4th place madness

[bartolomo]

I play Party $10 sng's. Here are my overall stats: 638 total, roi 13%, itm 38.7, 4th's 18%. I've noticed lately that my 4th's have significantly increased (after 4 out of the last 5 I decided to check it out). Over 138 games I'm 4th 34 times. That's 25%. I've tried playing tight, aggressive, stealing blinds, not stealing blinds..... I follow the 2+2 formula and overall it works ok. It's just really frustrating to be on the bubble so often and lose. Of course, with tight play early, many times I'm short stacked. But just as many times I have a decent stack. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[lorinda]

Identify what is happening.

Are you getting blinded to 0 and being forced to go all in for 300, or are you getting 700 in on a 50-50 and losing (For the purposes of this, call anything where you had two live cards vs two live cards 50-50 as whether you had K9s or A5o is pretty irrelevant, you'll have either end of this enough times that you can call it a coin toss, as it's a coin toss which one you happened to be dealt)

When you've identified which kind of problem it is, you can either post again, or probably fix it yourself.

Write down each and every 4th place and the reasons it happened.

Lori

[PE101]

Personally, I always request a hand history from Party after playing a SnG (irrespective of where I finish). Then I copy the history into a Word document, reduce the font size to microfiche size and print it out.

Then I go through and review my play - hand by hand. I'm brutally honest with myself. I actually write stuff like "Weak Dumb Play" or "Why did I make this dumb call?”. (Sometimes I even congratulate myself.) This is also a useful time to update my notes on other players.

This is a bit time consuming – I don’t do it on a very high percentage of the SnGs, but it’s very useful. I do this for a lot of 4th place finishes. The 10th place finishes don’t usually need much analysis [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

The point to find a way to do a post-mortem on your SnGs…

Good luck.

[Mr_J]

"Write down each and every 4th place and the reasons it happened."

I write down the reason I was knocked out (or the hand that crippled me) in ANY position. At least that way you can keep track of whether your've had the best of it or not when you put your chips in.

PE101-
"Personally, I always request a hand history from Party after playing a SnG "

You don't need to request it. Hand histories are automatically stored in the party poker folder (in a folder called 'hand history'). If you play alot of sngs, just saves having to sort through emails.

[PE101]

The local hand history ends when you leave the table. The one they e-mail you shows the entire tourney.

[Vetstadium]

I see fourth place placements a problem, but at least a nice problem to have. With so many SNG's you are a winning player, my only advice is maybe play a little more aggressive, I hate to be blinded to death and if I have to make a steal and get caught then so be it.

[El Maximo]

If I had to hazard a guess I would say you are waiting too long to start being aggressive. I start getting aggressive and stealing blinds when 6 handed or blinds are T100. I have more 5th and 6th place finishes than 4th. By the time I hit the bubble I want to have one of the bigger stacks. My ITM is a little better but my roi is significantly better. Start looking for opportunities to steal blinds before you get to the bubble. You will get busted out before the bubble more but you will generate a higher ROI longterm.

[bartolomo]

El Maximo Thanks. I think this is what I was looking for. I think you are exactly right about waiting too long to steal and be aggressive. My 5th place finishes are almost as high as the 4th's, so that verifies it. Really doesn't matter whether 6 or 4, does it? That may explain why my roi can't get above 12 or 13, too. One question, though, you said you start stealing when blinds are t100. That's the 3rd round on pp. I never start stealing until at least round 4, usually not even then.

[El Maximo]

Level 4 is what I meant. I play tight first 3 levels. At level 4 I start to open up. I think you need to cross the line several times to figure out where the line is. Push the envelope. Get laggy with it.