Now you may look at that graph and say, oh he just lost 200$ or about 70 Buy in's, no big deal, etc... I'm not sure how new you are to poker, but 70 BI's is a lot. For cash games people advise you need 20-30 buy in's and while some people, high stakes player Dusty Schmidt aka "Leatherass" who is one of the top online players of all time advises you have at least 100 BI's for cash games.Crash course:
A buy in means just what it sounds like. It is the amount you buy in for and that is typically 100 big blinds for cash games. So if the limits are .10/.20 cents, the buy in amount for that table is 20$'s, that is the maximum you can buy into that game for. So to be properly rolled for 20 NL you would need at least 400$.
Sit n go's are a completely different game than cash. There is so much more variance involved, especially the bigger sng's you play. The Single Table Tournaments (STT's) have less variance than the 45/90/180 man sng's. What this means is if you play STT's, and you double up once, you will have twice as many chips to play with as the other 7 or 8 people at your table, making it relatively easy for you to just push people around and slide into the money. If you are playing a 45 man tournament (this is what I play), only the top 7 get paid. You have to beat 38 other people to make the money. In doing this, you have to get your money in a lot more than you would in a nine person sng - leading to higher variance.
With all this in mind, I would advise you keep at least a 100 BI rule if you are going to play the sng's. Personally, I feel much more comfortable with 200 BI's and I have a great backer who is very understanding so this works well for us.
If you are just starting out playing sng's I suggest you read as much as you can before you start playing. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/23/mtt-strategy/anthology-2-2-wisdom-mtts-48/ I suggest reading all of those links on that page before you start. It has everything you could want to know about how to play sng's profitably. There are many different ways to approach sng's, so not every strat talked about there is good for everyone. Some people say to be agressive early, and tighten up later and coast into the money. Others advise to play like a complete nit early and loosen up around t100(this is how I play). This is probably the most useful guide on that list. It tells you how to play the 180mans with a description of how you should be playing each level: http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=9209807&page=0
Although I don't advise playing the 180mans as you are trying to learn sng's because the variance is sick. It is very easy to play 100's of games without cashing, then win the next 2 for a 100% ROI. If you are just starting out, I suggest playing the 1$ 45mans.
If you need it make a chart of the types of hands you should be playing at each level. Here is what I suggest.
Level 1 10/20 blinds - Level 3 25/50 blinds.
I generally only open JJ+ AK and KQs. I limp most pp's and fold them to raises. I fold all other hands. You are basically looking to setmine with the pp's and if you flop an OP w/ JJ+ or AK, getting it in is completely standard.
Level 4 50/100 - Level 5 75/150
By now we normally have about 9-13 bb's and we start opening our push/folding range. FIRST RULE OF SNG's: If you have less than 10 bb's, you should be either shoving, or folding. Don't get fancy and limp aa trying to trap. Sure you are losing value w/ aa when you shove it for 13 bb's. So obviously you can raise to 2.5 or 3x and pretty much get it in on any flop.
I'm still playing very tight UTG - MP+1. Only shoving 88+ w/ 10bb's or less (sometimes wider when you are down to 5bb). I'm shoving A10s+, AJo+, KQs and 88+.
If it folds to me in the CO and I've got a decent stack relative to the players behind me I'm pretty much shoving AXs, A8o+, K8s+, k10o, 22+, suited connectors, like 89s, 78s. We are trying to steal as much as possible.
Don't be afraid to bust here. Sure sometimes the BB will wake up with ak or jj and we will be dominated. But this is only about 10% of his range, so if we do this 10 times, and he folds 9 of them, we are making profitable decisions. Remember this.
Levels 6 and on.
Now we are normally close to the final two tables and we either have a huge chipstack, and we should be shoving pretty much any two cards (atc) on the button if it folds to us and we have shorter stacks behind us. Obviously we want to be stealing as much as possible, and we know they are only calling us with a very small % of their hands (aka range). And even if we do get called, we are normally not less than a 30% favorite so we have plenty of cards to help us suck out.
I pretty much have the same ranges as the previous levels, but I do open up earlier, shoving all pp's utg w/ 7-11 bb's etc.
Also as the deepstack, we want to put pressure on the other players, especially the shorter stacks. If we are on the button for example, and the CO limps in and the blinds are 800/1600, and we have ajs, obviously we are shoving. When the CO limps he rarely has AQ+ or JJ+, everything else we are flipping with at the worst. All of his ax hands we have dominated, not to mention his kj, k10, k9, qj, q10, q9 etc... So we know shoving is the right play. But what if we have 77 and he limps? I would shove 100% of the time. Even if we have k10, or any of the hands I just listed. The odds of him limp/calling a hand that DOMINATES us are so slim, shoving is the best play. If he calls we are normally no less than a 40% favorite, and we have something going for us that he doesn't have - fold equity.
Fold equity means the equity our percieved hand has vs his perceived range against us. That makes no sense. Basically what is happening is, he see's his hand, and thinks to himself. "Oh I like it, lets see a flop." He isn't thinking about how bad limping for 1/6 of his stack is. He just wants to see a flop. 90% of players are like this - they are awful. So he limps and the next player folds, it gets to us, and we have him covered. We go all in and it folds around back to him. He right then has to make a decision for all of his chips, is his hand better than what we are representing? Probably not. He decides that his q9o isn't good and he mucks and we pick up 3 or so bb's and move on to the next hand. What we created by shoving was fold equity. His hand might have been better than our 78s, but when we shove, we are representing a bigger hand than what he is holding, so he decides to fold.
Remember: Don't worry about busting. Our goal is to steal, steal, steal. Every now and then we will get aa and double up and it will be smooth sailing the rest of the way.
I will post a final table strat next week, but with this post and the few links I posted, I'm sure that you will be crushing sng's in no time.
Luckbox
