Middle and end-stages of SNG

Hi guys,

Lately I started playing some SNG, as a way to not bore me out grinding cash games. The problem I have is that most of the time I start as one of the top stacks until the other are going to allin/fold. I don't know how to survive this phase, cuz I find myself in a lot of coin flips situation, which I lose more often than win .

Example: 3,50 (45 players) SNG.
After 45 minutes I had a stack of 4000 and was stack leader.
The average stack was about 1800 and the blinds just went up to 75/150.
In this phase it is either push or fold for all of the low stacks (which are 6 or 7 out of the 9 players on the table). I just don't know what to do here. On the one hand I want to play hands and see flops, although I know it is not possible. On the other hand I just tried to wait for good cards and call the all-ins off. Like I mentioned earlier, I roll into a lot of coin flips (my AQ against other mid pairs etc).

What do you guys think is the right way to win such tournaments when I'm off on a good start with a relative large stack?

My initial thought is as follows, although it seems like I will just give up the lead I have:
Play even tighter than AQ-AJ range of hands and take the risk of becoming an average stack again due to the high blinds.

Thanks in advance,
ElmarLCH

I use to be a cash game player. That was one of my biggest problems was transitioning to the turbo & hyper turbo mindset of playing. You will have to open up your hand range as the blinds & antes rises (something you don't have to worry about in a cash game).

Have you tried ICMizer? After a while you'll start to pick up on what hands you should be shoving with from what position based off your chip stack and the other chip stacks. It's a lot easier to shove when you're the chip leader than when you're the shortest stack. If the big blind has you covered by a lot they might call your shove with decent cards if the pot odds allow it.

Also when you have a bigger stack you can take advantage of someone's desperate shove. Count how many big blinds they are shoving with and you can probably get a good figure on what they're shoving with. Also if they are NIT tight, I'd probably fold because they probably have a monster hand. If they have been shoving the past 4 or 5 times and they have a small stack, I'd call from BB if my cards are playable.

at 75/150 you are starting push/fold phase, but you are only getting past the first point. there is a second and third push/fold phase in 45 mans. As stacks double up, there will be a point where players will be waiting until the blinds increase again, just like at the start of the game. So even though you are chip leader at the beginning of the first push/fold phase, it means nothing.

it sounds like you just don't play enough, flipping is fine in these games, but in general you want to be the guy doing the shoving, not the calling.

In general, it's also best to just try and get a big stack, the only spots that matter in these games are first and second places, and you need a really big stack come final table bubble time to be able to survive and bully other stack sizes around.

I can recommend poker clerk.com if you want to get better at tournament play, lots of good vids there and you can request whatever you like from your own personal coach .

play your effective stack based on who is left in the pot and how deep they are. if everyone has a jam or rejam stack you can't play speculative hands that can't call off profitably and will need to tighten up.

understand your jam-fold distributions tho. if a guy jams with an M of 3 what do you call off with in the BB? what about an M of 5? etc.

in the final stage of the game in the sng tournament you need to play aggressively. if your stack is less than 13 big blinds you from the position of the cut-off button or small blind tedious to go all in almost any two cards.

Well sit and goes are a shove happy type of game especially towards the end I myself pretty much shove and fold towards the end and all you need is to be patient and wait for premiums thats how you can crush SNGS