Conflicting SnG advice

Hello all,
I am trying to improve my poker playing skills by studying with online and offline resources.
I have a copy of Collin Moshman's Sit n Go Strategy (and a very good book it is) which i'm taking most of my information from.
In this book (and other online forums) the suggestion is to play tight - very tight in early stages of Sit n Go's, only playing the premium hands.
However in the Poker Strategy section of this site it suggests playing looser when the blinds are small and it's easy to see a flop, and then tighten up in the middle to late position of a SnG.

My question is, when playing low stakes ($10) SnG's, do you play tight to start and then loosen up, or play looser to start and then tighten up?

Many thanks,
JB

I think the reasoning behind playing tight to start is more sound than any alternate theory.

The first few hands can and do break a lot of fools and the agromaniacs who think aggression is the only necessary skill needed to win these. By playing tight you get several advantages;

1. You get to see who might be the fool, who might be that agromaniac.

2. You can gauge the 'feel', or tempo, of the table, and this can help you in indescribable ways later on.

3, You can promote the tight image so that a little later you can steal several hands, perhaps even in a row, and get no action. They might respect you.

In contrast you might come out agro yourself. I did this yesterday and was rewarded with a win, but I GOT LUCKY HITTING JUNK, and that is rare. I know we all see some other guy seemingly hitting anything they play, but it is rare.

As for that looser when the blinds are small notion. It too works but you have to tread carefully. You must know you can lay down a hand, any hand, to a villain fighting back.

Of all my games I always feel better about playing the beginnings tight, and then loosening up as soon as the personnel at the table have been somewhat classified. I say 'somewhat' because you can never be totally sure about your villains.

Ok thanks for your reply.
I generally agree with what you say I too like to play tight to begin with (but rarely loosen up in later stages, which is one of my weak points).

I prefer starting with the standard tight-early approach but am open to altering that depending on the style of the players near me and the personality of the table.

Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense to me to get heavily involved in a hand that will yield so little. Of course, conventional play might simply be a matter of perceiving myself as someone who is still too inexperienced to break out of it yet. Until then, my flexibility kicks in when I perceive the table as especially tight or conservative.

Just quickly browsed the early stage section of that article, it's a little misleading and leaves out some important info.

generally speaking we want to play tight in the early stages of a SNG. This especially means that we shouldn't be calling a lot of raises preflop, and we shouldn't be open-limping unless the conditions are good, and this is when this "looseness" comes into consideration. If your table is very passive and you don't expect a raise preflop then it is okay to limp pocket pairs and other implied odds hands from early or late position. This doesn't happen very often but it is acceptable. Also, if there is a chain of limpers in front of you and you are on the BTN/CO, then you can limp behind with the same implied odds hands. If it is folded to you in a similar situation, you should either raise yourself or just usually fold, since you don't have those same implied odds.

Otherwise, there is really no good reason not to come in for a raise in the early stages. Doing so will cost you in the mid/late game when you need the chips and image to create fold equity.

ugh

its all about chip stacks. . . . again.

ppl suggest u play tight early because the bbs represent almost nil of ur stack.

as the game goes on u should loosen up and fight opponents because with higher bbs and antes- there is a greater amount of ur stack and a greater % of the remaining chips just sitting out there in the bbs and antes than in the early portion of the game.

then ppl suggest to play more hand early and be loose because a call in the early portion of the game will only represent again only a small portion of ur stack.

less experienced players should go with the tight approach rather than the loose approach, because playing marginal hands early will get a lot of less experienced players in trouble because more than likely theyll get into hands where they dont have experience to know where they are in a hand or dont have the discipline to fold certain hands.

jbbb said:

Hello all,
I am trying to improve my poker playing skills by studying with online and offline resources.
I have a copy of Collin Moshman's Sit n Go Strategy (and a very good book it is) which i'm taking most of my information from.
In this book (and other online forums) the suggestion is to play tight - very tight in early stages of Sit n Go's, only playing the premium hands.
However in the Poker Strategy section of this site it suggests playing looser when the blinds are small and it's easy to see a flop, and then tighten up in the middle to late position of a SnG.

My question is, when playing low stakes ($10) SnG's, do you play tight to start and then loosen up, or play looser to start and then tighten up?

Many thanks,
JB

Click to expand...

Generally speaking.. 'yes'.(tight early). but it depends on your table. Also, instead of suggesting 'loose' in later levels I'd try to look at more as 'looking for spots'... ie. resteal shove over someone who's been raising alot in LP
the 'spots' will become more intuitive for you over time... usually something that only playing some volume will help with (along with reviewing, reading, watching vids. etc.)

jbbb PM me for an ebook addy

I play tight as hell untill the blinds are 50/100. I still sometimes but only if my left is a tight player. In sit and goes survial untill the bubble is everything i think because the goal is the money not to get chips early risking your game. Of course first place is lovely but surviving untill the buble gets you half way there.

Thanks for the advice guys i've taken it onboard.

is this pzhon's acticle by any chance? in early sngs tight is right. unless you know the villians it's hard to know how they play or get a good idea of what types of hands they could hold. your best bet is to play a strong hand range and only get in post flop when you know you got a strong hand. early on people are willing to go broke with weaker hands so pot control might not be an option. even if the villians will stack off light it's better to sit back and watch it happen your almost guanteed a gain in equity just by folding for an orbit.