rather simple, lay low for the first 4 levels, then push or fold to pick up blinds and if you win a few coinflips you're in the money. I play much lower games (11's hoping to make it to the 33's by the end of summer).

Will this work at the 11's? I under the EV of this move diminishes as the calling range of others decreases and the lower buyins have some ridiculous calling ranges, but can I still push this edge?

I've been reading over the following link (posted on 2+2 of course):
http://www.tightpoker.com/tournament/theorem_blind_stealing.html

Seems very useful, but I'm just not sure when to apply this strategy in a low buy-in game. Level 5 or a certain number of players? When do I push and when do I raise 3xBB? Only if 10xBB or less? If I get reraised, how tight should my calling range be?

I've noticed that one very successful 2+2 player on the Step 5's folds to nearly every single raise, only calling with monsters very late in the game. Will this work at the 11's?

With 800 starting chips it seems like post-flop skill is even less important at the lower levels, but I'm amazed at the lack of flops even at the $5000 steps with 1000 chips.

Thanks in advance.

[dmmikkel]

[ QUOTE ]
fold to pick up blinds and if you win a few coinflips you're in the money

[/ QUOTE ]

You want to avoid allin coinflips. The best scenario is either getting it in with 80% chance to win or just pick up blinds.

By coinflips I just meant the times you try to pick up the blinds with a small pocket pair and get called with two overcards.

[suited_ace]

Start with this (http://www.aleomagus.freeservers.com/strategy), it should give you a pretty good basis on how to beat the $11s.

You're not that off from a good strategy, though. The general rule is that you start pushing/folding with <10BB.

Continue reading the forums and post the hands that you're not so sure about. You should be making a profit at the $11s in no time.

[citanul]

[ QUOTE ]
You want to avoid allin coinflips. The best scenario is either getting it in with 80% chance to win or just pick up blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

no, the best scenario is to get in with a 100% chance to win or just pick up the blnds.

citanul

Yeah, I've been looking for the best scenario for quite a few hands now... aces don't seem to hold up 100%, what am I doing wrong?

Realistically, is pushing the top 25% of hands if you're under 10xBB a solid strategy with 4-5 players remaining?

I've been studying the 'Beating Party 10+2' too, seems very helpful. I don't really have too many hands to post yet (I realize so many of my own mistakes as soon as I make them)... just waiting for a deposit so I can play again.

My major leak seems to be getting too involved in the first 2 levels... mostly with overplaying AK, but I think I've learned my lesson. Also, never even thought of preserving the bubble. I don't know what I'd do without 2+2.

[Ixnert]

Preserving the bubble is overrated. Or, more specifically, it's a perfectly good concept, vastly overapplied. Don't worry about this unless you have a dominant chip lead (well over half the chips at the table, or about half with only little stacks other than you).

I could see how you could get carried away with it... but last week there were a few times where I had over 60% of the chips and I was calling withe mediocre hands just trying to bust out the remaining 3 people.

[kuro]

You want to be raising with mediocre hands, not calling with them as the big stack. If someone takes your blind it's no big deal, you probably will take 2 blinds the same orbit and have your blind folded to you the following one. Unless you're getting really good pot odds, there's no reason to call.

[Matt R.]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been watching a lot of Step 5 and Step Higher 5 games over the past few days while waiting for a deposit to clear, trying to study the styles of winning players. It seems rather simple, lay low for the first 4 levels, then push or fold to pick up blinds and if you win a few coinflips you're in the money. I play much lower games (11's hoping to make it to the 33's by the end of summer).


[/ QUOTE ]

Your post, and this paragraph in particular, makes me think you still have some large gaps in understanding how to beat sng's. Maybe you oversimplified things immensely when you wrote this, but if not, be ready to start learning a lot. Don't misintepret what I'm saying -- even if you're totally new I think you can probably beat the lower levels modestly right now. But, if you want to beat them for more than a small amount it takes a lot deeper understanding than "push to pick up the blinds or fold".

I still play the $10+1's every once in awhile and typically never play higher than $33 (hey, it pays the rent while I'm in school). The main thing you need to apply to the $11's that doesn't go for the Step 5's you've been watching is to be more patient and don't push your smaller edges when it can bust you. This means you probably will want to pass up on a few blinds steals if you're sitting comfortably in chips, because you will get called by crap a lot from the bad players. If you have a big stack, don't worry about this as much. Think of your extra chips as a "cushion". If you are stealing the blinds, and no one left to act after you can "hurt" your stack that much (obviously this depends on how big your stack is, but you get the idea), go ahead and steal away. Even if the retards pick up a mediocre hand to call you with, you're still okay if you lose the hand and can slow down after that. This leads into the other big difference IMO. The other reason you should pass on small edges or borderline blind steals is because the other players typically will bust out on dumb plays (automatically upping your share of the prize pool). When the tourney is full of bad players (unlike the high buy-ins), you can often sit back and relax as others bust each other -- assuming you're comfortable in chips and aren't going to bust anytime soon. This is still an oversimplification, but I think these are the primary differences you need to think about when playing the lower levels. Good luck building your way up.

I realize that it is a huge oversimplification (the simple push/fold part), but this is part of the game where I have very little experience (push/fold doesn't seem to be standard at this level). I played about 25 11's last week, winning about 10 buy-ins first, then placed 4-6th enough times for me to go broke. I'm not even going to suggest that this is a sample size... but there was definitely a psychological shift/leak when I was up 10 buy-ins. Many of them were bad beats, but I think most of it is my loose calling range as a big stack. I think this is a huge leak for the average player at that level.

I'd like to see what hand ranges everybody recommends for these levels (for both blind-stealing and calling all-ins). I realize this is very situation-dependent and I don't have any good hand history examples, but...

Ex.
You're down to 4 with 3000 chips and the remaining 3 have equal shares of the remaining 5000. Blinds are 75/150 and it's folded to you on the button... what do you push? Or UTG pushes... what do you call with?