[PrayingMantis]

This is something I've been thinking about during the last few days. I will be happy to get any feedback and thoughts about it.

Basically, when we talk about NL, there's the concept of protecting your hand, i.e., playing very strong when you're ahead, to charge draws. This is obviously right for ring games. It can be absolutely right for many tourney situations.

But what about those SNGs, when you're surrounded with fish, who are willing to call everything? And I'm not talking about 5.5-11$ level, but also about 22$ and apparently 33$.

These are examples from medium stages of an SNG. You get AK, raise 4XBB, get 2 callers. flop K high, and a flush draw. You push, one caller, same stack as yours, with a flush draw. You have 2/3 chance of winning it.

Later, if you survive, you get QQ. Raise nicely. One caller, stack a little shorter than yours. Flop: 67J. You push. He calls. He has 89. Again, You have about 2/3 chance of winining it.

Now you're short stacked. Get JJ. push. One caller, a little bigger than you. He's not intimidated, never heard of any "gap". He calls it with A4o, and again, you're only a little better than 1:2 to win it.

And so on. You make it 2 times, against opponents about your size, there's a 5/9 chance you lose one of them (and probably bust, or close to it). This is more than 1/2.

You play strong 3 times, get a caller each time for a 1/3 chance draw, and your probability of surviving *all* is a mere 0.3. That's bad.

I know this has been discussed before on the former tourney forum. But now I'm specifically talking about SNGs with loose callers and a structure that in a few levels will bring the blinds to eat your stack. You must play strong. Not many other options.

So, how do you protect your hand without risking your survival so often?

PrayingMantis