Am I unlucky or is there something wrong with my game?

ok. cash games dont work for me. I play sit n go at very low stakes, anywhere from $1-$2 turbo or $2-$5 double ups. and FFS no matter how i adjust my game i find that im still losing. my sharkscope graph is embarrassing to say the least. and people i perceive as donkeys are actually making money according to sharkscope. (but not much).

so here is my basic strategy: I play very tight especially early in the game because I want to construct a tight table image so when the blinds get bigger i can make a few steals. even then, i only steal when im in a good position to do so, like on the button or SB. other than a few preflop steals i only play hole cards that are both 10 or above. sounds solid, right? wrong.

I still suck. when i make monster hands, someone else always has an even bigger monster hand (example: i lost three of a kind jacks with ace kicker to a straight by villain who played 9-10 off suit very late in the tournament - LOL isnt that a donkey to play such cards when the blinds are in the hundreds?) .

whenever i get forced into an all in, MOST of time (but not always) i am the favorite to win by at least 6-4 odds because i simply dont play weak hands. as i said before i only play tens or above unless i try a preflop steal(because i need to, when im on the verge of busting but have a solid tight image). yet i always get busted by weaker hands. i mean, almost ALL THE TIME. AA cracked by 77. AK cracked by 10-J. AQ cracked by 33. i know these arent bad beats but i simply cant win, regardless of my odds. one time i even lost 3 consecutive pocket rockets in a row, by tremendously small odds by my opponnents. example: i was chip leader, hit a set of aces on the flop, raised HUGE and got reraised for half my chipstack by some donk with a straight draw. he won). i was so tilted after that i get scared when i get pocket aces now. i feel like if i win with pocket aces, its a miracle.

anyway, i know im not stupid. i dont get married to big hands, i know when to fold pocket aces and cowboys etc. I tend to avoid all ins, i would much rather trap players into making dumb descisions. but i still lose. WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING WRONG!?

i checked a recent donkey on sharkscope. i think he is a donkey because he is either folding or all in. he gets called and wins all the time. he goes all in with hands i play but cant win with, like tens or above. yet his sharksope says he made $1000 playing these low stakes tournaments. something seems wrong.... i always bust out in the place right before i would make money. if 3rd place wins, i bust in 4th. and so on...

I know this is a lot, but if someone actually reads all this and has some insight, i would REALLY APPRECIATE it. im tilted so bad right now obviously.

Sounds like you are way too tight. Push/fold isn't donkey play -- you need to play push/fold strategy late in DONs. On the bubble, you need to be making moves -- don't try to fold into the money.

If you're playing DoNs, I'd suggest reading up on how to play that specific type of SNG (it'll be different than playing a typical SNG - 50/30/20 top3 payout). {i kinda doubt that the player who you're observing in shove/fold mode in a DoN & who's also profitting over $1k in micro stakes is a donkey..... you actually could probably learn a bunch just from observing his game (& others)}
It's not real easy to analyze your play w/o looking over some handhistories.

I'd suggest sticking with one format for awhile - be it DoNs or reg. Sng's, etc.
Read some books (or a book), look up some strategy articles, post HandHistories for analysis, read other's HH posts, watch other players play... maybe check out some training vids., analyze your own play, etc. then do it all again. gl

LOLtrappaments. It sounds like you're the donkey?

What kind of sample size are you talking about here?

DONs are very different from standard SnGs and both are very different from 50-50s (on Stars). But in all three, the majority of your hands should basically be all-in or fold after the first several blind levels. If you want to avoid going all in then try a different form of poker.

at these stakes i find it profitable to play more push/fold style instead of 3betting or flatcalling. alot of your opponents will be raising with any 2 cards, and especially at these stakes they wont really pay attention to your strategy. the only hands i will 3bet with in these games is kk or aa otherwise i just push or fold with players already in the pot, or call once in a while if i have suited connectors or broadway (un)suited connectors and theres 3+ players to the flop. There is a good book that focuses generally on sngs by phil shaw called guide to sngs, its basically for higher stakes but will still give u a good understanding on sngs whether u play $1 or $100 and therefore will probably bring u a step ahead of your opponents.
I also play small stakes like 1-3 dollar sngs on party poker, and i play similar to your game, tight but aggressive, people there really like to gamble and will call your allins with rags often, therefore it makes shipping with hands like a10+ or most pocket pairs very profitable. people will call with way less like jq Axo, or even after the flop ive pushed with 2 pair, etc on the turn and been called by someone drawing to a gutshot or ak when the board doesnt match there hand in any way. Also take many player notes and add new notes to existing noted players so that way u can get a better read on them. oh and if yer on the bb and you have a good stack and someone pushes giving you 2:1 to call there allin, call with any 2, becus if u dont they pretty much double up anyway with blinds and antes.

at these stakes i find it profitable to play more push/fold style instead of 3betting or flatcalling. alot of your opponents will be raising with any 2 cards, and especially at these stakes they wont really pay attention to your strategy. the only hands i will 3bet with in these games is kk or aa otherwise i just push or fold with players already in the pot, or call once in a while if i have suited connectors or broadway (un)suited connectors and theres 3+ players to the flop. There is a good book that focuses generally on sngs by phil shaw called guide to sngs, its basically for higher stakes but will still give u a good understanding on sngs whether u play $1 or $100 and therefore will probably bring u a step ahead of your opponents.
I also play small stakes like 1-3 dollar sngs on party poker, and i play similar to your game, tight but aggressive, people there really like to gamble and will call your allins with rags often, therefore it makes shipping with hands like a10+ or most pocket pairs very profitable. people will call with way less like jq Axo, or even after the flop ive pushed with 2 pair, etc on the turn and been called by someone drawing with a gutshot or ak when the board doesnt match there hand in any way. Also take many player notes and add new notes to existing noted players so that way u can get a better read on them. oh and if yer on the bb and you have a good stack and someone pushes giving you 2:1 to call there allin, call with any 2, becus if u dont they pretty much double up anyway with blinds and antes.

ok,
1st of all i wanna thank everyone for having read this post and replying, i really do appreciate it.

I also wanna say that while i do accept now that this player i talked about is not a donkey, he isnt exactly mr. pro either, $1000 profit over 10,000 tournaments isnt exactly good money.

I did do some further reading on push/fold strategy and ive got a few things to say about it.

for those who said that push/fold is a workable DoN strategy is mistaken IMO. the reason is this: to win money in DoN, you have to win more than half of the games. winning half of DoN games doesnt cut it, because tournament fees will slowly eat away the money. at least 60% of games need to be won to make even minimal profit.
Secondly, push/fold doesnt (or shouldnt) work in DoN because it is more important to steal blinds and survive in such a game rather than risking a bust to gain a chip lead because, as i said you have to win substantially more tournaments than you lose in a DoN. so staying alive is more important.

what i did discover, however, is that push/fold is an excellent strategy in a regular SnG (in the right hands). because chip lead in a regular SnG can provide a huge advantage and is much more desirable, making it worth the risk because after all, you can play a bunch of those tournaments and only need to win one to break even. for example, if i have $5 and play five $1 tourneys, i only need to win one 1st place $5.00 prize to break even, thus making push/fold much more viable plan because gaining the chip lead in just 1 of those tourneys will give me a huge advantage.

that being said, i have come to the conclusion that double up tourneys are a waste of time and money, and that push/fold strategy can work really well in regular SnG. i have yet to give it a try so.... wish me luck.

DoNs are fairly easy money because most people play them poorly. You sound like one of those players. How do you think you steal blinds? I guarantee if you are playing hands postflop with 15 BBs or something, you are spewing money.

Why don't you post some hands here, there's many players that can help

ok here is the last hand i played today, which i busted:
as the person above said, i shouldnt be playing hands postflop with less than 15 BB. so should i have just gone all in preflop, or folded? or considering this instance, should i have folded to his raise?

Hand#2660972450000050 - $1 NL Hold'em Turbo T9905232 -- Table 1 -- 20/100/200 NL Hold'em -- 2011/07/18 - 14:21:11
Seat 2: ..Al***2 (7,173 in chips)
Seat 3: only***3 (2,738 in chips)
Seat 4: Serg***4 (2,004 in chips)
Seat 5: blikbleek (1,449 in chips) DEALER
Seat 8: leeb***8 (1,636 in chips)
..Al***2: posts ante of 20
only***3: posts ante of 20
Serg***4: posts ante of 20
blikbleek: posts ante of 20
leeb***8: posts ante of 20
leeb***8: posts small blind 100
..Al***2: posts big blind 200
Dealt to blikbleek [Jh,Tc]
only***3: folds
Serg***4: folds
blikbleek: calls 200
leeb***8: folds
..Al***2: checks
*** FLOP *** [6c,Th,3s]
..Al***2: bets 300
blikbleek: is all in 1,229
..Al***2: calls 929
..Al***2: shows [Qc Td]
blikbleek: shows [Jh Tc]
*** TURN *** 2♥
*** RIVER *** 6♦
***SHOW DOWN***
..Al***2 wins 3,058 with Two Pairs Tens and Sixes with Queen kicker
blikbleek finished 5 out of 10 players.

all-in or fold pre, with huge stack in BB, fold probably better. limping for more than 1/8th your stack is amazingly bad.

haha now that you mentioned that, it became totally clear to me that this was an awful play by me in almost every aspect. i got a lot to learn....

Reminds me of myself when I started before I came to this forums. I still have lots to learn but I make a profit now over big sample sizes and it is crazy when you think only like 1 in 10 people win at poker and the rest lose.

Read all the strategy articles here, post plenty of hands and you will not be long in learning

dbl ups are a ripoff eventually the house will have it all if you play small stakes in cake dbl ups

What he said
You had >7 BBs left Never never Limp here

Button is the worst position there actually . BB has you covered and can call with anything without problems. You have to w8 and pray to get lucky someone else is busted before you to be lucky to get to push against someone else.

What advantage is it for BB to call? How much equity does he stand to gain? (~3%)

At small buy-ins DONs? He will call because he can. Giant stacks do not care about equity because at this lvl they do not know what equity is . Simply they will call to take you out. Or here comes the reason why i said that this is the worse place to be when you are the shortest stack. Knowing that giant stack will call a lot of times are you willing to gamble here when the first place out is the bubble, and the pay is the same for all ITM? The only positions when you do not have the giant stack at your left are SB and BB. But here you will be pushed by others.

those low of stakes people arent watching to see that youve played 1 of the last 15 hands.....or that youve shown pocket aces and ace king for your two pots...loosen up a bit see cheap flops when you have the absolute nuts get your money in there....they will double up.....bc they call anything right? haha