Table selection related to Irieguys post

[gumpzilla]

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Do you understand the gap concept?

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Having never read whichever Sklansky book he coined this term in, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe you just mean the maxim that you need a better hand to call with than to raise with. That's all well and good. Let's say you're stealing a lot of pots. If I'm sitting to your right, I can try and trap you with limps, but that doesn't work well late in SNGs; late game limps are going to seem very suspicious. If I'm sitting to your left and you're trying to steal a lot of pots, I view that as being an excellent position for a resteal, in general. It is possible that SNG stacks get so short by the time in which this is relevant that restealing isn't going to be much of an option, in which case this is a rather non-trivial result arising from SNG strategy.

Having said all of that, I'm still not clear on why you want to sit immediately right of a player you suspect to be more skillful than average at SNGs. Wouldn't you rather position yourself to steal the blind of somebody who is more likely to be too tight late? Or are you that concerned about there being any chance of it getting down to shorthanded and having your target be SB to your BB? It still doesn't make much sense to me, because it's not at all clear that what you give up there isn't compensated for by what you gain.

[wuwei]

How often does having postflop position on another good player come into play for you during a typical SNG?

[Scuba Chuck]

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I'm not 100% sure

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The problem with your thought process is that there is finality to an ALLIN blind steal. There is no more game within the game. Furthermore, a resteal has it's dangers if villain has pot committed himself. Nothing like a coinflip at the wrong time.

I would prefer to sit to the right of a tight player all night and day.

[gumpzilla]

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How often does having postflop position on another good player come into play for you during a typical SNG?

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a) I don't play at Party, which I think is fairly relevant here. After playing a while at Paradise, I felt like going someplace where I could multitable SNGs. I picked Stars, mostly because a deeper stacked game for the first few levels seemed more fun to me. There's a fair amount more room for play here, and I think it can become relevant. I'll concede that at Party, the structure is such that you are probably not going to play postflop with the guy.

b) I don't play a large enough volume of SNGs to have a substantial playerbase marked as good. By the time I have identified a player as at least decent, it's usually fairly late in the game.

[Scuba Chuck]

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How often does having postflop position on another good player come into play for you during a typical SNG?

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Here's a move I'm seeing a bit lately. bigger stack v bigger stack, stop-n-go. Here we have two stacks exchanging chips postflop. Or a blind steal gone awry. I think this has its dangers, and it's benefits. And it's a way to get some chips from an aggressive player if you were semi-interested in challenging him preflop, but might just take the chips postflop without a challenge. I've only done it once, where there was so much table aggression that I never had any blind steal attempts. He folded to my postflop bet (in which I had nothing, btw).

[gumpzilla]

Yes, but what about the last part of what I wrote (which I'm not entirely sure you read)? I would think that at higher levels, a stronger player is probably more likely to defend his blind than average, knowing that your range for stealing is quite possibly any two; at lower levels, it's probably the opposite. If this were the case, then I think my last question in my previous post is worthwhile.

[Scuba Chuck]

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Yes, but what about the last part of what I wrote (which I'm not entirely sure you read)? I would think that at higher levels, a stronger player is probably more likely to defend his blind than average

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Defend how? How do you defend against an allin? If you mean by just calling, you're falling into a serious pitfall of long term poker problems and nights of agony. So what, they are bluffing. Let's say they tell you they are bluffing, and you're holding K2. Will you call? What about KQ? Let's say he flashed you his cards, and he had A2. You're slightly behind, would you still call? What if the hands were reversed, would you still call then? I think you underestimate the power of the blind steal.

Foolishly defending blinds is a serious SNG flaw.

[Benholio]

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Yes, but what about the last part of what I wrote (which I'm not entirely sure you read)? I would think that at higher levels, a stronger player is probably more likely to defend his blind than average, knowing that your range for stealing is quite possibly any two; at lower levels, it's probably the opposite. If this were the case, then I think my last question in my previous post is worthwhile.

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Unless the strong player has a specific read on you, this should actually often turn out to be the opposite of what is true. Poor players don't understand gap/sng/bubble concepts, and generally call with worse hands. Stronger players have tighter calling standards. For instance, a strong player is not going to call with Ax from the BB without a good reason (pot odds, specific read), but many poor players will always call with it all the time.

[Irieguy]

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As for personal adjustments... I have a little something I like to call.. the spite call. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Yeah, the spite call is a big bummer for me. I was playing a SNG where I was using the predictability of another strong player as a weapon, and it was working nicely.

We were in level 3, and he was doing what a lot of strong, but inexperienced players do in level 3 and he was limping from late position with strongish/marginal hands. I, then, was pushing over the top and taking the free chips (a level 3 move now called "The Van Sexton.")

Well, I was multitabling and realized just a click too late that I had been doing this maybe a bit too much, and the solid/predictable player got sick of it and made a spite call with J-9.

My K-9 was domintating, but as you know, if somebody makes a spite call against you, they always win. ICM doesn't account for this.

Irieguy

[gumpzilla]

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Foolishly defending blinds is a serious SNG flaw.

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Foolishy defending blinds is a poker flaw.

However, there are clearly going to be times where calling when you're in the BB and you've been pushed over are going to be correct, and I don't think they're going to be limited to the times that you have a big holding. What are your calling standards against an opponent who pushes any two from the button heads-up?