Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Hi Guys,

I would say a common theme among SNGer's who do not play much no-limit cash or MTTs is a dislike of post-flop play. You want to fold or take it down pre-flop, particularly during low-blind play. Many players only feel comfortable during high blind play, and will either reject +EV situations early, or simply push/overbet premium hands during low blinds.

Now don't get me wrong: you can certainly be a winning SNG player playing only premium hands early, and sticking to a push-fold strategy late. But if you want to improve your post-flop play so that you have more +EV opportunities earlier (such as making frequent small button raises during levels I and II when the blinds are tight), then:

Play some heads-up SNGs.

The beauty of the HU SNG is that you cannot simply wait for the blinds to rise or to be dealt a premium hand early. (If you do, you will get run over since you're posting a blind every hand.) So you will end up playing many hands with flop, turn, and river decisions during low-blind play -- a very useful skill, particularly if you want to branch out into other forms of no-limit.

A few words of advice when starting to play these.

1. Begin by playing one table only, and drop your buyin to 25%-50% of your standard full-table SNG buyin.

During low blinds:

2. When it is your button, raise widely (say 2-3 BB) to create a bigger pot with your positional advantage, and if your opponent calls and then checks the flop, make a continuation bet (around 1/2 - 2/3 of the pot) around 70-90% of the time.

3. When you are big blind, look to see cheap flops by checking when the button smooth-calls and calling only small raises. Rarely reraise or call larger raises unless your opponent is very aggressive or you have a premium hand.

During high blinds:

Well, you guys know what to do during high blinds....

Best Regards,
Collin

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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(such as making frequent small button raises during levels I and II when the blinds are tight)

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good advice about hu sngs, but this is ridiculous

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

I think your advice is helpful if you get heads-up in a SNG and the blinds are still pretty low, say bb=150 or bb=200. I have been strugling in this area and a well respected player recently gave me the same advice - i.e. raise the button widely and c-bet most folps when checked. It has helped me quite a bit.

Say stacks are about even at 6700 and bb=200. After you raise the button a couple of times your opponent can lose patience and the next thing you know they repush you with A4o/K6s/33 types of hands. You obviously have to fold your weak holdings but it is very nice when you pick up a premium hand.

I don't exactly know how playing HU is going to help with postflop play. I'm interested to hear what others say...

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

I'm not sure HU practice helps much with post-flop skills at a full(er) table - hand selection is quite different (it's rare that any of your opponents are playing ~100% of their hands at a full table), you will make correct bets/calls/raises that would be very very wrong at a full table and you will be correct to bluff/semi-bluff a lot more HU, both in and out of position, than would be sane at a full table.

HU SnGs are great for improving ITM placings - especially if you play a structure which is often quite deep by the time you get HU - but for post-flop at a full table I don't think you can beat cash games (or the cash forums here).

As for the HU strategy outlined here - it looks pretty standard but it's not the only approach. In particular, if you are better than your opponent post-flop you are probably better off limping in to leave room for some poker post-flop. Most important of all is flexibility - your strategy will depend a lot on how your opponent is playing and how he can best be exploited.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Collin how many 1 table sngs have you played and at what buy ins?

You seem to be putting a lot of effort into advancing a sng conversation, but Oubliette is right about the small button raises early in a sng being ridiculous advice for almost any STT online today. The main problem is that gaining small amounts of chips early is not that helpful to your total $EV, where losing those same amount of chips is usually very detrimental.

Your HU advice seems very solid, but there are not that many similar situations (except for HU push fold endgame) between a HU sng and a STT.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

I think hu sngs ARE actually a really good way to increase your postflop skills, since a lot of your postflop situations are going to be sb/bb and button/sb/bb confrontations with crappy hands.

I also think that 6 max nlhe and some full ring are both a great break from sngs and a good way to understand postflop play better.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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2. When it is your button, raise widely (say 2-3 BB) to create a bigger pot with your positional advantage, and if your opponent calls and then checks the flop, make a continuation bet (around 1/2 - 2/3 of the pot) around 70-90% of the time.


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Collin, you either need to explain this in detail or stop giving advice, because a generality like this in poker is useless and often counterproductive. If your book is anything like this thread, it's going suck ass. Sorry for the brutal honesty but I hope you see where I'm coming from.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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I think hu sngs ARE actually a really good way to increase your postflop skills, since a lot of your postflop situations are going to be sb/bb and button/sb/bb confrontations with crappy hands.

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Fair point, but I don't tend to open limp or raise junk in my SB (unless it's a push) and I tend to discourage people limping their SB into my BB. Button limps are fairly rare.

And there is still a very different hand selection thing going on - HU you will be playing virtually every hand, but earlier on button limpers and SB completers are not doing this with ATC. And, earlier in an SnG you should be playing a lot more cautiously than when HU.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

It sounds like this book is written for a player who doesn't yet realize that it's generally better to raise preflop than to limp. In that case I'm sure it will help their game.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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I would say a common theme among SNGer's who do not play much no-limit cash or MTTs is a dislike of post-flop play. You want to fold or take it down pre-flop, particularly during low-blind play. Many players only feel comfortable during high blind play, and will either reject +EV situations early, or simply push/overbet premium hands during low blinds.

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There is a very good reason for this in SnGs. The whole point of an SnG is to put yourself in a situation to make the money as high a % as possible. A SnG pays 33% of the field (in comparison, most MTTs pay 7-12%), thus it is pretty reasonable to expect to be able to fold your way into the money a lot of the time. Here's the problem. Say in level 1 (15/30) on Full Tilt you raise to 100 with A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] and get called by the cutoff and the big blind. The flop comes 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], so we have two overs and a backdoor flush draw. We continuation for 240 into 315, the cutoff calls and the big blind folds. Turn J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. What are we going to do now? Fire again? Check and fold to a bet? That's 20% of our stack gone, right there. Then an orbit and a half later we call a raise to 120 at 20/40 with 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on the button. The flop comes A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] and obviously we fold to the raiser's bet. We took a blind in this period so our stack is down to 1500 - 100 - 240 - 20 - 40 - 120 = 980 in level 2, and what did we do to get there? Miss two flops?

The bottom line is that there is no room in SnGs to try to "outplay postflop" early and try to build a stack. What if the flop had come A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. The original raiser bets and we do what. Raise? He moves in and now we're flipping with AK-AJ. Call? The turn blanks off and he bets again, now we're down to something in the 700s, already half our stack gone in two pots. Raise his turn bet with no fold equity? ... By the time the blinds get up to 50/100 unless we get lucky and double up (which often times we won't be much bigger than a coinflip) we aren't going to have much fold equity anymore. Sure, sometimes we end up winning a big pot, but other times we end up busting ourselves early on. I would rather take two 1400 chip stacks into 5 handed and 60/120 blinds than bust in 8th place in one and have 3500 in the other.

ICM demonstrates that in a tournament (that isn't winner take all) each chip won is worth less than each chip lost. If you have a 10% expected ROI when a tournament begins and you double up, you're expected ROI doesn't go to 20%, it goes to 18%.

If you want to outplay people postflop, I recommend playing cash games where you can top off if you lose a pot, or MTTs where the payout structure is much steeper and thus accumulating chips has more value.

-durron597

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Also, the idea of playing HU sngs to improve your postflop play is ridiculous, because the hand ranges in a HU sng are completely unrelated to the hand ranges at a full table. In a HU SnG in level 1, it's reasonable to raise K4o on the button, you opponent calls, the flop comes J74 and your opponent checks. Bet or check behind? This situation will *never* come up in level 1 in a SnG, and I will be VERY surprised if you are advocating open-raising K4o on the button level 1 in a full SnG.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Durron said what I tried to say. This book will likely be a huge dissapointment for even a beginning STT player, but some of the concepts might be relevant to small field mtt's.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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[ QUOTE ]

I would say a common theme among SNGer's who do not play much no-limit cash or MTTs is a dislike of post-flop play. You want to fold or take it down pre-flop, particularly during low-blind play. Many players only feel comfortable during high blind play, and will either reject +EV situations early, or simply push/overbet premium hands during low blinds.

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There is a very good reason for this in SnGs. The whole point of an SnG is to put yourself in a situation to make the money as high a % as possible. A SnG pays 33% of the field (in comparison, most MTTs pay 7-12%), thus it is pretty reasonable to expect to be able to fold your way into the money a lot of the time. Here's the problem. Say in level 1 (15/30) on Full Tilt you raise to 100 with A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] and get called by the cutoff and the big blind. The flop comes 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], so we have two overs and a backdoor flush draw. We continuation for 240 into 315, the cutoff calls an the big blind folds. Turn J:hearts:. What are we going to do now? Fire again? Check and fold to a bet? That's 20% of our stack gone, right there. Then an orbit and a half later we call a raise to 120 at 20/40 with 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on the button. The flop comes A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] and obviously we fold to the raiser's bet. We took a blind in this period so our stack is down to 1500 - 100 - 240 - 20 - 40 - 120 = 980 in level 2, and what did we do to get there? Miss two flops?

The bottom line is that there is no room in SnGs to try to "outplay postflop" early and try to build a stack. What if the flop had come A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. The original raiser bets and we do what. Raise? He moves in and now we're flipping with AK-AJ. Call? The turn blanks off and he bets again, now we're down to something in the 700s, already half our stack gone in two pots. Raise his turn bet with no fold equity? ... By the time the blinds get up to 50/100 unless we get lucky and double up (which often times we won't be much bigger than a coinflip) we aren't going to have much fold equity anymore. Sure, sometimes we end up winning a big pot, but other times we end up busting ourselves early on. I would rather take two 1400 chip stacks into 5 handed and 60/120 blinds than bust in 8th place in one and have 3500 in the other.

ICM demonstrates that in a tournament (that isn't winner take all) each chip won is worth less than each chip lost. If you have a 10% expected ROI when a tournament begins and you double up, you're expected ROI doesn't go to 20%, it goes to 18%.

If you want to outplay people postflop, I recommend playing cash games where you can top off if you lose a pot, or MTTs where the payout structure is much steeper and thus accumulating chips has more value.

-durron597

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great post

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

I think its possible to apply skills you learn with different ranges (hu sng ranges) to other situations (6-9-10 man sng ranges). Situations like raising semi light on the button, say with QJs or something like that on the button, then having to play a flop in position as the raiser with middle pair or tpmk.

Maybe im being too specific about these spots, but i think that his point has some value.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

durron basically made a post that I was going to make. I'll just say getting involved in too many pots with marginal hands whether you're raising, limping, or calling raises early isn't optimal sng strategy. These situations are where you'll get involved in post flop play. So, if you're playing optimally you're not playing too many hands post flop and if you are you often have a made hand by the flop and you're jamming with tptk or an over pair.

As far as always raising on the button in the early stages HU, this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons: 1) the blinds aren't worth stealing 2) you can't always do the same thing against every opponent.

The best way to improve post flop skills is to play 6-max cash games.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

So what if 2p2 published a book on SNGs and the STTF forum universally blasted it as godawful? I don't mean nitpicky or partial stuff, I mean everyone on this forum just thinks it's completely terrible. That would be an interesting situation.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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So what if 2p2 published a book on SNGs and the STTF forum universally blasted it as godawful? I don't mean nitpicky or partial stuff, I mean everyone on this forum just thinks it's completely terrible. That would be an interesting situation.

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interesting is not the word i would choose to dsecribe it

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Entertaining then. Things are getting a little slow around here. When does this thing come out? Can I preorder? Maybe their strategy is to get all of us to buy it just for entertainment value, in addition to the casual player buying it for it's intended purpose.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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So what if 2p2 published a book on SNGs and the STTF forum universally blasted it as godawful? I don't mean nitpicky or partial stuff, I mean everyone on this forum just thinks it's completely terrible. That would be an interesting situation.

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I don't want to blast the book too much before I get a chance to see the content, but nothing I've seen so far makes me think this book will be well received. Why wouldn't 2+2 get a more experienced stter to at the very least edit some of the content?

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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ICM demonstrates that in a tournament (that isn't winner take all) each chip won is worth less than each chip lost. If you have a 10% expected ROI when a tournament begins and you double up, you're expected ROI doesn't go to 20%, it goes to 18%.

If you want to outplay people postflop, I recommend playing cash games where you can top off if you lose a pot, or MTTs where the payout structure is much steeper and thus accumulating chips has more value.


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I understand that ICM demonstrates that each chip lost is worth more than each chip one, but aren't you losing a ton of chips to the blinds by folding almost every hand? Let's say you fold the majority of hands with the idea that you want to make it to the bubble. By that time, you are down half of your stack and playing against opponents with stacks that are 3 or 4 times as big as yours. Now, even if you start applying ICM correctly, the big stacks will gladly call your pushes with a rather loose range trying to bust you out. Now there is a good chance you will get busted out, because you are forced to push marginal hands now that you are well under 10xBB.

This whole idea of waiting for the bubble (and losing a lot of chips to the blinds) never made sense to me, because the bubble almost always seems to be dominated by the big stacks, regardless of whether you turn on push/fold mode all of a sudden or not.

Honestly, I do much better in SNGs when I double up early on compared to when I don't. I understand that you don't double your equity, but you have a big advantage come bubble time if you are playing with a 2500 chip stack vs. someone playing with an 850 chip stack.

Thoughts on this??

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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I understand that ICM demonstrates that each chip lost is worth more than each chip one, but aren't you losing a ton of chips to the blinds by folding almost every hand? Let's say you fold the majority of hands with the idea that you want to make it to the bubble. By that time, you are down half of your stack and playing against opponents with stacks that are 3 or 4 times as big as yours. Now, even if you start applying ICM correctly, the big stacks will gladly call your pushes with a rather loose range trying to bust you out. Now there is a good chance you will get busted out, because you are forced to push marginal hands now that you are well under 10xBB.

This whole idea of waiting for the bubble (and losing a lot of chips to the blinds) never made sense to me, because the bubble almost always seems to be dominated by the big stacks, regardless of whether you turn on push/fold mode all of a sudden or not.

Honestly, I do much better in SNGs when I double up early on compared to when I don't. I understand that you don't double your equity, but you have a big advantage come bubble time if you are playing with a 2500 chip stack vs. someone playing with an 850 chip stack.

Thoughts on this??

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It would be surprising if you didn't tend to get a better outcome when you doubled early on rather than not doubling early on. This doesn't mean you should take a high risk of going broke trying to double up.

The average stack is rarely very deep compared to the size of the blinds in SnGs, so a few blind steals can turn around a shortstack very quickly - especially if you start pushing while you still have FE instead of donking off you chips and going into push/fold mode in level 1/2.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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[ QUOTE ]
ICM demonstrates that in a tournament (that isn't winner take all) each chip won is worth less than each chip lost. If you have a 10% expected ROI when a tournament begins and you double up, you're expected ROI doesn't go to 20%, it goes to 18%.

If you want to outplay people postflop, I recommend playing cash games where you can top off if you lose a pot, or MTTs where the payout structure is much steeper and thus accumulating chips has more value.


[/ QUOTE ]

I understand that ICM demonstrates that each chip lost is worth more than each chip one, but aren't you losing a ton of chips to the blinds by folding almost every hand? Let's say you fold the majority of hands with the idea that you want to make it to the bubble. By that time, you are down half of your stack and playing against opponents with stacks that are 3 or 4 times as big as yours. Now, even if you start applying ICM correctly, the big stacks will gladly call your pushes with a rather loose range trying to bust you out. Now there is a good chance you will get busted out, because you are forced to push marginal hands now that you are well under 10xBB.

This whole idea of waiting for the bubble (and losing a lot of chips to the blinds) never made sense to me, because the bubble almost always seems to be dominated by the big stacks, regardless of whether you turn on push/fold mode all of a sudden or not.

Honestly, I do much better in SNGs when I double up early on compared to when I don't. I understand that you don't double your equity, but you have a big advantage come bubble time if you are playing with a 2500 chip stack vs. someone playing with an 850 chip stack.

Thoughts on this??

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I normally have about my starting stack give or take 300 by the time the blinds get to 75/150. If I'm pushing tighter then my opponents loose calling range or looser then my opponents tight calling range, this might be a profitable way to play.

DUCY

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Most players here, myself included, would rather start with 8 tables at 1500 chips than 4 tables at 3k chips and 4 tables immediately busto. Generally you have to win a showdown or two at crunch time to make ITM in a SNG. Obviously it's better to have more chips, but not 2x better.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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Honestly, I do much better in SNGs when I double up early on compared to when I don't. I understand that you don't double your equity, but you have a big advantage come bubble time if you are playing with a 2500 chip stack vs. someone playing with an 850 chip stack.


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sure, but it's not worth finding situations to do so at the cost of busting out more often as well. obviously you're going to do better if you get allin with AA against AK in level 1 than if you just folded. but that's very different than trying to "making something happen" on a whiffed AK or semibluffing for most/all of your stack with a speculative hand.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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Most players here, myself included, would rather start with 8 tables at 1500 chips than 4 tables at 3k chips and 4 tables immediately busto. Generally you have to win a showdown or two at crunch time to make ITM in a SNG. Obviously it's better to have more chips, but not 2x better.

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I would go so far as to say I would rather have 8 tables at 1500 than 4 tables at 3500 and 4 tables immediately busto

edit: and it doesn't matter what the blinds are or whether there's 4-9 players left (obviously if you already cashed in all 4 that's different [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Yeah there's some sweet spot. 5 tables at 3k would definitely work for me. curtains might want more edge, who knows.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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[ QUOTE ]
ICM demonstrates that in a tournament (that isn't winner take all) each chip won is worth less than each chip lost. If you have a 10% expected ROI when a tournament begins and you double up, you're expected ROI doesn't go to 20%, it goes to 18%.

If you want to outplay people postflop, I recommend playing cash games where you can top off if you lose a pot, or MTTs where the payout structure is much steeper and thus accumulating chips has more value.


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I understand that ICM demonstrates that each chip lost is worth more than each chip one, but aren't you losing a ton of chips to the blinds by folding almost every hand? Let's say you fold the majority of hands with the idea that you want to make it to the bubble. By that time, you are down half of your stack and playing against opponents with stacks that are 3 or 4 times as big as yours. Now, even if you start applying ICM correctly, the big stacks will gladly call your pushes with a rather loose range trying to bust you out. Now there is a good chance you will get busted out, because you are forced to push marginal hands now that you are well under 10xBB.

This whole idea of waiting for the bubble (and losing a lot of chips to the blinds) never made sense to me, because the bubble almost always seems to be dominated by the big stacks, regardless of whether you turn on push/fold mode all of a sudden or not.

Honestly, I do much better in SNGs when I double up early on compared to when I don't. I understand that you don't double your equity, but you have a big advantage come bubble time if you are playing with a 2500 chip stack vs. someone playing with an 850 chip stack.

Thoughts on this??

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Folding every hand in levels I & II isn't really going to short stack you. However playing raised pots in these levels can. As you move into the mid levels there may be some spots to try and steal to maintain a stack because by this time you should have some type of indictator as to how people are playing. I am not saying you have rock solid reads but you can draw general ideas.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

also usually once the blinds get to, say, 50/100 you can usually pick up a blind or two if it's the first time you've raised in 20 minutes

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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Also, the idea of playing HU sngs to improve your postflop play is ridiculous, because the hand ranges in a HU sng are completely unrelated to the hand ranges at a full table. In a HU SnG in level 1, it's reasonable to raise K4o on the button, you opponent calls, the flop comes J74 and your opponent checks. Bet or check behind? This situation will *never* come up in level 1 in a SnG, and I will be VERY surprised if you are advocating open-raising K4o on the button level 1 in a full SnG.

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Hi guys Im a HU sng regular up to the $220s, theres a lot of stuff in here that I disagree with. First off hand ranges in HU sng really do apply just because their preflop range is wider doesnt mean that you cannot apply your postflop reading skills to a context where their range is smaller, in fact the situation where the preflop range is smaller it is much easier to read someones hand postflop if their preflop range is small and/or well definined.
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ICM demonstrates that in a tournament (that isn't winner take all) each chip won is worth less than each chip lost. If you have a 10% expected ROI when a tournament begins and you double up, you're expected ROI doesn't go to 20%, it goes to 18%.

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Im just inferring here but it sounds like Collin is right, many of you may be passing up a lot of +EV spots early even at 80% value (and that seems extreme to me) you can afford to open a wide range from the button and CO. Also Id like to note that your double up example seemed a bit off to me, yes the value of doubling up may be 80% but mostly raising from the button is pretty small ball stuff so the value of the initial chips you win would have more value than doubling up, like 95% value maybe (purely an example).
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we call a raise to 120 at 20/40 with 7 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on the button.
The bottom line is that there is no room in SnGs to try to "outplay postflop" early and try to build a stack. What if the flop had come A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. The original raiser bets and we do what. Raise?

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Obvious raise, your crushing his range Im not sure why you are so worried about worst case scenarios (you didnt give positions lets assume its not UTG) it seems like your thinking is pretty skewed here, why are you worried about flipping with AK-AJ when thats the upper part of his range? Think about the whole hand range and you are way ahead. I think a lot of your arguments actually kind of prove Collin's point that a lot of STT'ers may have some major leaks in their postflop game.
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In a HU SnG in level 1, it's reasonable to raise K4o on the button, you opponent calls, the flop comes J74 and your opponent checks. Bet or check behind?

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K4o is the lower part of my opening range but I think this example proves perfectly why playing HU sngs will help your postflop play, this is a perfect example of understand what factors affect your cbet, the actual hand and villain have no relevance besides the fact that you want to understand what to consider. Your thinking about specific knowledge (what specific hands to raise fromt he button) where as I think Collin is thinking about applying it on a broad level (like when is a hand as weak as K4o or 32o worth a button raise or what factors to consider when your making a decision to cbet), if you say you never raise 32o or K4o OTB in level 1 you either have a leak in your game or your thinking. Of course you will still be profitable but Collin is talking about maximizing expectation not cookie-cutter strategies.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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we call a raise to 120 at 20/40 with 7 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on the button.
The bottom line is that there is no room in SnGs to try to "outplay postflop" early and try to build a stack. What if the flop had come A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. The original raiser bets and we do what. Raise?

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Obvious raise, your crushing his range Im not sure why you are so worried about worst case scenarios (you didnt give positions lets assume its not UTG) it seems like your thinking is pretty skewed here, why are you worried about flipping with AK-AJ when thats the upper part of his range? Think about the whole hand range and you are way ahead. I think a lot of your arguments actually kind of prove Collin's point that a lot of STT'ers may have some major leaks in their postflop game.

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it's an obvious raise in a cash game, but that was my point, it's not a cash game, it's an STT, and you're not nearly as far ahead of his range as you think you are... plus that is like the best possible flop where you don't flop the nuts or near nuts, and most of the time the flop will be much worse like my AJ3 example.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Collin,

I would like to add my name to the list of people respectfully (or not) disagreeing with your post here.

Personally I have always had a problem with everyone who has made threads about what games you should play and in what style in order to improve some random part of your STT game. They make no sense to me at all for the following reason:

Why not just improve by improving at STTs? Sure, you might get more deep-stacked 9 handed practice by playing 9 handed cash, for instance, but why not just play some STTs, and when they are 9 handed and deep, consider playing well post flop?

Now that I believe I've pretty much adequately gone through "play well" let's consider playing *more* hands. Again, I believe that you can learn to play a few more hands (to your personal comfort zone) by simply playing a few hands more every once in a while during STTs. Do I think considerations like "hey every once in a while you should consider stealing at levels 1 and 2 if the blinds are known nits" should come in to play? Obviously.

Do I think that you can learn post flop play *faster* playing 9 handed or 6 handed cash or MTTs than standard STTs? Yes, clearly, since you're going to be able to have more chances to play deep than you will in a STT, and likely you'll be paying particular attention to a few cash tables instead of playing 16 STT tables.

Do I think this all adds up? No.

A whole bunch of reasons, many of which have been covered above. Let's consider a player who is a winning LAG at cash games. What do we know about tournaments? We know that losing chips is worse than winning chips. What do we know about cash game LAGs? We know they frequently put in small numbers of chips (relative to cash game stacks) preflop, and frequently win small and medium pots, and frequently lose small and medium pots, and every once in a while win or lose big pots. What happens when we compare this to a total nit? Well the total nit shows up with values, and in a STT maybe makes a continuation bet every once in a while. They tend to show up in big pots with big hands, and not lose medium pots or even smallish pots frequently. It's better to be this nit, in general, and pick your spots to pick up some extra chips. Honestly, I believe that it's more important to learn to play well post flop with the relatively small number of hands that STTers choose to play, than to learn to play the 2/3 of all hands that you might play while playing a HU STT.

A chunk of this comes down to the following:

You're playing a STT, a magic gnome comes by and says he'll offer you a gamble that pays you X chips in expectation, with some wide distribution in results (not overall stt results, but results on the gamble). For all such gambles there should exist some gamble with Y<X chips in expectation, but a narrower distribution of results, that you would prefer because the chances of losing chips is worse.

Anyway, a large part of the reason that I wanted to post here is that I personally feel if you had to recommend *one* way for STT players to improve their heads up game, I think HU STTs is the worst game you could possibly recommend. Really, honestly, I think that ring stud8 probably has more compatibility with the goal.

Alright that's enough from me right now.

citanul

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

The biggest issue with post flop play in a SNG is you tend to run out of the proper tools by the turn and river.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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Also, the idea of playing HU sngs to improve your postflop play is ridiculous, because the hand ranges in a HU sng are completely unrelated to the hand ranges at a full table. In a HU SnG in level 1, it's reasonable to raise K4o on the button, you opponent calls, the flop comes J74 and your opponent checks. Bet or check behind? This situation will *never* come up in level 1 in a SnG, and I will be VERY surprised if you are advocating open-raising K4o on the button level 1 in a full SnG.

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Hi guys Im a HU sng regular up to the $220s, theres a lot of stuff in here that I disagree with. First off hand ranges in HU sng really do apply just because their preflop range is wider doesnt mean that you cannot apply your postflop reading skills to a context where their range is smaller, in fact the situation where the preflop range is smaller it is much easier to read someones hand postflop if their preflop range is small and/or well definined.

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That's not true. In a HU SnG, if you call a raise with a suited connector and flop a straight flush draw with an ace on the board, obviously if you checkraise they will fold a lot of the time because they won't have an ace in their hand nearly as often as they would when they raise in early position in an SnG. The types of hand reading decisions you need to make playing HU SnGs depend on people having MUCH wider raising ranges, people being more aggressive without big hands, etc. The whole mindset of a villian in a full table SnG is totally different than one playing HU.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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it's an obvious raise in a cash game, but that was my point, it's not a cash game, it's an STT, and you're not nearly as far ahead of his range as you think you are...

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Well you didnt give a position or a read so Im not sure its relevant as your being general about his range. If his range is so tight why are you calling in a HU pot in the first place? I dont think anyone advocated doing something like this this is just what you came up with when you thought about 'outplaying postflop'. Generally if you are calling a raise with 76s its because villain is very bad and plays very poorly postflop giving you good implied odds (obviously you need correct stacks sizes as well) so unless this is true I dont think your example is pertinent because calling the initial raise preflop is incorrect.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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because calling the initial raise preflop is incorrect.

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that was my whole point

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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we call a raise to 120 at 20/40 with 7 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] on the button.
The bottom line is that there is no room in SnGs to try to "outplay postflop" early and try to build a stack. What if the flop had come A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. The original raiser bets and we do what. Raise?

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Obvious raise, your crushing his range Im not sure why you are so worried about worst case scenarios (you didnt give positions lets assume its not UTG) it seems like your thinking is pretty skewed here, why are you worried about flipping with AK-AJ when thats the upper part of his range? Think about the whole hand range and you are way ahead. I think a lot of your arguments actually kind of prove Collin's point that a lot of STT'ers may have some major leaks in their postflop game.

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Early on in an SnG it's unlikely you'll get any chips from a decent opponent on this flop unless he has at least a strong A - it's a coinflip at best - but early on in an SnG you shouldn't be flipping coins. You need a bigger edge than that for the "flip to be neutral EV let alone +EV. (Loads of threads around which discuss how big that edge needs to be).

There are definitely legitimate variations in style in the early levels, but you can't approach the levels of aggression you would employ HU or in a cash game - it hurts you more often then it helps you.

Getting shortstacked early is best avoided if possible because you enter push/fold mode whilst the rest of the table is mostly deep by comparison which reduces your FE substantially.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

I think your making some overall assumptions Im merely advocating you have to read villain and make the correct adjustments preflop and postflop, you seem to be advocating never doing this beyond a certain scope of agression and I think thats wrong, read his preflop range make the correct adjustments for the relative value of the chips if its +EV after that its +EV you shouldnt worry that 'losing chips' is bad and stuff like that.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

Collin was talking about postflop skills so if you dont think those are important to STT (I have no idea how important they are or not) thats a fine point to make but Collin is very correct in saying playing HU sng will improve your postflop play immensely and the situations that you deal with and skills that you learn are VERY applicable to full ring and 6-handed postflop scenarios

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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I think your making some overall assumptions Im merely advocating you have to read villain and make the correct adjustments preflop and postflop, you seem to be advocating never doing this beyond a certain scope of agression and I think thats wrong, read his preflop range make the correct adjustments for the relative value of the chips if its +EV after that its +EV you shouldnt worry that 'losing chips' is bad and stuff like that.

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Well exactly - but what do you mean by +EV? cEV or $EV? Losing substantial (c-bet sized) chunks of chips early in an STT is very -$EV, so you don't tend to chuck them in as easily as you would in an MTT or a cash game - or in a HU STT.

Re: Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement
 

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That would be a profitable situation.

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FYP