New SNG Strategy

So, apparently the new key to winning Sit and Goes is to ignore them until there are only five people left. What? Oh right, some context might help.

First off, sorry I haven’t posted for a week, the basketball tournament has occupied my free time that is usually devoted to poker related exploits. Secondly, I apologize if this post is significantly less polished than others (if that’s possible), but I have to get to the local drinking establishment before the Illini game, so I won’t be doing much proofreading. Now where was I?

Last week, I decided that I was almost ready to move up to $20 SNG’s from the $10 I have been crushing lately. I felt like I just needed to add a little more to my bankroll to be able to absorb a prolonged losing streak at that level and then I should be fine. I figured a week; maybe two at the $10 level would be more than sufficient.

I then went on to lose six straight. I also had the brilliant idea that a great time to practice my ring game skills was while watching the NCAA tournament. So that didn’t help the old bankroll either. In hindsight, I should probably learn how to win in ring games before trying to throw in additional simultaneous tasks.

I logged onto Party Poker last night, and saw my friend John just sat down at a $10 SNG. I tried to join him, but just the table filled just before I could jump in. So I fired up a few of my own, and pulled up his table to watch. He then noticed that I was online and started IMing me to join a 6-max table with him.

I can play two tables at once pretty effectively, but I’ve noticed a significant drop in my ROI once I add in a third table, so I told him I’d join up once I busted out of one of the SNG’s. That didn’t take long. Between playing two tables, and watching him on two tables, and IMing, my focus wasn’t quite as good as it should have been, and I made some not so great plays.

So I sat down at a $25 6 max. I generally don’t prefer NL ring games because I’m afraid of losing my whole stack on one bad read/stupid move/bad beat, but it was with friends, so what the hell? I sat down for a while. He ended up more than doubling up and I was about even when our table broke up.

We then decided to try to get into a SNG together. Either the way Party sets up new SNG’s makes it tough to coordinate with someone, or we’re retarded, or both, but either way, we had some issues. I ended up grabbing the last seat in one, thinking he had already joined, and he ended up missing out. After a few more tries we gave up and went back to a ring game.

Surprisingly, I made it through another ring game without losing a ton. I had one bad hand where my AKs hit a K on the flop and A on the river but someone else had flopped trips. Other than that, I did pretty well. Every once in a while I would check the SNG, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it. I was paying more attention to the ring game and my IM chat than the tournament. By the time we left the ring game to call it a night the SNG was down to five people. I have absolutely no idea how that happened. I don’t remember playing any hands and certainly don’t remember any else playing any hands that knocked them out.

I was short stacked, but not too bad. A couple pre-flop raises got me enough chips to be comfortable, and before I knew it I was in the money.

Given the fact that I have been on a losing streak, and before that I had been finishing in second or third way more often than first, I was determined to win this one. I actually scaled back the short handed aggression that has been getting me into trouble lately, and let the remaining two players back into second best hands. I still raised way more often than they did, but I didn’t bluff raise nearly as much, and that seemed to be the key. Anyway, I ended up winning the Sit N Go, so the moral of the story is if you ignore your SNG for at least the first half of the tournament, everything should be fine and you should at finish in the money at the very least.

On a somewhat related side note, my friend Noah has a theory that he could start up a $5 SNG on PokerRoom, and walk away, and still finish in third, or even second, but he’s too much of a pansy to try it. If anyone tries it, let me know how it turns out. I don’t think you have enough starting chips on Party, but it might just work on PokerRoom.

Go Illini.