[Phil Van Sexton]

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I think it is more that people here suggest to new players that these are the kind of hands to steer clear of until they are more confident. They can be profitable but they can also be very costly if played badly.

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This is a good point, though it's not always clear when people write guidelines that this is the intent.

It seems these guidelines are basically "How to be Profitable at NL SnGs without having to know anything about NL". This isn't bad because they certainly helped me when I was starting out.

The problem is that once people master these strategies, they try to refine the strategies (ie "Should I push with K4 on the bubble?") rather than try to improve their NL games. Then they can't figure out why they don't win above 10/1.

Of course, I played a lot of SnGs and still couldn't play NL to save my life. It's kind of like when you are a bad free throw shooter at basketball. You can play 10,000 games of baskball and your free throw shooting still might not improve. You just don't get that much practice during games. Instead, you need practice shooting 100s of free throws before games.

With NL, it's similiar. There's just not much "play" in these SNGs. Instead, play a couple 1000 hands at the 25NL 6max tables as practice, and you'll gain experience that would've taken forever in SnGs.