And when I try to steal and get picked off then I'm usually pot comitted (if I didn't push all in to begin with) and have to call.
Take more chances (coin flip situations) earlier in the SnG. Take the "I'd rather go out 8th or 9th than bubble" approach.
I don't tighten up when it gets 4 or 5
But the early game really has little effect on the later stages of the game. There are a lot of times where I don't even play a hand until it gets 4 handed, so I have like 1200-1500 chips, but I start to loosen up and bring my stack up to like 2500-3000 without having to go all in or showdown a hand, and I go on to get first or second.
1) Play fewer SnGs.
2) Go all in when there are five left.
3) Practice and read so your Poisson distribution moves a bit more toward the winning end.
I would suggest pushing all in with 5 or 6 people left to stop this horrendous problem. That way you won''t get out 4th.
Joke already made. Loser.
lol
This is one of the reasons I changed over to cash. I played a lot of sng's on Stars. Managed to get upto the $33 games. But my % finishes in 4th were ridiculous. It was driving me mad. I had beaten all the other levels for a decent roi, and I even had a decent roi in the $55 games when taking shots. But I soon realised that sng's are just getting too hard to play. A lot of players on Stars have a near optimal strategy when it comes to ICM, so it's really difficult to squeeze out an edge, imo. Downswings in sng's can be heartbreaking!
I never thought I would say this but I'm glad I made the transition to cash.
Problem #1 is probably that OP has no idea what ICM is.
This is one of the reasons I changed over to cash. I played a lot of sng's on Stars. Managed to get upto the $33 games. But my % finishes in 4th were ridiculous. It was driving me mad. I had beaten all the other levels for a decent roi, and I even had a decent roi in the $55 games when taking shots. But I soon realised that sng's are just getting too hard to play. A lot of players on Stars have a near optimal strategy when it comes to ICM, so it's really difficult to squeeze out an edge, imo. Downswings in sng's can be heartbreaking!
I never thought I would say this but I'm glad I made the transition to cash.