small ball at 5-10$ sngs????

PhilBeans · #1 09-01-2007, 03:01 AM

I've been running bad today so i switched up my strategy late in a 5$ sng on bodog. I min bet and raised alot and constantly underbet the pot. Both players were even angry about it. I won the tournament by picking them to death with good and bad cards.I've never played like this before but it seemed to work well against micro limit lucktards. I never lost a big hand but always got paid off when i hit. I stole a ton of pots and just ran it over. I made bigger and smaller bets and occasionaly pushed but tried to keep the pots small mostly. Any thoughts on this?

malnek · #2 09-01-2007, 03:14 AM

its all about adjusting optimally against your opponents. small ball wont work in a bubble situation where stacks have <=15bb. but by all means if you're deep enough and believe that this is the most effective way of exploiting your opponents.

PhilBeans · #3 09-01-2007, 03:19 AM

We were 3 handed when i started it and all pretty even in chips. Blinds were 75-150 with about 5k in chips. I guess my opponents were weaker than usual but it was something I have never tried. I was really surprised to have any success with it. Meybe it was more of a case of the situation and long term results would be -EV? I am gonna experiment with making smaler bets for the rest of the night, It will be interesting to see what happens...

allaboutheu · #4 09-01-2007, 03:28 AM

I used to play this way a long time ago before I understood optimal sng play. That was also in the regs not turbos. I found that against bad players or one's who just don't really know how they should be playing this strategy seems to work. However against good players or one's who know optimal strategy this type of play you are talking about will get killed.

Therefore I guess if you use it, just know ahead of time who your playing against ie. will he shove over your minraise every single time etc etc.

PhilBeans · #5 09-01-2007, 03:40 AM

I havent been running into that at ALL. people will call a 1/3 pot bet than fold for 1/4 on the turn every single time.Its amazing how they have no concept of pot odds at all. they only reraise with monsters. Simple. I think this will turn out to be +EV since it seems to be working in both my current sngs, of course it not an absolute....

memento_mori · #6 09-01-2007, 06:03 AM

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I havent been running into that at ALL. people will call a 1/3 pot bet than fold for 1/4 on the turn every single time.Its amazing how they have no concept of pot odds at all. they only reraise with monsters. Simple. I think this will turn out to be +EV since it seems to be working in both my current sngs, of course it not an absolute....

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The problem with smallballing is that:

1) it demands more attention, and therefore you can't play as many tables (and makes as much $$$)

2) its pretty easy to counterattack your smallball strategy in the late stages of a sng (RRAI etc.)

3) you are likely giving edges away on the bubble if you play smallball instead of the normal shoving strategy.

mortimo · #7 09-01-2007, 07:31 AM

I have mixed it up and tried smallball-poker alot in lowbuyin-mtts, with good results..I maintain a big stack in the beginning, but later I lose because the players are more aggressive and talented..The same thing can we say about SNGs, but here it`s important to have a tight image, so we can pawn thr bubble..Often if I see a mediumstack mini-raise me as a bluff and I have him covered, I will come over the top of him and push him off when we are 4-5 players left and he got 20bbs or less

Guthrie · #8 09-01-2007, 06:34 PM

Anything works once.

PhilBeans · #9 09-02-2007, 08:17 AM

Yeah I've been getting massively sucked out on all night. Still cashing but if I had even average luck I'd be up 3 times more. Havent altered my style drastically, just throwing in some smaller bets here and there for value. Seems I keep shoving with +EV but 99 is no good against A-7. EVER. I'm running so bad I cant believe it but still winning so.....?

ymu · #10 09-02-2007, 08:28 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah I've been getting massively sucked out on all night. Still cashing but if I had even average luck I'd be up 3 times more. Havent altered my style drastically, just throwing in some smaller bets here and there for value. Seems I keep shoving with +EV but 99 is no good against A-7. EVER. I'm running so bad I cant believe it but still winning so.....?

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If you keep giving good odds to outdraw you, you will get outdrawn a lot, without making enough to make up for it the times you win. If you want to c-bet really small, you are pretty much forced to value bet really small - unless your opponents are complete morons.

Frequent 2.5x raises followed up by a half pot c-bet is small-ball. You can't play this way with shallow stacks. Trying to make it work by minraising and minbetting is just fishy and asking for trouble, IMO.