200 Party NL $10+1 SNGs, Results+I have some Analysis/Questions

[adam61]

First here's the stats from my 200 SNGs then I was going to self analyze my play and possibly get some tips from you guys if possible. I can provide more information than I have put here since it's all in PokerTracker, so if you need more info to see if I might be doing something wrong I can provide it.

This is all using primarily AleoMagus's approach to these SNGs. Which is a Tight, Semi-Aggressive Strategy.

200 SNGs
Flops Seen=14.7%
Aggression factor=1.60
Avg. Finish=4.83
Profit=$80
Profit Per SNG=$.40
ROI=3.64%
Money Finishes=36.5%

Here's % I finished in each place, which helps for later analysis.

1st-8%
2nd-17%
3rd-11.5%
4th-12.5%
5th-14%
6th-8%
7th-8%
8th-10%
9th-7.5%
10th-3.5%

Alright now for a self-analysis of my play, which as you can see isn't that good.

My goal is to be making $2 a tourney and trying to start to build up a bankroll.

EARLY FINISHES (7-10): 29% of my finishes come here. These are mostly opportunities to double or triple up early on. The number of finishes in this section is dropping. The reason it is high is I've overplayed a few things early. Mainly these hands-JJ QQ AK and Two Pair/Set with scare cards. JJ is an easy one and hasn't contributed to many knockouts. I've lost maybe 2-3 tournaments overplaying this. QQ is harder I've ended up all in before the flop with this or on the flop with no overcards and gotten busted, usually by a worse hand. Probably 5 early knockouts with QQ. AK is my death hand. I've started playing it MUCH more conservatively, I was ending up all in before the flop often with this hand and getting busted by all kinds of things. I wasn't calling all ins but if there were 4-5 callers and maybe a small raiser I'd drop in my stack. AK has knocked me out of 10 tournaments early. I've lightened up on it some but some suggestions on how to better play that hand would be great.

On the flop in the early game has been dangerous too. When I pick up 2 pair or a set I've gotten busted out by various hands. I'm not sure the correct thing to do here. In early position I make a pot sized bet. If reraised all-in I usually fold but if I get called I usually bet again on the turn, then check on the river if I didn't make a full boat. Usually a straight or mid flush has been there the whole time. Suggestions on how to play this better would decrease my low finishes too.

ON THE BUBBLE (4-6): This is 34.5% of my finishes and is much more frustrating to me than the 10th place finishes. Over a third of the time I'm gonna get close and not make it for some reason and that can be frustrating. I think some tips on better play here may be the real difference in getting my returns up.

Two things kill me here. On a short stack I play very aggressive, especially when the blinds get to 100/200 and I'm at T500 or less. Usually I can steal a couple this way but sooner or later before I hit the 1200-1500 I need to start playing a little tighter one of the big stacks calls me with either a nice hand, or a small favorite, or a small underdog and there's another 4th or 5th. I know I should get a good bit of finishes here but tips on how to cut it down would be wonderful. The other thing that can happen is if I'm sitting on a big stack with 4-5 left I play more tightly. If 4 are left and I have say T2400, with the rest of the table at T3200 T1600 and T800, I will play a tighter style. The problem is if I don't run into a good hand and haven't done my share of stealing, before I know it I'm the short stack at T1100 and forced to start playing aggressively again. I'm having trouble finding middle ground between aggressive play and tighter play with 4-5 left.

3 HANDED: Ok now here's the section I didn't realize I had a problem in til the statistics started coming through. I can't take first if my life depended on it. I'll break this down into 2 sections.

3 Handed play. I do better here than 2 handed but I still have trouble. I generally raise with any suited ace, and ace with kicker above 8 or so. Most kings. Any PP. any 2 cards 10 or higher. I never limp 3 handed. Like I said I do DECENT here but definitely room for improvement. Not sure on flop play here either. Usually if I've hit middle or top pair I'll drop a nice bet out there. If it's a scary board and I get reraised I fold. If not I'll usually call.

HEADS UP: I think this section is really hurting me way more than I realized. I played a lot of ring games before I got into tournaments so my heads up experience is limited. I played heads up in exactly 50 of the 200 tournaments. 5 of those times I was severely short stacked or was actually knocked out in 3 handed play and had more chips before the hand started. That leaves 45 oppurtunities to take First. Conventional wisdom tells me that I should have taken first about 22 times. Therefore I missed first 6 times I definitely shouldn't have. And even better would be to be over 50% wins heads up. Those 6 firsts I should have had but didn't cost me $120, and as you can see from the statistics that would shoot me up from $.40 a game to $1 a game right there. Heads up I play a lot like 3 handed. I never limp, Raise with any ace, any suited king or king medium kicker, any PP, or any 2 cards 10 or higher.

I fall into 1 of two styles heads up and both seem to give me trouble. One is the aggressor. If I've been aggressive getting to the final 2 I stay aggressive. I try to chip away at their stack and it usually works, for a while. Well unerringly I'll get a A9o raise to 1200 (blinds are 300/600) and get raised all in for 2000. If it was more I'd fold but I usually call here, and yep it's a pair of 10s. All of a sudden all my work from being aggressive is gone. The other side of the coin I play more tightly wait for a somewhat better hand and try to break them. But the blinds can eat you VERY fast if the other person is being ultra aggressive. I'm having trouble finding a middle ground here. I've read through the heads up forum but I didn't find a lot of help.

Phew, that's it. Thanks for reading through that long post, and thank you in advance for any advice you offer. I know it's long and if you just want to pick a section to give comments about just quote that section and only make comments there, I wouldn't expect people to go through the whole thing giving tips if they didn't want to. Thanks again

-Adam

[Phil Van Sexton]

I've played about 50 of these 10/1s and I can give you my 2 cents. I don't have my stats in front of me, but I remember them as about...
1st - 20%
2nd - 5%
3rd - 20%
4th - 25%

In most of these tournaments, I feel like I'm one of the best at the table. Therefore, I feel no need to double or triple up early. I would never go all-in with AK early. It will never be more than a 70% favorite heads up, and I have no interest in a 30+% chance of losing to a fish. If you get AK or JJ, try to win a few hundred, but don't move in.

My only advice for bubble play...Some bad players will fold their blinds to ANY raise, so I try to steal blinds with minimum raises. If people let you get away with this, you are in good shape. You can raise with any cards, and just fold if they play back at you. Watch for an "instant" fold from them. This means they use the "Check/Fold" checkbox and typically fold to any raise unless they have a monster. Why would you ever raise all-in against such a player?

Final 3 play. As you can see from my stats, I rarely finish 2nd. At this point, you must play super aggressive. This usually results in my finishing 3rd or eliminating the 3rd place finisher. By knocking out that player, I'll usually have the chip lead which is obviously a huge advantage.

You seem to be playing it safe here. Most people dont, so the other 2 will likely fight it out. This leaves you in 2nd place often, but well below the chip leader. This is hard to overcome.

Chiplead or not, you have to be super aggressive when heads-up. You will run over weak players and win 1/2 the time vs strong players depending how the cards fall. There's no time to "outplay" people with blinds that high. Just keep throwing your chips in and hope for the best.

Good luck.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]

Aggression factor=1.60


[/ QUOTE ]

Red flag.

We compared notes on this number awhile back, and the best players had AF in the 3.0 range. Mine is 2.45 and I tend to get around 30-50% ROI at the $30 and $50 buy-ins.

I think this gets skewed higher for good players since they are playing more short-handed than a less successful player.

But in any case, I think you should be looking at at least 2.0 here.

eastbay

[adam61]

It may be closer to 2.00 but you're probably right. I have a couple thousand hands in poker tracker from limit tournaments that I can't seem to get out of there. If anyone knows how to select NL data only that would be really helpful. Under the last tab I've chosen NL Tournament only but when I do that all the data goes away not just the limit data. But nonetheless aggression is still probably too low.

[AleoMagus]

Well, I am glad that you are at least breaking even with my strategy, but I am a bit concerned by a few things.

You have hit two big concerns right on the head. Your win % is too low AND you are finishing on the bubble way too much.

You have already clarified how some better heads up play can do wonders to increase your profits, but I am really at a loss to fully explain the huge number of bubble finishes.

At this point, if I were you I might try experimenting a bit. Keep your game very constant but isolate one variable and play with alternate strategies on that variable ONLY to see how results change. If they get worse, go back to basics and isolate another variable.

Examples of what you could try are:

Try raising 4XBB as a standard opener
Try open raising with a few more late position hands
Try dropping small pairs in early position
Try calling raises with a few more hands in the final 4
Try playing tighter in the final 4

etc...

I am sorry that I cannot give you more specific advice to immediately nail this down, but there are too many things that may be hindering your play

Agression may be the biggest factor (as already suggested)

As for the AK early in the tourney, I suppose if you feel more conservative play with it is helping you, that's all that matters. I personally prefer to play AK very strongly. I open with AK for big raises and will set a raiser all-in whenever I can. Basically, I just don't want to make decisions with AK on a flop. I want the hand to be over preflop, or to see the whole board by being all-in. AK loses a lot of it's value if all it gets to see is a flop.

All that said, AK is the hand I misplay more than any other and I am continually toying with new strategies. If you feel you have improved your play by laying it down more early on, run with that.

Oh well, 200 sngs is getting to be a good sample to at least tell you that you are probably capable of breaking even in the long run. Add to that a willingness to learn and the kinds of thoughtful analysis you have already shown and it will only get better.

Regards
Brad S

[Prickly Pete]

[ QUOTE ]
On the flop in the early game has been dangerous too. When I pick up 2 pair or a set I've gotten busted out by various hands. I'm not sure the correct thing to do here. In early position I make a pot sized bet. If reraised all-in I usually fold but if I get called I usually bet again on the turn, then check on the river if I didn't make a full boat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Calls often scare me more than raises. Early in $10 Party SNGs, I can't imagine folding 2 pair or especially trips ( to allin raises) would often be correct.

[ QUOTE ]
Well unerringly I'll get a A9o raise to 1200 (blinds are 300/600) and get raised all in for 2000. If it was more I'd fold

[/ QUOTE ]

With only 8000 chips in play, at 300/600, I would never lay down A9o heads up.

[Prickly Pete]

[ QUOTE ]
Examples of what you could try are:

Try raising 4XBB as a standard opener
Try open raising with a few more late position hands
Try dropping small pairs in early position
Try calling raises with a few more hands in the final 4
Try playing tighter in the final 4

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you're only trying to offer some additional things to try, but I'm not sure I'd go the route of most of these.

3 X BB raises do the job. Betting 4 X is generally overkill and only hurts you when you're behind and have to fold to a reraise.

I wouldn't drop playing any pairs any position cheaply early. Flopping sets is the easiest double up in these games.

Final 4 is not the time to be calling raises to me. Reraise or fold.

Finally, tighter in the Final 4 is not the way I'd go. Great time to steal from those trying to sneak in. Sure, you'll bust out in 4th sometimes, but being aggressive here is a sure way to improve your 1st %.

[AleoMagus]

I am not sure it is as simple as that

I myself would not do many of these things either, but that is because in many cases, I have experimented enough to understand what will hurt my results anyways.

The strange thing though, is that many players play vastly different than I do but achieve similar results. I believe this is because no single strategic consideration can be isolated from the surrounding total framework of your playing style. This is what I love so much about poker, in fact.

I guess what this means is that just because you find 4xBB openers to be overkill, that may not be true of a player who approaches starting hands, flop play, etc... in a different manner than yourself. I have heard many players suggest even bigger openers than 4xBB in the early stages of a party 10+1.

Similarly, there are many successful players who avoid small pairs in early positions. I myself will play any pair from anywhere if I can get in cheap BUT I am not so convinced that this is optimal as to conclude for all players that they should do this

Calling raises in the final 4... well, I think you are right about this. Raising of folding is ideal at this stage. When I stated this, I was really only refering to calling all-in raises from small stacks.

Tighter in the final four is again, a very player specific statement. You have stated that you would not play any tighter in the final four and I believe that is best for you as you are sure of just how tight/loose you already play. Without a detailed descroption of exactly what a player plays (more detailed than my strategy) it is hard to say exactly that tightening up is a mistake.

I know the final four is a great time to steal blinds, especially when there are small stacks trying not to get 4th. Still, I can think of many players I've seen in the past who could definitely benefited from slightly tighter play on the bubble.

I think that as a player develops a unique style of play they will often find that slight changes in strategy can be beneficial despite running contrary to often accepted general rules.

In a way I am the biggest culprit for tyring to set out a basic general guideline for play, but I want players to understand that I am actually very much against such things. I do not believe that there is or ever will be an ideal form of poker.

Much as chess players discovered in the past century or so, I think poker players will also discover that when done in the right ways, breaking 'tried and true' rules can be very very effective.

Just some thoughts
Brad S

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't drop playing any pairs any position cheaply early. Flopping sets is the easiest double up in these games.


[/ QUOTE ]

Except that:

#1 - You're going to have to fold to a re-raise
#2 - You're only flopping sets 12% of the time, which means you have to get paid 10x on average to make a profit, if you intend to fold if you miss.
#3 - You won't necessarily get paid off when you hit, especially because if there was no raise, everybody else probably missed their speculative hand like other small pairs or suited connectors. The people most likely to bet the flop and take their hand too far, like ace big, are going to raise you out.

When you work the numbers on this, I think there are certainly situations where a fold is best from EP for small/mid pairs.

eastbay

[Prickly Pete]

Good points Aleo. I didn't mean to say that I thought all these things were concrete. There indeed are always grey areas and my suggestions are things that have just worked well for me.

[Prickly Pete]

[ QUOTE ]
#1 - You're going to have to fold to a re-raise

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this should be automatic. Most raises at these levels don't prohibit you from playing. I think folding to raises that are less than 10% of your stack (Ciaffone talks about this in his PL/NL book) is a mistake. Because here, you will be more likely to get them to commit all of their chips when you flop a set.

Basically, these hands are so easy to play compared to something like 76s since you're only playing for a set. Yes, this is a bit of a gamble and will usually cost you some chips. But I think the potential rewards outweigh this.

[adam61]

It's kind of funny, I think just by typing that long thing out I instantly became better at poker. Typing out the mistakes I often make even though I knew I was making them made me more conscious of what I was doing wrong. Just kind of a neat side effect of asking for help.

Thanks for all the replies everyone I've been experimenting a bit, mixed results, nothing statistical. The one big thing I need a lot of help on that hasn't been covered here too much is 3-handed and Heads up play. I'm still getting just wiped out here. I played a bunch of tourneys Wednesday evening and took 7 seconds and 1 first and in 7 of those 8 heads up I had 3500 chips or more at one time or another. I know the key here is to be aggressive but obviously some sort of hand choice is key because if I went all in with every hand I'll get busted pretty quick as soon as the other guy realizes I'm doing that. And obviously tight play is death here eating 200/400 300/600 400/800 blinds. Some sort of hand suggestions positionally 3 handed and heads up would be great even a very basic framework. Right now I'm never limping playing almost any Ace, Any suited king, any King with a good kicker, any PP, and any 2 cards 10 or higher. I all-in with those on the short stack and on the big stack I raise various amounts from double the big blind to all-in in a pretty random fashion so I can't be put on a hand.

Heads-up play improvement appears to be the easiest way for a quick ROI increase. Better play on the bubble would be great but I've been playing with different strategies with 4-5 left without tremendous luck.

Thanks again for all your responses.

[AleoMagus]

I totally agree here.

I actually like to be raised small when I have a pair. If I have a lot of players in the pot already, a small raise will not take any of them out (thus, keeping my odds good) and sends a big shiny message to me that if I do spike my set, someone is going home.

After all, when I'm holding 33, I want my opponent to be holding AA. I'm not gonna chase with this hand anyways, but when I do hit a set, he is gonna go all the way.

Don't get me wrong, on level 1, if I call the 15BB and it get's raised to 100, I'll let it go... but I'd probably call 35 more here

If I am the one raising (with say 88 on the button) and I get re-raised by one of the blinds or an EP limper - well, that's a little tougher, but I still might call in certain situations.

Regards
Brad S

[triplc]

I don't have concrete stats to back this up, but I think playing for sets is one of the best ways to get chips early, especially with deeper money (like at Stars). There's nothing that makes me happier than holding 66 and seeing an A64 flop in an unraised pot.

Sets are like gold, and I will try to limp in with my pocket pairs from any position, especially early, if the table is not crazy aggressive. If a table is super aggressive, then I will take that into account and depending upon things like my stack size then I might fold them up if it is apparent that a big raise behind me is highly likely.

Calling a small raise with pocket pairs I believe is profitable as well (again, anyone with number feel free to shoot me down) because quite often the raiser feels more committed to hanging in there when he hits top pair against your trips.

The other time pocket pairs can be useful is on a rag flop against one or two opponents, especially if your opponents are tight.

Suppose you are holding 66 and the flop comes 843 rainbow against two opponents. If I'm in early position, I will sometimes lead out strongly with this against weak players, and if I'm in late position and it gets checked to me (or minibet) I will bet out or raise the small bet strongly.

Of course, this gets me in trouble at times (like when someone checkraises with trips or limped with 99, TT or JJ), but quite often I'm up against AJ, AQ and the like. Please do not try this all the time, especially against maniacs or folks that you wouldn't try a bluff on, because you do not want to be called. Any card that shows up on the turn is a scare card. This is a very situational play, but it has worked for me at times in the right situations.

Bottom line...I love pocket pairs. Maybe a little too much.

CCC