Newbie ignorance? (probably low content)

[usmhot]

Comeback thread made me think of this.
Playing Party SNG 5+1
I'm finding recently that I far prefer to find myself short-stacked coming up to the bubble, than have a couple of big wins in the early rounds.
Normally, if I'm short-stacked in the later rounds its because I've had nothing to play with baring the ocassional mid-pair or AQ or something like that which doesn't improve on the flop and I fold to strength.
But, at the bubble, I find it easier to play from short-stack - stealing lots with these same hands (and worse).

It seems that if I get a couple of monsters in the early rounds and take chip lead I somehow fritter it away and end-up getting beat on coin-toss type all-in calls.

Obviously I still want to maximise the early monsters, but is this a newbie phenomenon? Am I just, subconsciously loosening up too much if I do well early on? Or, in other words is this a well-known leak?

[HesseJam]

I have sometimes the same impression with my play.

I think I am loosening up too much on the calling side and nibble too much at smaller pots because of having doubled up early. Then, the last couple of times I played the same tight style as if I had only 700 and not 1700 in round 1-3/4 and the result was much better.

Oh, I'm a tourny noob too.

[Kama45]

All you need to be a winning player:

shadow

Bender the robot

[Rosencrantz1]

I noticed the same thing when I started playing SnGs, but I think I've gotten better about it.

A key thing to keep in mind, IMO, is something Harrington discusses in HoH, namely "What is everyone else's impression of me at this table?"

He gives the example of a player who is playing solid values, but gets a couple good hands in a row and never has to show down. To the rest of the table, this guy is the maniac who has to be stopped even though he knows he's just gotten a few good hands and played them in his normal TAG fashion.

I think, sometimes, when you win a few hands early, people put you on being a LAG player and they want to start looking you up. This just happens to coincide with when you are feeling good and maybe trying a few looser opening hands because you've been successful so far. The result is that they are looking you up just when you are, indeed, getting a little loose.

I have been trying, recently, when I do take an early lead, to become super-duper tight, at least for a few orbits. Let some other players become the table target. Then, once a few folks have busted out, you can re-loosen a bit.

I'm a relative newbie too, but have been doing pretty wells so far on the 11s, all because I read this forum quite a bit and have been playing super tight until the blinds get to 50/100, and then really working hard on my bubble play.

I had the same thing happen on early double-ups, and then gave it some thought and check my HHs a little. What I concluded is that you still need to play super tight with your big stack until it gets down to 5 or 6 players depending on when the blinds start to become appealing. Then, you have to really start to put good big stack play to work, carefully choosing your spots but being very aggressive.

The other day I got my first taste of well executed big stack play from 5 players down and I simply ran over the field. They were all content to fold until getting a monster, all trying to limp into the money, and by the time the bubble burst I had over 7000 of the 8000 chips.

Oh, and another thing. By playing your early big stack super tight you create the table image of yourself as tight/solid. So, when you start pushing things around once the blinds get bigger the inexperienced 11s type players don't know how to handle you. You'll have already stolen 3 or more sets of blinds before they catch on to the fact you are pushing everyone around.

So, by loosening up with your bigger stack early you fritter away both the power of the stack once the blinds get bigger and the power of your tight/solid image.

[usmhot]

Yeah ... good call.
I hadn't been thinking in terms of my table image in this situation because I usually play very tight and just assume that's how I'm perceived. But now that you mention it I can see the importance of recognising how that image is affected by my stack size even if I think i'm playing my usual game.