Started out playing my usual $50 NL game but ended up att 4 very rocky tables. The one with the highest average vpip was at 23%. So I decided I'd play some SnG's since it's been a while. Early in my "career" I played a lot of them, it is how I built my BR, and I read a lot of strategy about it... in fact, when I did the "How good is your Pot Limit Holdem" quiz I would score higher in tournament hands than in cash game ones, and I expect that I may be better at them than ring games but somewhere along the line I wanted variation and felt that there was more money to be made at the regular tables. Maybe I was wrong... anwyway... I started up a couple of 10+1 tables (at Party). Here's the first lap on one of them:

#1
First hand of the tournament I get KK in late MP, one limper (BB is 15), I raise it up to 120. I make the raise big because it is the first hand so nobody knows how tight I am and I am very likely to get played with, especially if someone has a pair. I get a LP caller and the limper folds. Flop comes KQ3 with two hearts. Heads up I am much less worried about a flush or straight draw so I make a small-ish bet (hoping for a raise obviously) of half the pot or so, opponent folds.

#2
The very next hand I pick up TT. Hmm... another limper before me, ah well, I make the same raise to 120 and get the same LP caller and the limper calls as well. Flop comes 952 all hearts, I do not have the . I think for a while, then push. When LP calls me I figure he has the , possibly the . My reasoning for pushing was this:

The pot is 400, my opponents have 500 and 600 respectively. In order to not give them odds to draw I will have to bet so much that there is no way I can fold to a raise, so I might as well push. Either way I expect to get action from the which is only trailing me slightly, and possibly from any pair. It is extremely unlikely that anyone has a higher pair so I am most likely ahead right now and I definetely don't mind if they fold. Since I have now raised the first two hands I am much more likely to get action from a hand I beat. Indeed I do, the caller has J8s... not in hearts. He's drawing to his overcard and misses.

#3
Now I am in the BB with 65o and a little more than a double stack. UTG makes it 40 and a MP player calls. It's 25 to call a 115 pot so I make the call. Flop is a pretty damn nice looking 734 giving me the nut straight, there are two diamonds on the board. I check it expecting the preflop raiser to bet, he puts in 100 and the other caller folds. I make it 300 and UTG pushes, I beat him into the pot and he flips over AA. He doesn't hit his runner-runner outs and busts out, my guess is that he's whining about having his aces cracked by some moron who called his raise with 65o.


Before the first lap is over I have more than trippled my stack so I play super-conservative after this. I pick up AK and JJ later but everyone folds to my raises. When it gets down to 4 handed I suffer a bad beat and lose my chip lead. Us 4 have pretty much simmilar stacks but I get into high gear and start pushing people around. After reading HoH II I'm even more aggressive when I can be first into the pot with a low M and few opponents, and when it gets HU I have a huge lead. I suffer one beat making it even but then I steal myself back into the lead and manage to win a coinflip for all his chips and take the first place.

Now I am seriously considering laying off the ring games for a while and focusing on the SnG's. The quality of the players is absolutely horrible. I'd be happy to see ONE player as bad as this in my cash game, and here they make up half the table. The overlay must be huge. I doubt I would see someone playing for his stack with no pair no draw and one low overcard very often.

I played 6 SnG's and ended up winning one, coming 2:nd twice and 3:d once ($64 profit). The two I busted out in were due to mistakes on my part. Once I made a BIG raise with A8o as a shortstack in the SB after 4 or 5 limpers, get called by mr Loose bigstack. Flop comes J94 or something, I push my remains in and he calls with 55(!). The other I was distracted and thought a smallstack had pushed so I made an isolation all-in raise with JJ on the button (to get out the short blinds) only to see that it wasn't a push by a small stack but a BIG raise by the chip leader. If I had seen that I would have folded, he held KK. I blame the fact that my GF was biting my ear at the time, Phil Ivey never has to put up with that when he's making his decisions.


I would say that the three hands I wrote down are questionable. Making a small bet on a draw friendly board with KK, raising big with TT and pushing on a very dangerous flop, and playing 65o against a raise as well as check/raising with a flushdraw out. I doubt everyone plays them the same and it would be interesting to get some feedback.

I'm so bummin'. I wrote a pretty good reply to your post, Stoneburg, and it didn't show up. Very frustrating.

Welcome to our shaky club. These are a lot of fun and very profitable.

A question for everyone: What makes a player good at tournament play and not as good in cash games and vice versa?

CJ

For me the two main things are patience and victorie.

I am learning and doing much better then a few years ago in ring games but when I lose money it is of lack of patience.
In a stng I all things are over within one hour so I can make moves when I now when it is time to make them. When I play moneytables i find myself making moves when it is not the right time.
It is much easier to tilt in cashgames then in tourney's. While in cash you remain at the table with players that can put you on tilt because of their playing style or behaviour.

I also need the win of getting in the money. It is the victorie that confirms me I am a good player. I need this victorie as adrenaline. I don't get this by winning the pot. At a cash table I am only satisfied when I double or triple my money. Which ofcourse does not happen that often.

We are all different and we play different. There are people who like meat and people who like fish.
I don't have it what it takes to be a long term winning cashplayer but I know I got what it takes to be winning tournament player. I just need the rush.


Tom.

I played 3 SnG's last night, was a bit tipsy after going out for dinner. Nice precourse with some sort of mozarella with chili spices wrapped in smoked ham. Main course was a pepper steak and I had some truffles for dessert. It was nice and I don't think the wine effected my game too much... still I got busted.

SnG #1
This is early in a Pot Limit Holdem tournament. I get AKs UTG and limp. I don't want to raise here because the raise will be way to small to limit the field and I will be building a big pot OOP with a drawing hand. Half the table limps behind as usual and then BB who is a bit below the starting stack makes a miniraise. I re-raise the maximum, everyone folds to the BB who flat calls. Flop comes T72, he checks and I put him all-in. He calls with A7 and I fail to suck out. At the time I was mainly pissed and surprised at the huge donk-ness of his preflop play but when I was analysing it in bed later I was wondering if a simple call preflop wouldn't have been better. After all I have position on him and being suited makes a multiway pot seem like an OK idea.

After this hand I am down to <5bb but I manage to steal the blinda a few time and then double up. I actually get AA twice but once I am up against another AA and split and the other time I just pick up the blinds. We get down to 4 handed and I am playing well. The chip leader has 3.2k and the rest of us have 1.5-1.8k. I have been playing very aggressive. Pick up AJo UTG and raise the maximum, which is 700 at this time, the big stack re-raises the maximum. He's the only opponent who has been playing good poker so I know I am cooked here. He's either got JJ+ or AK. Still, I have over 40% of my stack in the pot and if I fold I am down to 4bb. I figure I can't fold even though I'm most likely 30/70, he flips over KK and I bust on the bubble.

#2
Finally forced to go all-in with KQ, get called by AJ and he hits his Ace. Didn't get a playable hand.

#3
This is interesting. I picked a FLO8 snG to play. That's Fixed Limit Omaha Eight-or-better. I've played some of the PL version but never FL and never in a tournament format. I can honestly say though that it seemed like nobody else had either.

Omaha, whether high or high/low is a game where people think they can play a lot of hands and do so... poorly. The high/low split games seem to encourage people to play even more hands and even worse! A standard pot would have more than half the table limping in, then 4 or 5 people would go to showdown and at least 3 would show their hands. There was not a hand played that didn't go to showdown for the first 5 laps or so.

I've been playing very tight, by far tighter than anyone at the table. I've increased my chipstack and am the chip leader. I pick up A3J6ss in LP. 3 or 4 limpers to me and I decide to raise it. These guys limp all kinds of crap so with no raise in front I am fairly sure there is no A2 out, I also have some high potential being suited and having the AJ combo. Of course the blinds and all the limpers call.

At the end of the hand the board reads: J86K2

I have been betting all the way and I still have 4 callers when I get to the river. Every street everyone has checked to me, who has bet, and they all call. River is checked to me and I bet my nut low for value. I'm thinking that if I am lucky I pick up half the pot, if I am unlucky someone has the A3 and I get a quarter but it is still a value bet.

EVERYONE calls me. Everyone. And here's the fucking ridiculous thing... I scoop the fucking pot. It all comes sliding my way. 4 people called me all the way to the river and ON the river without being able to beat middle two-pair and without the nut low. Now I have close to half the chips at the table.

Once it got heads up I had a big chip lead and the guy who's left folds way too much. I guess he got there because he was the only other tight player but he doesn't understand that he needs to change gears and he's blinding himself away. The worst fold is when he has 2.1bb left and folds in the BB to my raise. I pick up first place so at least my drunken SnGs turned a $17 profit instead of a loss. I may be back at the FLO8 tables soon though...

What makes a good player in either is the bankroll goes up.

I find it interesting that very few players are good at both tournament play AND cash games. They not only require different styles and attitudes, but different personalities, I think. I suck at ring games. I play a tough limit game--or did back when I played limit--but I am more suited to playing tournaments. Maybe it's ADD, or the challenge, or that I don't have the patience to sit for hour after hour folding hands. I like the thinking part of tournament play.

Didn't answer your question, did I?

CJ

CJ:

Your right that about the personalities etc in the differences. Thank god I'm bi polar and multiple personalites. (just kidding). But I find it hard at times to switch gears from one to the other. I'm strictly playing sng's right now and watching my roi go up. But I can play the fold fold fold game that I usually play when bonus whoring.