[cleinen]

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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 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