Chip Ferguson’s Turbo SNG Article

[Jeff76]

[ QUOTE ]
The obvious folds are just filters. Drop them from the
recap.

[/ QUOTE ]I'm glad they are there. Showing all the hands gives a much better "feel" for the overall game. In fact, seeing full hand histories with hands missing annoys me because I never know what action was deleted and I'm left trusting the author that the action truly was irrelevant.

[Jan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The obvious folds are just filters. Drop them from the
recap.

[/ QUOTE ]I'm glad they are there. Showing all the hands gives a much better "feel" for the overall game. In fact, seeing full hand histories with hands missing annoys me because I never know what action was deleted and I'm left trusting the author that the action truly was irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with the above, and I think listing every hand provides continuity. I wouldn't change a thing. In fact, I would love to see someone put out a book that records every single hand of a longer tournament.

[clabbers]

Has anybody determined what Chip's standard open raises are? Amounts of raises were not generally given and are pertinent.
I have a healthy disrespect for opening minraises at Holdem, and they seme to be prevalent here. Any defenders want to say why and when they are the best option?

[drzen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The obvious folds are just filters. Drop them from the
recap.

[/ QUOTE ]I'm glad they are there. Showing all the hands gives a much better "feel" for the overall game. In fact, seeing full hand histories with hands missing annoys me because I never know what action was deleted and I'm left trusting the author that the action truly was irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with the above, and I think listing every hand provides continuity. I wouldn't change a thing. In fact, I would love to see someone put out a book that records every single hand of a longer tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

Totally. There are a few posts in the archives, where very good MTT players posted tourney histories, but only key hands. Man, a whole tourney would be valuable! Seeing what players much better than me think about both hands they fold and hands they play...

[Poker Clif]

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That was not what I was saying AT ALL.

I don't think it was an ego trip. I'm just trying to identify what separates a top pro's SnG play from someone who read HoH and has the discipline to follow it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Proper Pushbotting and strong knowledge of ICM is key for sngs, HoH wont teach you to be a good sng player.

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Harrington uses one-table satellites in some of his examples. That's pretty much the same thing as a 1T SNG isn't it?

[jeffnc]

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Hi nightlyraver,

You write:

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Yes, I recognize that Chris's game is better than probably 99.9% of all the poker players out there. HOWEVER, why is this the case? I mean, when I look at this hand history I see almost no difference to how a typical TAG would play at even the lower levels.


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I am not sure I understand your criticism. If you believe Chip's playing ability places him in the top 0.1% of SNG players, then wouldn't that imply he is better than a run-of-the-mill TAG? The value of this article is simply being able to see the thought process behind a really good SNG player's decisions.

If there are any hands/comments you specifically disagree with, please mention them. That way we can discuss them and possibly all learn something. No disrespect, I just think your criticism needs some refinement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you might have misunderstood his meaning. What he was saying was that all the plays looked pretty "normal" to him, even though he doesn't consider himself as good a player as Chip. He was wondering what distinguishes Chip from most common winning TAGs. Specifically, which of these hands are "special" or unique to top players.

The impression I got was that he would have played this SNG the same as Chip, yet he doesn't win as much as Chip. So what is the distinguishing factor in their games? That's what I think he was asking, he wasn't criticizing by saying Chip is only a decent TAG, he was questioning whether the decisions in this SNG are enough to distinguish top players from merely good players.

[SumZero]

I enjoyed the article. Hand 61 (calling with 84o) was interesting to me, not because I wouldn't have called (I certainly would have) but because I hadn't realized 84o > 92o in these situations, and it certainly is.

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If there are any hands/comments you specifically disagree with, please mention them. That way we can discuss them and possibly all learn something. No disrespect, I just think your criticism needs some refinement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm curious about hand 70. We don't have exact stack sizes but we do have:
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5 players remaining.

UTG (1,900)
CO (2,530)
z32fanatic (5,090)
SB (1,400)
BB (2,580)

Blinds are 300/600
Hand 69: Open folded T4s from the Button.


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This means, since 69 was a battle of the blinds we should see:
BB (1,900)
UTG (2,530)
Hero (5,090)
Button (1,400 +/- 1,400)
SB (2,580 +/- 1,400)
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Hand 70: Folded A7o from UTG+1/CO after a 3x UTG raise.


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So UTG is putting out 1800/2530 which ought to commit his stack. He's also betting nearly exactly what the BB has. There were no reads mentioned. Does he do this with better, worse, or the same as if he has open pushed for the 4.25 BB he has? I'd say about the same. If he min raises there is more unknown that he could be trapping with a power hand (much stronger) or else trying to end up heads up with the short stack BB and willing to fold to aggression (much weaker), but since 1800/2530 makes him all but committed and since effective stack sizes are 3-4 BB any hand is really an all-in at this point.

I think A7o is close to or ahead of UTG range. On hand 68 you said a villain from UTG+1 6 handed was DEFINITELY shoving 3 BB much wider than 55+,A9o+,A7s+,KJo+,KTs+,QJs - is 5 handed and 4.25 BB that much different? I'd think a realistic range might be 22+,A2+,K2s+,K8o+,Q6s+,Q9o+,J7s+,J9o+,T7s+,T9o,97s + [against which we are like 49.5%]. I think we should therefore push. It is hard to model as we don't know what the 2 following chip stacks are but BB should be getting at least 3.5:1 on his money if we push and should be committed to going all in with anything (barring everybody else all in to him om which case bubble logic may rule). And his random hand is certainly well behind A7o. So this means we don't even need to be ahead of UTG range, as there is a lot of dead money in this hand. The players after us are unlikely to get involved with much unless they have a very good hand or are very short (depending on what happened on 69). Those two situations are rare and good for us respectively.

[wbmustang]

I have read the majority of the posts about this article and have very impressed with them. I would like to actually read the article but it is not available online right now since I think the June 2007 is not carried because it is out of date right now. If someone actually has it posted on another site or actually put it in a document please post or contact me.

Thanks,
wbmustang

[thebottomline]

I echo wbmustang. The discussion of this topic really intrigues me and I'd really like to have a read of this if at all possible.

Anyhelp is much appreciated
thebottomline

[BananaDan]

I too would like to read this, my heart sunk after seeing some comments and then clicking the link only to find out it didn´t work [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]