Good morning darksyder, how are you today,
First off, relax a little, there will be a hell of a a lot of information coming your way at the minute just take as long as you need to read and then re-read as many times as you need in order for it to sink in properly. There is no rush to remember everything that is written in the articles, take it at your own pace
Let me try and answer some of your questions for you,
1. You can move away from the charts at any point really, they are just a guide designed to keep beginners from having to make difficult decisions and getting into tough spots. If, for example you are on the button and you have a few hands on the players in the small blind and big blind and you see they are folding to steals from the blinds nearly all the time you can push a wider range from the button in order to pick up the blinds because you know they are likely to fold. (This is where tracking software comes in handy, because you can collect all these kinds of stats on players and have them displayed on screen as you play, to answer your last question try Holdem Manager 2, there will be a free trial i think its for 30 days)
2. ICM can be quite complicated but just keep practicing in the ICM trainer and before you know it, it will become second nature to you
Ok don't take this the wrong way but 6 or 7 SnGs is absolutely nothing mate, even if you lost all 7 it wouldn't mean you were bad, i'm sure you have already read this in the articles but really you need like 1000+ games to see where you stand so don't worry about those 4th places just yet although it might be worth reading up on bubble play and how to exploit it incase you are playing too tight hoping to get ITM.
"Also have around $150 on 770. Playing at 10c or 20c tables, over 20ish games I have finished in the money around 50% of the time, with a couple of wins. Played about 5 at the $1 level and finished out of the money (badly) every time."
Is this SnG too? If so then 20c games is pretty tight bankroll management ♦ really though you just need more volume get as many games in as you can, even if you try to get in 100 games before you look at your results (it still wont be very accurate but you will get a better idea than from 10 games) I don't know how the traffic is at 770 for SnGs? But if you are struggling to play many games you could always try one of our other partner rooms out, if 770 is alright of course then keep playing there.
3. It's never too early to worry about other players ranges this is how we know how to play against them
I havent played SnGs for a looooong time now but i remember when i did at micros it used to go like this; fold, fold, fold, fold, AA raise everyone folds. Basically it was pretty straight forward in the early stages people very tight and only opening with monster hands, maybe this has changed a little but i wouldn't know. I think the skill in SnG play is noticing how players change as their amount of blinds decrease. Do they start to open wider ranges? How wide? Do they start Push/fold too early? Are they still playing to tight with 10 or 5BBs left? What kind of cards are they shoving against me from each position? Hmmm maybe i just sounded like a fish ♦ try asking a couple of questions in the SnG strategy boards about figuring out ranges and what you should be doing, then the experts can answer for you
Only you can answer if you think you are learning too much too fast if you think this then take a step back slow down and take it all in.
Hope this helps a little
Carl