[Closed] SNG dissection

Originally posted by viewer88
There are some interesting hands I wonna discus a little bit more.

Like this hand:
Seat 2: corrie19 (7315 in chips)
Seat 4: joachimpowa (1565 in chips)
Seat 6: arthiam (2695 in chips)
Seat 8: viewer88 (1925 in chips)

corrie19: posts small blind 600
joachimpowa: posts big blind 1200

HOLE CARDS
Dealt to viewer88 [Ah 5c]
arthiam: folds
viewer88: folds

There is a sick amount of chips in the pot, but if I push expect little FE vs the bigstack (remember: I didn't have any reads on him), so the other shorty on BB can get a walk. I know BB is a multitabler, so expect him to call any shove, and I expect the bigstack to get it in pretty much always.
So I folded to avoid confrontation with bigstack, and because I knew I could shove next hand vs arthiam, he's tagged as a weak player.

I don't know, I might be overthinking this, is it snappush vs unkowns?

I snap-push this vs about everyone... I expect to have a lot more FE vs the big blind as he has shown himself to not be the strangest player, so often with a marginal holding he can think that you vs BB would get him ITM, and if he does call you BB can possibly fold hoping you get busted so you may not find yourself in a 3-way pot, but for the amount of chips in the pot already I simply cannot fold there... I am looking for the shove next hand as well, but this is just a shove for me against anyone...

and this hand aswell:

Seat 2: corrie19 (8070 in chips)
Seat 4: joachimpowa (1675 in chips)
Seat 6: arthiam (1860 in chips)
Seat 8: viewer88 (1895 in chips)

viewer88: posts small blind 300
corrie19: posts big blind 600
ante = 50

HOLE CARDS
Dealt to viewer88 [6c 8d]
joachimpowa has timed out
joachimpowa: folds
joachimpowa is sitting out
arthiam: folds
viewer88: folds

I prefered waiting for a spot to shove into the shortstacks so I folded. I wiz'd the hand and it becomes -$EV when BB calls more then 40%, so it should have definatly been an instashove because IMO it's even ok to make a slightly -$EV shove here.
T9o hand from BB is the same situation ofcourse, waiting for joachimpowa to bust is just a bad idea since I have FE here.

+EV to push ATC IMO and 86o is a hand with nice suckout value against over cards if call... you do have FE there and I am not certain if villain is capable of calling +40%... I simply cannot pass on a shove here, again, it is folding and hoping to get a better spot or someone else busting...

I think I've been freaked out too much by the terrible calls I've seen on 16's $, also when I'm playing vs unknowns I give them a looser callrange then the ranges you guys put in the wizard. The random donkeys on 16$'s kill each other so often that I sometimes pass up on smaller edges, but my tight bubblegame here is obviously terri-bad

I know the feeling of super bad calls... and that is why I tend to also expect looser calls in certain spots... this is something that I often argue with flows about, because he plays higher limits genereally players are capable of calling tighter... putting players on ranges is your opinion and if you put them on looser ranges then push tighter when you can... ATC spots are still ATC tho. One thing I believe though is that even if you put somebody on a range, and you get it wrong it's often because the player is bad and prone to making big mistakes, so I am OK making a small mistake for the right reason, because you still profit off those players as they cxan be spewy in so many other places... well, that's how I rationalise the loose calls but you have to adjust

Here's a hand where I don't really agree with you guys:

Seat 2: corrie19 (8135 in chips)
Seat 4: joachimpowa (3250 in chips)
Seat 6: arthiam (520 in chips)
Seat 8: viewer88 (1595 in chips)

viewer88: posts small blind 400
corrie19: posts big blind 800

HOLE CARDS
Dealt to viewer88 [Ks Qd]
joachimpowa: folds
arthiam: calls 470 and is all-in
viewer88: raises 745 to 1545 and is all-in
corrie19: calls 745

I think it's a standard shove because you have BU covered so hard. I've fed it to the wizard and this is +$EV even in the extreme model where BU only shoves KK+ AKs and BB overcalls 100%.

I've set there ranges at 7% shove for the shortstack and 81% call from bigstack and this shove had +2.62 diff% which is nice.

I have to say that watching it, my gut was to shove, and thinking about it more I still like the shove... arthiam can push so super wide, even though he is bad that KQo is good against his range, and I expect BB to call and again, I feel that folding is hoping BB will bust villain with ATC, I have to say that I like the proactive approach here as well........

So overall I think I sucked pretty hard on bubble missing a lot of shoves left and right. Thanks a lot for reviewing my game, I'm really learning a lot from this and I hope other players learn something from it aswell (I'm sure they do )

I'll watch the video again tomorow and maybe post some more hand, I'm definatly waiting to see more video's from you guys

Don't be too hard on yourself one thing I would be interested to know from you is what your stance is on heavy multitabling. How many tables are you now playing? do you see any value in reducing the number in order to pick up on more of these spots?

And definitely looking to get some more out

Hey everyone!

Thanks to all of u for accepting this blog in such a warm and appreciative manner This has been a brain-child of Flows for some time now but Nick and myself are very happy and proud to be a part of something, that will hopefully give a lot back to the community that gave us so much

The videos that we have done and will be doing are meant to help u think about SnGs more. We would like u to consider the spots u find urselves in and to be able to figure out the situations that u encounter on ur own. The answers found here are explained throughly but we hope u will understand that some of the plays here are very advanced and require a lot of time to be completely comprehended and correctly employed. I'll admit I myself have problems figuring out correct solutions in certain spots (as evident in this video's T7o hand). These concepts and adaptations of SnG play are not simple and will not work in every spot. To this end I hope u will understand that these are not universal solutions to general SnG play problems but more a guideline to how to correctly employ push/fold in bubble or other situations.

This video will not replace the time that needs to be spent in ICM or actual play of SnGs. It is also not a blueprint to success on any given limit, be it micros or high ones. This is a review of a specific tournament with specific opponents against which specific hero found himself in certain situations. We hope that the knowledge and analysis we provided won't be miss-treated or carry too much expectation by those players, who have not yet accumulated the needed experience to fully understand the reasons for the advised actions.

We do however hope that this contribution will help u along on ur path to SnG winning play and help u develop ur understanding of these games further. However more often than not SnG success is achieved by fully understanding the basics. We hope u will keep this in mind and never underestimate the value of the basic knowledge which is provided even on this site.

We wish u good luck and good judgment

I second the question about how many tables played...

I also wonder how you guys are playing the amount you do....

Cascaded? Tiled evenly?

Do you use something like Table Ninja to help you cope with how fast the action is?

I can cope with up to 6 tables tiled. After that they get quite small, and its a pain moving the mouse
and typing the amounts or even using the wheel to adjust bets on time. So what is your secret for
multi tabling as many as you guys do at a time?

I can comfortably play 12 FR tables, and I put them in 4 piles of 3 each... I have no table ninja software, and I manually type in bet amounts when I bet 2.5BB for a pfr... It took me a while to get the hang of it, but now I am quite comfortable... I also structure my registration so that I am not getting late phase play on too many tables at the same time... I don't want more than 4 bubble situations simultaneously... although atm I can only play 6 tables max (tx again ipoker) but it's awesome for gaining reads... it's just practice and knowing how to check everything quickly, blinds, position, stacks and then knowing the decision...

Originally posted by NickParkes
I can comfortably play 12 FR tables, and I put them in 4 piles of 3 each... I have no table ninja software, and I manually type in bet amounts when I bet 2.5BB for a pfr... It took me a while to get the hang of it, but now I am quite comfortable... I also structure my registration so that I am not getting late phase play on too many tables at the same time... I don't want more than 4 bubble situations simultaneously... although atm I can only play 6 tables max (tx again ipoker) but it's awesome for gaining reads... it's just practice and knowing how to check everything quickly, blinds, position, stacks and then knowing the decision...

I was able to do this with Full Tilt a long time ago when I was messing around with the $2.20 turbos.
But the prob I also found is not seeing the result of your play.. tables popping up everywhere. I guess
sorting it out so there is not so much end play at once would help the rate of decisions per second I guess youd call it.

You should see the table ninja videos.. I am thinking of grabbing it.... It has an insane amount of options including
one where you can set a hot key to bring the table you are on out of the stack and pin i somewhere like the top
of the screen so you can see the outcome of your play. Anyhow Don;t wanna hijack the thread just want to know
how you people play so many tables. Does anyone do it diff then Nick does?

Originally posted by NickParkes

Don't be too hard on yourself one thing I would be interested to know from you is what your stance is on heavy multitabling. How many tables are you now playing? do you see any value in reducing the number in order to pick up on more of these spots?

I usualy play a set of 21 16$'s sng's. Most of the time it's not a problem because it only lasts about 1 hour from start to finish, and early stage does not require a lot of attention because it's just all so mechanical.

Sometimes I lose focus near the endgame a little bit, it happens sometimes when I'm tired/baked/distracted.. and it's definatly a leak because the decisions are pretty crucial.

There are always moments where you have to make a lot of decisions at the same time, so misjudgements and misclicks are not uncommon. The fact that you're "flying blind" without reads doesn't help alot either.

I'm not really worried about my ROI, only thing that's important is my hourly rate (and study). I think for me ~20 tabling is optimal, but I'm not really sure about it.

@ 8979687

I stack all the tables on top of eachother in the top right corner of my screen, and I use the standard size on pokerstars, it's pretty big, covers like 1/3 of my screen. When I reach the bubble or encounter an interesting spot I drag that table outwards, so I can spend just that little bit more time on every decision and get a clue about callranges/pushranges (it's impossible if you stack the tables, and getting some clue about those ranges will earn you a lot of money).

I use tableninja and I'm superhappy about the software. It really makes it a LOT easier to mass-table, it just saves you a lot of clicks.
Most usefull feature for me is the automatical sng registration and auto preflop betsizer. The software automaticly sets your betsize at 3+1 or 4+1 or whatever you want for every blindlevel! It just saves a huge amount of clicks, so more time frees up for decision making.

Originally posted by Atoks
Hey everyone!

Thanks to all of u for accepting this blog in such a warm and appreciative manner This has been a brain-child of Flows for some time now but Nick and myself are very happy and proud to be a part of something, that will hopefully give a lot back to the community that gave us so much

The videos that we have done and will be doing are meant to help u think about SnGs more. We would like u to consider the spots u find urselves in and to be able to figure out the situations that u encounter on ur own. The answers found here are explained throughly but we hope u will understand that some of the plays here are very advanced and require a lot of time to be completely comprehended and correctly employed. I'll admit I myself have problems figuring out correct solutions in certain spots (as evident in this video's T7o hand). These concepts and adaptations of SnG play are not simple and will not work in every spot. To this end I hope u will understand that these are not universal solutions to general SnG play problems but more a guideline to how to correctly employ push/fold in bubble or other situations.

This video will not replace the time that needs to be spent in ICM or actual play of SnGs. It is also not a blueprint to success on any given limit, be it micros or high ones. This is a review of a specific tournament with specific opponents against which specific hero found himself in certain situations. We hope that the knowledge and analysis we provided won't be miss-treated or carry too much expectation by those players, who have not yet accumulated the needed experience to fully understand the reasons for the advised actions.

We do however hope that this contribution will help u along on ur path to SnG winning play and help u develop ur understanding of these games further. However more often than not SnG success is achieved by fully understanding the basics. We hope u will keep this in mind and never underestimate the value of the basic knowledge which is provided even on this site.

We wish u good luck and good judgment

I just wanted to quote this again to point out the importance of this post! ♠_grin:

table-discussion: I play only 6 tables because good decisions take some time
It's definitely possible to win money without masstabling!

Wow, a fantastic thread. Goes to bookmarks and I am so watching the videos.

Thank you very much, guys!

Update

New video coming very soon...

Originally posted by JVV
Update

We had again some technical problems.
But it's recorded and will be uploaded soon!

Please vote here!

I know it's not really beautiful but it might help us with the next videos. THX!

Flows

I have uploaded the 4th Video!

Video 03 will be uploaded during this week I guess.

7:50 LOL!!!! I like a crying c/c line on the flop for the 5s

16:16 interesting comments on the KQo button steal. I would have normally tried the steal here. But nick and flows explained it perfectly why those chips aren’t worth it and we are crushed against a bb resteal range.

18:45 I don’t like the QJs push by lalele. As you said heroine is never folding and QJs is crushed often.

22:15 Q3o freeplay: if u want to stab bet flop, otherwise fold turn as nick said

24:15 TJs steal from bu: heroine showed the steal. I don’t like showing. No up-side to showing. You will just get called lighter when you start pushing which is not what you want

26:35 Q8o: push

27:05 76s: I like the push because people still tend to fold 4bb behind when there is another SS around and if called you are very often live and have great suck-out equity.

29: T5s then Q8o easy push’s first in with the huge chip lead and equal SS

Great video guys!

If nothing is happening in the early stages maybe could you comment on some of the plays you are seeing quickly from the other players? “oh this guys just open raised JTs from ep that’s bad.” Just a quick sentence to keep us attentive!

Great work again. I like the collaborative work you are doing.

Hi guys

Thanks for taking the time to review my play. I'm glad your taking the time to have a few laughs. I'm on a large downswing and totally frustrated, that being said my BR has gone from almost 1k down to around $150. I do have quite a few Titan points saved and may cash them in at the start of next month.

lalele and clueless13 are 2 players I have played with a lot and know they are tight regulars on this level, so I try to watch out when they are in the hand.

5:15 - AA: I normally at the $5.50 level raise with the 3x button, and add 1 for each limper.Basically the 3X button would be a 4X raise Players at this level don't give you credit at all. My reasoning is that if I'm going to play I'm going to make others pay to play a hand with me. I know that with AA you don't want many callers I of coarse get 4 callers lol. When the flop came KK7 with a flush draw I was like here we go again. These are the spots I get myself in all the time, I do have a hard time folding when I should, I have played over 100 games with a few of these players and know how bad they tend to play. sophiekyle08, I have lots of notes on and know he/she would never have a "K" in that spot, when he/shoved I was willing to go broke, not the wisest with 3 still to act behind me. What I'm surprised at was that the turn and river didn't come 3,3 as sophieklye08 has done that in the past.

9:10 - QQ : hand again raised with the 3X button which is 3X + original bet maybe I should switch to the 2X button but this level the lower you raise the more people call you and suckout. Will certainly keep the bet sizing in mind if I ever get off this level.

13:07 - 88: hand I tend to not give much credit to players with TTR as their name as well. I do think I played this hand horribly but was lucky to have him fold to the 3 bet.

14:35 AKo : I was going to fold this but I miss clicked and hit the call button and was lucky to win the flip. I figured he had JJ+, damn multitabling

17:01 KQo : Here I understand your argument about bet sizing, however I think if I bet smaller its easier for him to push over me, as this size shows a tight player I'm willing to play for his life.

20:55 Q3o : In BB, I have no excuse for my play in this spot except lack of experience I should have bet flop at least or raised at some point the call down was brutal this I know his minbet was screaming to me bluff. 2nd bottom pair lol I'm so embarrassed on my play god help me.......

23:29 JTs, bet sizing I will work on........... so much to learn and remember,

24:47 66: brutal play again I truly see this now I see this was just a lucky SNG for me. calling was so bad, i could see a push but can't believe I called.

27:36 Q5o : bubble play I need work on , I have a hard time pushing marginal holdings for fear I run into monsters far to often. More ICM trainer in the future.

30:40 A3o : I know brutal again, need to take off the dress and put on work boots, aggression is not my strong suit as witnessed, I was taking the wrong approach letting them bust each other when i should of attacked them

Well that was an extremely humbling experience. I do try to work on my game and being a relatively passive person some spots don't come by as easy. I was a heavy multitabler playing 10 to 16 games at once. This maybe added to things I need to work on. The ICM trainer I tend to get alot wrong in ATC situations I have a hard time getting over 90% but I do try.

I didn't screen this video prior to sending and just know I need help with my play. This is from a time while on a very big downswing, I have zero confidence and doubt even the simplest of decisions. In hind sight wish I had screened it as its pretty embarrassing.

Regarding bet sizing when mutlitabling do you manually type in your bet amount or have a script for this?

Well just goes to show you, you think you know how to play and are really just kidding yourself. From this I will do the following.

1. Stop playing multiple tables. 1-2 tables max
2. use ICM as clearly I have no clue
3. Be more aggressive..
4. work on bet sizing 2.5 times in early stages.
5. re read and understand all articles.
6. watch more videos, this will be hard as I watch plenty as it is.

Well thanks Nick and Flows for taking time to rip my soul. Will work to rebuild the confidence I once had.

Hey Frozenrope

Don't be embarrassed about the hand history... TBH, this has been the best video cos it tackles so many issues... Also I tend to give regs on that level very little credit, and in fact they probably also call too tight so push happily in to them...

As far as bet sizing goes I know it seems like people give you no respect, and probably they don't, but still raising less conserves your chips, and you can still get them in the middle when you need to...

For me the best thing to do when in a downswing is to move down limits, post hands, analyse my game... and when you don't feel confident, listen to the coaches and push yourself to implement the stuff they say. Watch the PS coaching videos again as they deal with all these issues over and over again... And always ask questions, if you don't understand why someone does what they do...

But all in all, thanks for the HH, and I think you will learn a ton...

Oh my! Will watch this!

Play with the ICM trainer and aim for at least 90% but the more the better you know.

I don't mean to criticize but here's a thing I noticed: I read the books of Dan Harrington about the tournaments and in the early stages he always calculates the pot odds and makes decisions based on them.

I noticed on the AA hand in the beginning when the first guy shoved the Hero is getting 3 to 1 pot odds with an overpair on a paired board. And he's got around 38% equity to win the hand against a calling preflop range of 12%.

With those pot odds I'd never fold the Aces. Yes, they are beat sometimes. But 3 to 1 pot odds is just too good for me to fold an overpair.

Just my two cents.

Originally posted by lessthanthreee

If nothing is happening in the early stages maybe could you comment on some of the plays you are seeing quickly from the other players? “oh this guys just open raised JTs from ep that’s bad.” Just a quick sentence to keep us attentive!

Great work again. I like the collaborative work you are doing.

hi, thanks for the feedback! we will try to keep you attentive! The problem is that we don't want those videos to be too long, it might happen that we discuss a hand for 20min! ♦

@mishkagg:
Thanks for asking! I will try to explain.

A :club:A : The pot is 2720 (effective) and you have to call another 1130. So the pod odd are 2.4 : 1.

Let's have a look at a different (really?) hand:

2 Players, your hand is 6 :spade:6

Board: 2 8 9 8 9
sth happens until the river and the pot is 1000 and the other player bets 20. Will you call because you have good podd odds? Do you really think you can beat your opponent?

What I want to say is this: pot odds don't matter when you are beat. You are never commited to a pot you cannot win!!

@FrozenRope: I hope those words weren't too hard... good luck and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Flows

Yup, I got that, Flows, thank you very much.

Can I ask you a question about my SnG graph here or am I only going to derail this otherwise wonderful thread?

7:00 AA definitely a LOL hand. C/F there. With that many opponents it only very very rarely happens that none of them has the K.

17:40 KQo if you raise to 250 and lalele shoves you cannot fold IMO. If he knows what he's doing he will shove a lot of A high hands and pockets so I think your equity against his range is too good to fold with almost 2:1 you would be getting.

26:00 66 is a really bad call here. I would call TT I guess here and even then I would not expect to be ahead that often...