Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement

[Collin Moshman]

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

[Oubliette]

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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

[durron597]

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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

[durron597]

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.

[cwar]

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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.

[durron597]

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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.

[cleinen]

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.

[durron597]

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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.

[ymu]

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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.

[recondite7]

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.