Right now I play low pocket pairs in early stages, but often drop them when the BB gets to 200ish. On the other hand if I'm in late position and am first to enter the pot I will raise. Anybody have good adice on playing low PP's? Or not playing them...
Thanks,
Stealth

Don't get trapped into the "oh the blinds are small, i can play looser" trap. There's a domino effect -- losing chips now sub-optomizes your play throughout the rest of the tournament. Mistakes early can really cost you.

The biggest problems with playing marginal hands preflop:
(1) People might raise behind you. What do you do if you limp with 66 and there's a 3xBB raise, and then 2 people call the raise? If you fold there, then maybe your implied odds with the pocket pairs aren't as high as you think they are. If you call, then you're making too big of an investment.
(2) People play SNGs so badly (at least until the $100 level) that auto-folding your first 30 hands is superior to the way that the rest of your table plays the first 30 hands -- you actually are better off after 3 rounds of being blinded away than you were when you started! When you are in any doubt early in a SNG before the flop, fold. It also stops you from getting in difficult situations when you have 88, there's a low flop, and your opponent goes all in. Say there's a 25% chance he has an overpair and a 75% chance he has two overcards (about a 25% chance to beat you). There could be an overwhelming chance that you're well ahead, but it adds up to you being knocked out of the SNG 40-45% of the time, so you should probably fold. It's better to be in "easy" situations early in a SNG, so I recommend only playing premium hands unless you know your opponents very well and have good reads on how they like to play.

I agree with Nash auto-fold in general, but....

Its so f'ing tempting to step in there and 3X BB raise when you had AK, AQ, AJ, queens, jacks, etc. and try to pick one up early when that ace or your kicker comes off on the flop.

Also, you CAN'T just auto fold kings and aces in the first 30 hands.

with small pairs, I will limp when:

There are 2-3 limpers ahead of me (I've found at low limits most of the time there won't be a big raise behind me, and if there is, I'll fold it up)

I'm in the SB and it was called around to me (also unlikely the BB will exercise his option to raise - and if its a min-raise, I will call it).

I will not limp when I have 22 - 66 in early position for Nash's statement of the obvious. Its a feel thing, if I don't feel like there will be a big raise behind me, I'll limp early on.

You have to allow yourself the "opportunity to be lucky" sometimes I think. Its the same old "no set no bet" trick.

Stealth... what sites do you primarily play SNGs on? I play on UB where you start with more chips. The only times I'll play small pocket pairs is when I've noticed there's little to no pre-flop raising and there's already a couple limpers before me. I fold them immediately to any substantial raise (not min-raises, however, which are just pot-sweeteners).

While Nash has a good point about staying out of trouble early on versus the crazy players... keep in the mind these players are so terrible you can double or triple up with sets and flushes. Especially when you're playing against someone who's trying to be cute with their pocket rockets by not pre-flop raising. Most of them will NEVER drop their hand.

Also worthy of noting... a large chip stack is more important late-game than early game.

Get the FUCK out of Party... if that's a subtle enough suggestion... If you like the hand blinds increasing, try Bodog... The players there are just as bad, you get more chips (1000 instead of 800), and they have that cool ass bonus thing that rakes in when you play SNGs...

kdiddy... I don't think Nash refers to high PPs and AK when he's talking about "folding the first 30 hands..."... Obviously, if you get pocket Aces 30 times in a row, you're gonna play em... He means like suited connectors, small PPs, AJ... Those kinda hands... Nash, if I'm wrong about this, sorry for steppin on your toes...

I know he didn't. I was just busting chops.

hehe.... just to clarify, I'm saying that autofolding EVERYTHING is superior to how most players play the first 30 hands of a SNG in general.

It is of course nowhere near your best strategy.