What to play in late/bubble stages of SNG

Hey guys

I was looking over my plays and find that I think I try to play too tight late states of a SNG. In the early stages, I play really disciplined poker, playing only AA, AK, KK, and QQ in early stages and possibly AQ, AJ, and JJ if I get to mid/late position or sc if I can see them for cheap. As blinds get up to 40/80, I try to open up by playing ATo+ to steal blinds and if no one raises. However, in the medium stages where blinds get to 60/120 or higher, I do get below 10BB so I start shoving with Axs, ATo+, KQ+, and 66+ to start stealing blinds and survive. I do find that when I get down to 5 people left or the bubble though, I am short stack and there is a ton of pressure for me to shove, sometimes with any two hands (I can fold and stay patient up to 5BB but I know any lower and Im basically dead). I think that my frequent short stack dilemma occurs because I play too tight and I may need to open up more in the mid-stages so Im not short stacked all the time. Any suggestions of hands to add to my range?

IDK what stakes you play, but I think you can open up your starting ranges above quite a bit depending on position and your assessment of your table. Just as one example, if you are in LP - HJ or later - and you have even 1 limper (and the players to follow have not shown to be over agro) you can try to see a flop with a lot more hands. With 2-3 limpers for sure. 99+ can give you a good reason to bet aggressively against 2+ limpers when in LP or the blinds. This is just a generic answer, and will only be right in certain situations against certain player types, but I hope you see what I mean.

You seem to have an idea of good ABC beginner SnG play, so now you can start to try some different approaches. You wont get far by playing strictly as you wrote above, for so many reasons. For example, a decent player will catch on, and you will only get folds to your raises unless you are against another good hand.

Lets say you are in the SB-BB with something like 99, KQs, whatever, a decent hand. its 30/60 and you get 3 limpers. You could think "Call/check, bet if I hit" If the players have been paying attention, you will only get play from a someone who is also strong, so in most cases you either lose your blind investment, or win the limpers blind investment. But lets say you raise PF to 250. You have a good chance of getting the pot AND showing the table a little aggression. And if you get callers and hit, you can win a much larger pot.

Its hard to make a general statement where one size fits all, but I hope you see what I am trying to get at here. You need to start with a good solid ABC strategy, but thats only the base of your tree, so to speak. You need some branches now.

Aggression is the key. As far as where and when, that is always gonna be situational.

I used to play the $2 single table full ring SnGs on FT but Ive been a losing player. Surprisingly, I do much better on Rush poker and had been rebuilding my bankroll at the micros using take 2 before Black Friday. I just might be more suited to cash games but since I have been playing SnGs (although as a losing player) I want to know what I do wrong as those wrong plays will probably also affect my cash game.

I basically try to play ABC poker and only raise/fold and cbet if I hit top pair or as a semi-bluff for straight and flush draws to steal the pot.

Cbet your opponents range, not just your hand. Check raise aggressive opponents.... Just a couple of spots where you can deviate.

Sorry, what do you mean by cbetting opp range? Does that mean cbet if the flop missed my opponent's range or should I cbet and use my tight image to represent paint? (Not sure if micro players look at image though. I get called relatively light (Q6o) despite playing tight)

When I check raise, should I have a playable post flop hand like med sc or A8o+? If I reraise, I plan to raise 3x the raise.

Tight is certainly right early on, but you can certainly open up more than just your premium hands. As a brief guide, here is a pretty good hand range for the first few levels of a SNG:

Early position: AQ+, 1010+
Middle Position: Aj+, 88+
Late Position: 55+, A10+, KQ

In the middle game, as the big blind hits 80+, and a few players have dropped, you can open up a bit more, incorporating AJ and 88 into your early position range and adjusting from there for the other positions. You want to be picking up chips, 75, 100 at a time to at least stay afloat if you do not hit any big hands.

The money is made in the late game and at the bubble. You do not need to get to the bubble as the chip leader. Your goal is to get there with a half decent stack (10-15BB). Any more than that is certainly a bonus. But when you get into this range this is when your aggression, timed aggression that is, really needs to pick up. Essentially, when stealing blinds, your cards are pretty inconsequential at this point. You now need to maximize your fold equity. For example, this typically occurs when you are on the button or small blind, but if you are around 9-11 BB, pushing any 2 or atleast 75% of your range is a profitable play, since your opponent's calling range are typically big Aces, Mid pockets, and maybe KQ. You need to play around with SNG Wizard and test out different pushing and calling ranges to see just how wide you can push.

The previous examply is rather broad and simplistic, but illustrates the point that without pushing very wide in late position, you will continually find yourself massively short stacked as you get to the end game

My first reaction is that you are playing really really tight. Early on premiums are obviously good, but you can play more hands than that. For example, if a tight player opens from UTG at 15/30 and you're still 9-handed, if you're in position you can call with pretty much any pair, because your implied odds are huge in that situation. Even if you're in middle position and it's unopened to you, it can be worth it to limp in with a pocket pair looking to hit a set, because some players are bad enough to pay you off if they hit top pair (and sometimes worse), no matter what.

Later on, your position and your opponents become a lot more important than your cards, because there is more pressure now to maintain your stack. There's a million different scenarios that you can get into, but basically you can open up a lot from the BTN and CO (and even the HJ) if it is folded to you, unless you think the blinds will be 3-betting a lot. You don't actually mind if they call a lot pre-flop because most people will just fit/fold the flop, so your c-bet is going to be successful ~70% of the time. If you're in the SB there are some good steal spots also, especially when you have less than 10bb's as you can just shove, negate your positional disadvantage, and have a reasonable risk/reward situation for yourself. With more than 10bb's it gets trickier, because shoving isn't as good of a play, but raising can work out badly too, as you can get into a big pot from out of position.

One thing I will add is that the table dynamics at the bubble can make some plays very correct or very incorrect. For example, if you and another player have 10bb's each, another player has 20bb's, and the last player has 2bb's, then in general you can't play a lot of hands, since the last player is about to go out. But if you are the guy with 10bb's, then you can abuse the guys with 10bb's and play a wide range, because they are likely to play extremely tight while they wait for the short stack to get knocked out.

So the cliffs is this: hand value is not as important in the later game as your reads, your position, the table dynamics, etc.

What I mean by c betting his range is, you want to think if a flop improved your opponents hand, or if it looks scary to him and react accordingly. Lets say you bet 3xBB from HJ and get called by the button (your cards are not so important to make my point) and you view button as TAG, and you figure he is raising AK, AA-JJ and calling TT on down and maybe AQs. The flop comes AKJ. Now if you play as tight as you described and he has any powers of observation, your hand is kind of unimportant here, as a c bet will get you the pot in most cases. His range cant really call this cbet.

Now I make a mistake in that I imagine my opponents are thinking, when they are often not. But this is an explanation to what I meant. A quite siplified one, but there are many situations where you can put your opponent on a range and then try to abuse him when the flop misses him.

As far as check raise goes, it is also read dependent. You can often check raise with nothing against certain opponent, but you need to be fairly certain they are trying to bully you, and also fairly certain that they expect you to C/R only when strong. C/R against a donk calling station, for example, is only good when you do have a hand you think could be best.

You comment about if micro players look at image is very relevant. But if they are playing a lot of tables even a lot of the lower stakes players may use a HUD, so your stats on that table will be important to a multi tabler. A single table player will probably only see his cards, so play a what-you-see-is-what-u-get.

Edit: What I mean by what u c is what u get is, his play will absolutely reflect what he has. Bet=strong. Check=weak etc. And in this case strong can = pretty marginal, i.e. 77-JJ will bet and still call raises on a A-Q high flop.


And I just got up, so sorry if I am being too vague and confusing, need more coffee......

Open up your starting range a little, blind are still small, and if you connect, you can stack early, easily.

If you notice a guy raising you often in late position when you are on the button, SB, or BB when you have 15BBs + you can try some re-steal shoves with some marginal hands. Don't try this if the raiser has less than 12BB or so cause you won't have fold equity. When I say marginal, I mean hands like 66-TT, KQs+,smaller SC and SG like 89s or T8s. This works best at mid stages vs. overly aggressive player.

Also if you get someone limping into you BB a lot, good to shove as long as you have fold equity. These are the types of plays that will separate you from other players at this level that only steal, and never 3bet shove unless they are holding a good hand.

Another thing is don't try the above without some type of read and not too often. If a guy never limps then limps UTG it would send up some flags. Play the player and ye shall succeed.

I had that same issue in my sng games for a while, till I joined up here
and started learning a lot of what I was doing wrong.
I play a much broader range of starting hands ESP from lp.
And iv stopped limping at all, I'll raise if first to enter and if I'm in mid to lp
I'll raise to weed out the limpers before me. In mid to lp
if there are no callers/raiders in front of you or only like 1 or 2 callers
I'll raise up marginal hand like 66+ or QJ+.
A lot of times you will scare off thoes limpers and take the pot preflop,

Since I've started reading and posting here I've gone from being short stacked in late/bubble frame
to having above average or chip lead going into the bubble.

Now I play micro levels still 2$ sng mainly the DoN,
So I'm playing mostly fish.