Dealing with quick exits

[udontknowmickey]

Hello!
I've been dabbling in 5.50 SNG on Stars as of late and i seem to always do fairly well sitting on my stack until it gets to 7 players, right around when the blinds are starting to become worth stealing, so I start stealing and can usually do fairly well from there.

Unfortunately a few SNGs I've seen 3 or 4 players eliminated really early (once I called 2 all ins on a Q4x flop with QQ and demolished 44 and AQ), but from there I have a problem adjusting. The blinds aren't really a large enough chunk to be worth stealing, but at the same time, the blinds are comming to me much more often, which is effectively a larger ante right? Unfortunately everyone else only sees small (sizewise) blinds, so become really loose callers, so the end result is that I'm not able to steal as often to maintain my stack, and the opponents are calling more often from the blinds.

I seem to not be able to find a balance between when I should be stealing and when I should just release. How do you guys adjust to an average stack at a shorthanded table early in the SNG? Just sit and let the blinds eat away?

[peiper]

I wait. If I have an average stack, and it's still early in the tournament I try and wait for a decent hand.

Unless the blinds are going eat up the rest of your chips in the next 3-4 rounds, there is no reason to panic.

[FloppedFlush]

If the blinds aren't a big enough chunk to be worth stealing, then I'd say they aren't a big enough chunk to be worried about losing either.

Maybe loosen up a little bit since it's no longer a full table, but for the most part, play the same way you normally would in the early stages.

There's still plenty of time and when the blinds get larger, it's not going to make a whole lot of difference that you blinded away T45 every 7 hands instead of every 9 hands for a few rotations.

[Gator]

Here's an exercise I use during tourneys. Add the big and little blinds (i.e. 25/50 = 75) and divide by number of remaining players (in this case 25). It costs $25 to get a hand -- that makes it easier to laydown a questionable hand to a preflop raise. If I have T1200, for 25/hand (for the time being at least - until blinds go up) I can see a lot of hands and pick one I like to play.