The week that was, and a SNG conundrum
I was able to get in a ton of poker during Spring Break. My cash game sessions were capped off when I played at possibly the nittiest 6-max table ever. We must have set a world record for walks. I probably should have ditched that table and found another juicier game (game selection has never been my specialty), but it was actually kind of fun to be at a table with a bunch of grinders. In fact, three of them were 9-tabling. I came out a small winner for the session when I flopped top-two and value bet all the way down. I ended up a big winner for the week. Too bad school starts back up again this week.
I almost never play MTTs. Now that I think about it, I had never played an MTT until the PokerRoad freeroll this Saturday. I cashed for $.30 and it was the most fun $.30 I have ever won. If I had won my bustout hand I would have been top 10 in chips with 47 players remaining (started with almost 600). UTG limped for 600, UTG+1, raised to 2400. I had about 9000 left on the button and shoved with AQo. UTG folded, UTG+1 timebanked before calling with KQ. He turned a king and my tourney was done. MTTs are way more fun than cash games. The reason I have never played MTTs is because I think cash games are more profitable, particularly at the micro stakes level. Having played one, I realize how much more fun they actually are. Maybe more MTTs are in my future.
Now to the SNG conundrum. I never play them, but I was killing time on Sunday so I anted up for a one-table SNG. All was going well and we were down to four players. I was second in chips with the chip leader to my immediate left (he had about half the chips in play). He had been very aggressive, calling every preflop raise out of position and proceeding to bet out at every flop. My bustout hand occurred with the blinds at 50-100. The shortstack had 870 and seemed content to just wait for a hand or for another player to make a mistake for him to squeeze into the money. I was more than happy to oblige with a mistake of my own.
I was on the button with AJo and raised to 300. The chip leader called and we went heads up to the flop, which came K32 rainbow. Villain bet out 400, like he was doing every single time he was in a pot out of position. I didn’t give him credit for much of a hand, so I shipped in my last 3400, figuring I would be committed to the pot if I made a standard raise. He eventually called with KT (the one time I play back he wakes up with a hand). I don’t think I played the hand all that bad. I had to fight back eventually. But was it a good idea to make the play at this point, on the money bubble with a shortstack in imminent danger? Over the long term, it is probably better to just get into the money, but I don’t play a ton of SNGs and I wanted to take it down. I figured this play would give me the best chance to accumulate chips and eventually win. What is the general SNG strategy in a situation such as this? Should I have just waited for the shortstack to get all the money in and try to make a play after he either doubled up or got eliminated? Help on this subject would be greatly appreciated
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A couple things:
1) When you get pretty deep in these SNGs esp. w/o antes, you don’t need to raise 3x. Raising 2.5x or even 2x will accomplish the same goal.
2) It is good to be aggressive on the money bubble
3) It is bad to be overaggressive on the money bubble. If you put your opponent on air, then you can call behind and he will rarely fire two bullets or you can make a normal-sized raise and fold to a 3bet or a bet on the turn/river. If your opponent is going to fold for 3400, he is probably going to fold for 1000 more on top, especially on such a dry board. Then, by no means do you pot-commit yourself. Also, that way you save yourself some chips if you guess wrong.
4) The point of being aggressive on the money bubble is to pick up hands with little resistance. You can find wayyyy better spots to get your money in than this. This is a marginal spot at best, and with your size stack and the other stacks around you, you can pick up a lot of dead money by just raising 2x and picking up blinds with minimal risk.
There is a lot of literature on how to play SNGs optimally. There is definitely a “correct” play for every situation, especially when it gets down to shorthanded with Ms < 10 (this is not true at all for deepstack cash, since there is virtually no metagame in SNGs compared to cash and there are many correct ways to play a hand in cash). If you want to continue playing SNGs seriously, I would suggest you read a book or browse the 2+2 forums. I think Scott Fischman’s is supposed to be good. Good luck.