Complete SNG HH review

I was just wondering if anyone would like to review the entire HH of a SNG I played earlier today. I have trimmed them down to only the hands that I was involved in. If anyone would like to just do a single hand or a couple hands I would be more than happy for that as well. Here's the link to the text with the HH:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...y80/edit?hl=en

I wanted to look, but understanding those hands in that format is hard, I suggest getting camtasia studio 7, you can get it trial, film yourself while playing so we can help you out a lot better because we can see the hud, we can see all the hands so we can spot someone playing frisky and all that. now just reading a hand out of so many won't give us any bit of idea of how the villain is playing.

I definitely see what you are saying. Next time I'll make the video.

there also replayer where they can watch the hand history play itself out

N'yeah... sorry but that format makes it super difficult to read and the program that stripped out the hands mangled the formatting so I can't get Popopop replayer to accept it.

Can you just post the raw hand history file? I don't mind skipping over "nothing" hands, and they can often be just as important as the hands you do play anyway.

Sorry about the format. Here is the original format:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...RUE/edit?hl=en

I also took the hand histories and put them in a replayer. Here's the link to that as well.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/multihands.php/id/38457

#5
No need to bet 80 here, just bet something like 40-50. We're still not overly interested in the hand, we're just trying to pick up the pot cheaply while still protecting our hand, a bet of 40-50 achieves that.

On the river our 'value' bet really doesn't have a lot of value, nothing much worse is going to call, we split with any 4 that hit, and lose to practically anything else. Just check/fold it and maintain your stack, the chips we pick up here are not worth as much as the chips we lose.

The way i play this hand is that i bet out 50 on the turn (sometimes i'd even just check it as i'm really not that interested in this small pot), and check/fold the river to any action.

#19
Be happy to just check this hand preflop and play a 'set it or forget it' style. Raising here with a hand like pocket 2's is pretty horrible. It totally defeats the purpose of the hand really. If the idea is to get him to fold, it's not really worth it, and since he is likely calling our raise, we have now succeeded in making the pot bigger for the player in position.

After he calls, it's not a great board to c-bet on, as it likely hits his range reeeeealy hard. I understand c-betting after you make that raise, but understand that he's limp calling with tons of hands like KJ and Q9 etc all of which are rarely folding on the flop, so we can expect to be called/raised here a lot of the time, either way we can never really continue.

Early game is about not spewing chips, we could have happily just checked this preflop, and check/folded the flop and continued with a nice stack.

#26
I'd prefer just leading out here rather than check/calling. I don't really think we have the odds required to be able to do either here. Sure we have around 8 outs, but in SNGs we need much better odds than say a cash game or tournament as the chips lost when missing our draw hurt us a lot more than the chips gained from hitting our draw. And since this players range is pretty weak on this flop, even if we hit our draw on the turn, we're not likely to get paid off a very high % of the time. Like i mentioned before, his range includes a lot of higher cards like QJ and such, which proabably doesn't hit this board much at all.

#28
Just fold dude, you are almost always going to be called by at least 1-2 players, and we have such a weak hand, we could maybe limp behind if we still had a stack of 14-1500, but we are already down to 1100.

In any case this raise is just pure spew, we're always getting called here preflop putting us in an even more akward position postflop when we miss the flop or even hitting the flop we are never really happy with our hand.

It worked this time, but most of the time we're getting called by 1-2 players making our flop decision really difficult. Even getting called by one, there is half of our stack in the pot and a failed c-bet leaves us in a really bad situation when we could have just avoided it.

#29
Again, just limp behind with the 7's if you feel the need to play it. Raising doesn't do much when we're likely getting called and then almost always facing overcards on the flop. And since players like to 'float' flops our c-bet gets called a decent amount of time as well, forcing us to shut down on the turn a lot of the time.

#30
You are making no sense now, lol. You raise after a limper, but then just open limp yourself. This is a raise preflop since the pot is unopened. When there is a limper involved, his range is no longer random, he has cards he probably wants to see a flop with, and will call large bets in order to see a flop (usually), but since it's folded to you, we need to go ahead and raise this up. 2.5x will do the job at this level, but i'm also fine with 3x.



That's all i'm going to review right now, you probably need to read up on some strategy books or something, anything really. Reviewing games helps a ton, but you need to have some sort of background in solid fundimentals first.

Here's my thoughts, deliberately written without reading what WiZ has said because he's smarter than me and I didn't want to subconsciously just copy what he said

General note on bet sizing: I'd say this is one of your biggest problems. After the first couple of levels you can drop your open raise size down to 2.5BB, maybe even a little less. At high blind levels even the dreaded open minraise can be OK (though I can't bring myself to do it personally). It'll achieve the same in terms of thinning the field / getting folds but you'll save money the times you want to control the size of the pot postflop or when you're forced to fold to a preflop three-bet. Stacks after the first few levels are also typically shallow enough that you'll have no problem getting it all in by the river should you feel the need, even with a slightly smaller initial pot.

Now on with the individual hands...

Hand 5 (42o in BB): I probably just check this down and fold to any action. We're only ever getting called by better hands, there are very few better hands that we can get to fold and there's not enough in the pot to be worth risking a chunk of our stack for in the first place.

Hand 12 (Q8o in BB): Again, I probably just check this down. There's very little in the pot to be won, better hands never fold and there aren't a lot of worse hands that can call.

Hand 14: (KK on button): I probably c-bet a little smaller, say 210ish into the 375 pot, just to save a little if I'm forced to fold to a check-raise given it's an ace high flop.

Hand 19 (22 in BB): Once again there's very little in the pot to be won. The last thing we want is to be playing a bloated pot OOP with a hand this weak so I just check my option and hope to hit a set. If I don't I'm pretty much done with the hand. As played preflop I guess a c-bet on the flop is reasonable but we're obv done once we get raised. I'm not sure what the minraise means but we don't really have any business finding out for ourselves.

Hand 28 (A6s on button): I'm OK with limping this behind and taking a cheap draw at the nuts in a multi-way pot but I'm having trouble seeing the upside to raising. We're almost certainly going to get called, even if we hit top pair we're not going to know if we're good and even if we get everyone to fold preflop we don't win that much. Best case is what happened, we c-bet one opponent out and take down a medium pot. Long term I think raising this preflop is a loser.

Hand 30 (88 in HJ): I'm confused - we raised 77 over a limper in the previous hand but we open-limp this one? I would've done it the other way around, set mine the 77 multi-way and open raise the 88. As played I don't like the float either. As it turns out it worked but there aren't a lot of drawing hands that can call that flop and we're against TWO opponents. The nine on the turn shouldn't really be a scare card to anyone so it's hard for us to represent that it helps us, I'm surprised neither villain was able to call us.

Hand 50 (A4s in CO): Easy fold IMO. Raising preflop is especially problematic given the big blind's stack size, if they choose to shove we'll pretty much have to call even though we're rarely in good shape. I fold preflop and save the hassle.

Hand 54 (A4o in BB): That's more like it

Hand 68 (Q2s in SB): Folding is probably OK but I think I shove this - BB has been playing pretty tight, I doubt he's calling the rest of his stack off light, we're not a huge dog against a lot of his calling range and the blinds are big enough now that they're worth stealing.

Hand 73 (QQ in SB): I probably just push this as well. BB has well under 10BB left and most of the stuff that he can call a 3BB raise with he probably calls a shove with as well. Plus we don't give him the chance to fold for the last of his stack if he misses the flop.

Hand 74 (A6o on button): We've only got 10BB, shove or fold IMO. A fold is tight but probably OK and a shove maximises our fold equity. Getting called and then donked into by the big stack in the big blind on the flop would suck, as would having either of the blinds shove over us preflop as we're rarely a favourite against their range and it's either a big chunk of our stack or our whole stack that we'd be asked to call off.

Hand 80 (A9o in CO): See Hand 74.

Hand 88 (TT in SB): See Hand 73. Just push. The other problem with this action is observant villains will eventually work out that you're only 3xing your monsters which makes it easier for them to avoid them. Just one of the benefits of shoving your bluffs and your monsters is that you'll be harder to read.

Hand 89 (ATo on button): This is one of those spots where you'll save some chips if you only raise to 450 or 500 instead of 600 preflop. We get the same number of folds but we lose less if we're forced to fold to a shove or a flop donk bet.

Hand 93 (55 on button): We're back to about a 10BB stack again, which means we're really looking at shove or fold instead of a standard raise, for the reasons discussed above. IDK what the best action is for what it's worth but since we're on the bubble I probably take the conservative route and open fold. We're either flipping or dominated if we get called.

Hand 94 (AKo UTG): Aaarrrgggghhhhh! Shove this! I like AK a lot better than 55 in this spot since we're either dominating or flipping as opposed to flipping or being dominated, so I think we have to call a three-bet shove if we raise small but we may as well maximise our fold equity against random hands, ensure we see all five cards and ensure we get paid the maximum the times we win by shoving preflop. Don't put yourself in the situation of having to fold when you miss the flop and don't give your opponents the chance to fold the times that they miss the flop.

Hand 100 (73o in SB): Wow. BB is the one guy we DON'T want to be messing with. Just give him a walk, there's absolutely no need to go making our lives complicated by raising 73o OOP into him, most of the time we'll either win small or lose big. The flop bet is spewy and the river shove is suicidal IMO.

Hand 103 (76o in SB): This is what you SHOULD have done in Hand 100. Given that you're both deep and we're now in the money I would've been OK with limping in and seeing a cheap flop given that we stand to win big with a good flop and we can still get away from bad flops cheap.

Hand 108 (76o in BB): Overbetting the pot with MPMK? I don't get it. I normal c-bet accomplishes exactly the same thing unless there's some crazy meta-game thing going on here that I've missed.

Hand 109 (K8o in SB): Tempting as it is to call for just 400 more I think I just fold to the reraise preflop.

Hand 110 (A5o on button): Another one where it's probably best to shove or fold preflop given our stack size. C-betting more than half our stack on that flop seems spewy to me, we've got at best three outs if villain shoves over us. Admittedly our stack size is a bit awkward for c-betting but that's the reason we're better either shoving or folding preflop IMO. Alternatively, if you'd raised smaller preflop you'd be able to c-bet smaller as well.

Hand 113 (AJo on button): See Hand 110 and the others where I said push/fold preflop or at least open raise smaller.

Hand 123 (ATo in BB): Why raise this less than all in? Push IMO.

Hand 126 (AKs in BB): I just push this as well. Putting half our stack in on a three-bet makes life awkward postflop - I figure since we're going to be shoving pretty much every flop anyway and villain is calling most flops he hits it's not like we save ourselves any money, why let him save money by folding the times he misses?

Hand 137 (K6o in BB): We're in real trouble if any villains ever work out that we're usually weak when we're overbetting the pot... a standard c-bet accomplishes the same thing, stick with it IMO.

Hand 141 (AKs in BB): Push preflop IMO rather than raising the awkward amount. This is a great example of what I was discussing above, where we're forced to shove pretty much every flop but we're giving the villain the luxury of only calling when they hit.

Overall notes: bet sizing, bet sizing, more bet sizing and pick your c-bet spots better.

By and large IO pretty much agree with Oz's analysis. The table started to take your 3x raises as weakness and took advantage by coming over the top quite often. Don't always look to raise 3x - quite often a raise of 2-2.4x will do just as well.

Hand 100 - really dodged a bullet here. Daft getting involved with 73o OOP.

Hand 103 - 67o is ok to go with as it's rarely dominated. We can hit the flop hard and our hand will be disguised.

Hand 112 - folding Q9 from the SB is too tight. I would limp or min raise this one.

Hand 123 - push AI! No point in leaving 1000 behind

Hand 133 - nicely played in getting value out of this

Hand 141 - Push preflop!

Thanks a lot guys. That's really helpful. It's nice having individual hands looked at, but that's the first time I've ever had an entire SNG analyzed. The response and information I get back is fantastically useful as well. I'll definitely look back over a few more times the things you've guys have posted. Thanks again.