9 player sit and go strategy

I was playing one of these for a change earlier today, I always make copious player notes as my netbook is too slow to run Roger's tracking software, and one player in particular interested me because he had not played any hands in the first 20

Eventually on hand 24 he went all in pre-flop from the button, and of course the blinds folded. No more hands played until hand 33, then he opened all in pre-flop and I called from the button with AQos, he had a pair of 9s

I hit my ace (and my queen) and he was eliminated, having played two hands. I had built up enough of a stack in the prior hands to have still survived if he had won with his AA or KK that I had assumed that he would have had

So that might be a winning strategy long term, but surely it can't be much fun?

I have seen this quite a few times. And I've seen those players shove every PP as well as AK/AQ, doesn't matter if it's suited. They are just looking for the pot to be too bloated compared to blinds and stacks for people to be able to call(I'm guessing that your call was probably bad mathematically).

At the same time, I've seen people playing SnG's where they don't play a single hand. They are looking to eke into 3rd place by everyone else being aggressive and taking each other out and not realizing that they haven't played a hand. Sounds boring as hell to me, but to each his own.

Read Colin Moshmans book for SNGs... Yes shoving strategy with top ten percent, taking into account chip values and stack sizes, is at the core of most SNG strategy. Often a big raise is used PF with threat of shove on flop. No, it is not a lot of fun, is rather formulaic. Can be profitable if you like formulas...

That being said, shoving UTG with 9s is not recommended, nor is calling a shove with AQ, unless u r low M.

Yes I have to admit that I called it knowing that I was probably dominated, but just longing to know what he was shoving with!

Was quite surprised that it was "only" 99

Did you really think he'd open-shove with AA/KK on a stack deeper than 20bb?
For sure take a look at some SNG strategy articles. It's often the players who folding alot in early levels who are actually the winning players in the longrun. Most newer players play wayyyy too many hands, playing each hand like they're in a cashgame & failing to take game theory into consideration (not looking at 'the big picture' of the 9plyr. sng format game)... often building up stacks early but then just as often making tons of mistakes & spewing off chips in lots of hands where they'd be far better off folding pre.

Winning > fun

Small sample and not a lot of info to go on but it sounds like a pretty standard SnG player.

As for the issue of playing a winning strategy that's no fun, I like to think winning money is its own fun.

Like others have said a TAG style, particularly at the lower levels can be a very profitable strategy. There are some poor players around and it's a +EV strategy to let these bust themselves out (or bust others out by getting lucky) and letting the carnage die down before opening up yourself. by then you can be down to 6 handed, you've built up a very solid table image and can start to get respect for your blind steals when the blinds are actually worth stealing. Not sure I like the strategy in the example used of shoving everything - this is an all or nothing approach which isn't a lot of fun nor +EV in my view.
My own particular 'record' is folding the first 30 hands. And I won it! Can anyone beat that?

Yeah, SnG's are fun, the strategy is kinda hard to master but anything takes time. Just make sure you're not too tight... I've gone bust before after folding every hand and then getting no respect when I eventually shoved my AKs. On the micros players are often not even paying attention about tendencies, showdowns etc so there won't be much meta game going on with them.

Stick with them and try not to play too many at one time. I know it's boring playing one at a time but until you're confident you can beat the limit there's no point multitabling

hope this helps

I haven't encountered a person before in microstakes that only plays one hand in 24 and always goes AIPF, so I didn't know what to expect. How can it be profitable to go AIPF with such a high M, anyway? A lot of the people at these stakes have very unorthodox methods of play so he could have had anything, I called somebody earlier in the day in a similar situation and he had 74os UTG I had a decent hand so at worst it would still be a coinflip, and the strategy books that I have read say that I should be loosening my range by that point in the tournament. I'm surprised that you guys appear to think that he had a winning strategy?

I didn't say he did - I just said that IMO there's more than enough fun in winning to justify following a strategy that might otherwise be seen as "boring".

Whether your villain's "boring" strategy was actually a winning one we don't have enough information to tell. Folding the majority of hands at the start of the game is certainly consistent with the standard SnG strategy though and 24 hands isn't that long a period of time - it's certainly possible it was correct for villain to fold them all depending on the cards they were getting. Depending on what stack your villain had in relation to the size of the blinds when they finally got a playable hand it's also possible that open shoving was the right move.

How about posting the actual hand history so we can see blinds / position / stack sizes / etc?

This ^
Hand33.. what are the blinds, other stacks, position, etc. Not possible to give a response without knowing.

I would love to do that but I'm not very experienced in doing things like that, I know that the hand history files are saved to the computer but I don't know how to track down that one specific hand. IIRC it was a turbo 25c+5c satellite at FT to either The Daily Dollar or the $1 Main Event satellite, but that's about as much as I remember, sorry

That probably says enough TBH - aren't players bad enough in those games that you can almost sit your way out to a ticket?

Can I just say that generally some of the comments made here give most players at the lower levels more credit for their ability than they deserve - a lot of the players at lower levels will not be looking at anything other than the board and how it effects their cards only.

U could have a situation where the board reads 10c10s10h3s and if they have two spades in their hand they will call to hit a flush.

As for strategy, I do think there are both ends of the scale in SNG`s - the people who sit and wait and the people who open push early in the hope they suck out - then they settle.

Just my bit

I think they do that, not because they are necessarily overestimating player skills at this level, but more because they don't want me to fall into bad habits whilst playing microstakes which will be badly punished when I move up to a higher buy-in, once my bankroll has grown sufficiently.

Because other's will call down with AJ, 99,.. etc. (not suggesting it's the most optimal strategy or anything... just sayin')

Given that it was a turbo, shoving was probably a good play at that point. Take a note on the guy and see if he's consistent next time you see him. If so, he makes it pretty easy to put him on a range...

Yes I followed the advice from Poker Orifice in another thread and I now make copious notes, trying to have a note on anybody that sits at an online table with me as far as possible. This has already turned out to be extremely useful when facing tough decisions.