Any advice on SNG tourny strategies

I am a fan of the sit-n-go tournys and i have done fairly well in them. about a 70 percent money placing. My stategy is a very conservative one in the first half of the tourny until I have 25 to 35 percent of the chips in play. At this point I will tighten up again until i am in the money, then I will take the big risks to try to take the tourny. My only problems are that I have a low percentage of first place finishes(mostly 2nd or 3rd) and I think that this style is holding me back from even further progression in my play. Any suggestions? TY in advance.

http://www.cardschat.com/sit-n-go-strategy.php

this will help a lot. It is in the articles sections of the forum.

Well, in the first three or four levels, you do need to tighten your game. When you get in the middle to upper levels, you need to start getting more aggressive if you want to take 1st place. If the players are tightening up when say the top 2 get paid and there are four left (including you), you'll be able to steal the blinds at the least thus you build up your chip stack.

You have a low percentage of first place finishes most likely mainly because you are playing tightly on the bubble. It may be all well and good for you to think "hey if I just play really tight I really should make the money", but the likelihood is that everyone else at the table is thinking the exact same thing. You need to exploit this situation, and steal/bluff more in bubble situations, especially if you have a conveniently located shortstack or overly tight bigstacks looking to slip quietly into the money to pick on. This way you will often amass a ton of chips from uncontested pots, and with fairly large blinds this adds up very quickly, allowing you to take more risks, perhaps suffer a suckout, and/or have a big stack to bully with etc when in the money.

You might place in the money slightly less often by playing very aggressively on the bubble, but more often than not the times you make it into the money you will be doing so with a bigger stack, and so will get more firsts, and hence a better average return on your SnGs.

Yeah, cutting down the last 10-20 before $ takes soooo long, it seems..

If you play strictly by the book you're holding yourself back imho. I started playing extremely well when I first started playing sngs, then I got a little bit too technical and was having a hard time. I went back to my 'instinctive play' and started playing better again. When you get to the money, play the opponent not the cards. Study the players and you'll be able to get a good read on them most of the time.

for Sit n Go's, at the beggining play tight and only play premium hands, meaning you will raise huge with AA KK QQ JJ 10 ( this is meant to go heads up and double up or bust ) , limp with KQs, 10Js, Axs, 10Qs, and PP, those kind of hand. In early stage FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD, even in the small blind, unless the sb has a PP ,78 or a premium, BB , check and see flop if you where raised, fold that BB. In middle stage, you should have enough chips to bully everyone and steal blinds ( usually done at 50-100 or 75,150 ) . this is meant to be very aggressive but its used to win . I like to ethier bust or win, and i have won a lot of sit n gos with this aggressive style, went from 50 dollars to almost 300 in 1 day, playing sit n go ( multi tabled ) with this tactic

Btw i forgot to add, this is the tactic most top online pro players use on their sit n goes, in case you dont believe me, go to ps, or anysite with a huge sit n go price ( 5000$ +50 ) buy in, and watch these online pros, these is howthey play , they like THOSE AA KK QQ AK JJ 10, and they win most of the tournaments, being reckless aggressive players. If you want email me, i can help you out personally ^_^

I agree with guitar. You can only get so far by playing "textbook poker". Anyone can know the odds of the many situations, but the more you can make plays based on your reads and are successful, the more you will win. Notice the tight players at your table, and try to get involved in more pots with them, especially if you have position on them. When you get heads up, sometimes the only way you can play is by going all in with any decent hand. This has worked well for me though so it's not a bad strategy in my opinion. Most of the time I'll get called by weak hands like Q 3 just because i have been pushing so much and i win more sngs against players that make bad calls such as these