February SNG Stats

February saw a change in strategy for me on the SNG front. Previously, I had been playing what I'll term "smart" in the early levels... not loose pre-flop, but taking a chance on almost any 2 paints that I could limp with. When I was raised or saw raises, I played tight. When the flop missed or caught me only slightly, I folded. My theory was this: People finishing in 7-10 place in levels 1-3 are often dead money fools who think that aggression will make someone lay down their full house. Following that logic... if you're sitting out waiting on premium starting hands, most of the time you're going to be heading into level 4 as a medium stack at best, and against the opponents who are probably the better players at the table. You want to be scooping some pots from the fish to give you a nice stack heading into the high blinds.

In February, I tried to play with essentially the opposite strategy: In early and middle position in levels 1-3, only play pocket pairs and AKs or AKo. Low pairs, hoping for sets... big pairs, hoping for undercards... and AK, hoping to out-kick the dopes playing any ace in small pots. I like this strategy a lot. (We'll get to its effect in a minute.) Obviously, playing this way early should have some positive angles:

1. You're hardly ever going to finish in 7-10 place.

The obvious point here is that essentially when you start you have a 3 in 10 chance of finishing in the money... if you can make it to 6th place with any fair stack, you're looking at a 1 in 2 chance of making the money. Survival is key, and playing only premium hands should help you survive.

2. When you enter a hand, you're probably going to win a lot, or only lose a little.

A story from a multi-table tournament held at my bachelor party last summer is appropriate here. I was doing well... down to just several players, and my cousin was sweating me. Of family members, he's easily the best player of the group. I don't recall the exact hand I held... but I think it was something like T5o in the SB. For whatever reason (let's blame alcohol), I just called the BB and an early position caller. My cousin silently expressed dismay at my call. I caught a ten on the flop, but there was an overcard, and early action to my right, so I folded.

My cousin later asked, "Without decent cards, what were you hoping for?" His point hit home: even though I caught a card I wanted, I couldn't continue the hand. There were very few flops against multiple opponents where I could have felt at all confident about a trash hand like T5o.

Back to the point: if you're only playing pairs and AK, you're giving yourself a major advantage going into the flop. Sometimes, you'll flop the nuts or near-nuts, hidden sets, and the like. Other times, when you're facing a tough call or decision, your tight play pre-flop will come to your aid. Sometimes you'll feel you're beat and fold. But when you make a crying call on the river, you'll be surprised how your hands may hold up. To use a war analogy: Your marksmanship might not always be on target, but at least you're using the best ammunition.

3. You may benefit from a tight table image later on.

Assuming your opponents are paying attention, and at least the best of them probably are, you're going to gain the image of a rock which will likely aid your later steal attempts and late-level bluffs.

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So in February I put this new plan into action, and the results weren't stellar:

SNG's Played: 37
ITM: 37.84%
ROI: -3.63%
Profit: -$16.00

I've still yet to crack 40% ITM for a month, and that's a goal that's important to me. I'm happy with the new early-level strategy I'm employing, and I'm sure it helped me to post as decent an ITM% as I did, but of 37 tournaments, and 14 ITM, I only landed two 1sts, and that killed my chances at a positive ROI.

One final observation: I need to start dedicating a little more of my poker time to SNGs, and try to play at least 50 every month. Given the decidedly undesirable and gut-wrenching swings of short-handed $25 NL variance, this is the smart option for my bankroll at this point in time.

We'll see how this tight SNG play works out in March with a hopefully larger sample size.