Post-Flop Skills: Method for Improvement

[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.

[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.

[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

[Oubliette]

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.

[DeuceSeven]

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.

[suzzer99]

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.

[durron597]

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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

[suzzer99]

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.

[recondite7]

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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?

[CmnDwnWrkn]

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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??