Still having trouble low stakes sng..

These things seem so easy to beat, yet I can not increase my bankroll. Many have tried to help me out and I appreciate it, but I'm still not where I want to be. I'm at a consistent 130 dollars playing the 3 dollar sit n gos. I have read and studied Sit N Go strategy by Moshman, and have read tons, and have about 2 years experience under my belt. It just seems if i don't get a hand early stages, and I try to blind steal mid stakes, I just get called or if I do get called its impossible to take pots post flop because these players will call with literaly anything. Any further advice? I play the standard tight early aggressive late game strategy, but I can't seem to win as much as I would like.

Don't know why your having so many problems, its sounds like your doing the things you need too, you def have the right book. In the early stages are you playing any specualtive hands in position- this is one way to get some chips early on/when you hit, and then you can fold your way untill you hit the 10bb mark, which is pretty close to the money.

Try double or nothing 1$ on stars. They r simple for beat and good for bankrll buildin'

stop playing them, the variance in those is high. ur gonna end up playing ppl that dont know what theyre doing or dont care and theyre gonna get lucky on u more times than not. ur gonna get frustrated. i dont consider freerolls and microlims, poker because ur not really playing for anything anyway.

if u think u can play a lil, get some cash and go play higher stakes where ppl actually care.

A couple months back some regular members were having a competition to play 150 - $3 SnGs or something like that. Hopefully some of them might offer advice, or you might search back and see if you can find the thread and find out who was involved; they might have the best advice. I'm too lazy to search and I wasn't one of them.

Mr Whatever said:

stop playing them, the variance in those is high. ur gonna end up playing ppl that dont know what theyre doing or dont care and theyre gonna get lucky on u more times than not. ur gonna get frustrated. i dont consider freerolls and microlims, poker because ur not really playing for anything anyway.

if u think u can play a lil, get some cash and go play higher stakes where ppl actually care.

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What?

U say u have to play with better players to win?

NineLions said:

A couple months back some regular members were having a competition to play 150 - $3 SnGs or something like that. Hopefully some of them might offer advice, or you might search back and see if you can find the thread and find out who was involved; they might have the best advice. I'm too lazy to search and I wasn't one of them.

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hehe, I'm one of the losers of that bet. Here's the thread, I don't recall too much strategy being shared but I can post it anyway: https://www.cardschat.com/forum/poker-goals-challenges-wins-46/

I would also recommending subscribing to this thread: https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/ here you can ask questions about your game and get answers from some of the frequent SNG players on this site.

I know you posted a similar thread to this pretty recently, the thing is even if you've been playing for two years, if you've only played ~200 games in that period of time then it's still hard to predict what your ROI is. SNG stats take 1000+ games to converge unfortunately, which means the only way to tell if you are really a winning player or not is to play a lot of volume. If you have more questions about sample size in SNG's, or other questions in general, check this out:
[old link~tb]

(jeez, I'm full of useful links and information today!)

Mr Whatever said:

stop playing them, the variance in those is high. ur gonna end up playing ppl that dont know what theyre doing or dont care and theyre gonna get lucky on u more times than not. ur gonna get frustrated. i dont consider freerolls and microlims, poker because ur not really playing for anything anyway.

if u think u can play a lil, get some cash and go play higher stakes where ppl actually care.

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Generally speaking this is probably pretty bad advice, no offense. To quote someone who can put it better than I can:

c9h13no3 said:

One thing I think bad players don't understand well is what your edge is. Your edge, if I were to write it as a formula, would read like this:

Edge = [(How well you play) - (How well others play)] - Rake

You can control all of these variables, and by god you should. And oddly enough, the hardest variable to change (how well you play) is the one that people spend the most time messing with. They read books, study, post on forums. But they won't even think about the other two.

Minimize the rake by playing at stakes that aren't raked to shit. My thoughts immediately go to the 10c/20c games on pokerstars. The max rake is 20c, or one big bet. That's insane. At 50c/$1, the max rake is 50c. You essentially double your win rate just because you're not paying through the nose to be dealt hands.

And you can control how well the "others" are playing by not sitting in games with good players. Your profit comes from finding players who are worse than you, and eating them. So when you find yourself sitting at a table, and there's these two regs who just keep 3-betting you and, BY GOD IF I COULD JUST WAIT FOR A HAND I'M GONNA STACK THEM! Leave. You might be better than them, but who cares, the rake is probably eating all the tiny edge you had anyways.

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So if we play with player who we expect to be better than, we should in theory make more money in the long run. Surrounding ourselves with more competent regs is a pretty good way to reduce our $EV.

lets make this reaaaaal simple.

for me, i have waaaaaaaaaaaay more success playing 26$+ tourns and sngs on ft than playing .25 or the daily dollar or something.

late finishes for me in these tourns is over 31%, but for the lil stuff. . . . im mediocre at best lololol awful. and i take the lil tourns and sngs just as serious as the bigger games.

its called variance. at the higher stakes i dont have ppl doing silly things and have less bad beats. and actually the higher stakes are easier to play for me because its easier to put some1 on a hand and play accordingly.

so yeah im gonna tell ppl if they have a clue how to play id tell em to move up a lil to avoid the bs players. if u want to deal with all the bs and bad beats and roller coaster rides u get playing micro lims to ur roll- be my guest though.

if ur not an ok player then just play the playchip tables til u get some experience. but id seriously tell u to avoid the micro lims.

Mr Whatever said:

for me, i have waaaaaaaaaaaay more success playing 26$+ tourns and sngs on ft than playing .25 or the daily dollar or something.

late finishes for me in these tourns is over 31%, but for the lil stuff. . . . im mediocre at best lololol awful. and i take the lil tourns and sngs just as serious as the bigger games.

its called variance. at the higher stakes i dont have ppl doing silly things and have less bad beats. and actually the higher stakes are easier to play for me because its easier to put some1 on a hand and play accordingly.

so yeah im gonna tell ppl if they have a clue how to play id tell em to move up a lil to avoid the bs players. if u want to deal with all the bs and bad beats and roller coaster rides u get playing micro lims to ur roll- be my guest though.

if ur not an ok player then just play the playchip tables til u get some experience. but id seriously tell u to avoid the micro lims.

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i have to say on a level i agree i personally do better at $25 games than $10 but to somebody who is learning the game this is seriously bad advice you need to learn how to crush fish and newbies or you will never move your game forward not to mention the all mighty brm.

have you tried ptr (poker table ratings) to help you pick your tables or making player notes on everyone you play p.s remember to date them.
this may help recognise players styles faster which will allow you to play against them earlier in the tourney

OP, if you're on a table where nobody's folding preflop or folding to a cbet...then perhaps look for spots where you can resteal (ie. shove over someone else's preflop steal raise).

if you haven't already, check out some SNG training vids.

What site are you playing on? If it's Fulltilt, try playing the $5-27's, they have a ton of terrible players in them along with a small amount of very good players (usually in a typical 27 there'll be ~ 5winning players but they'll also usually be significant winners with high ROI's (much higher than you'll see a 9plyr. reg. with).

Mr Whatever said:

lets make this reaaaaal simple.

for me, i have waaaaaaaaaaaay more success playing 26$+ tourns and sngs on ft than playing .25 or the daily dollar or something.

late finishes for me in these tourns is over 31%, but for the lil stuff. . . . im mediocre at best lololol awful. and i take the lil tourns and sngs just as serious as the bigger games.

its called variance. at the higher stakes i dont have ppl doing silly things and have less bad beats. and actually the higher stakes are easier to play for me because its easier to put some1 on a hand and play accordingly.

so yeah im gonna tell ppl if they have a clue how to play id tell em to move up a lil to avoid the bs players. if u want to deal with all the bs and bad beats and roller coaster rides u get playing micro lims to ur roll- be my guest though.

if ur not an ok player then just play the playchip tables til u get some experience. but id seriously tell u to avoid the micro lims.

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After putting in some time both studying & playing, I too found I did better in games above the super micro buyin (ie. on Fulltilt the $5's are better to play in than the $2's imo)

BlueToe33 said:

These things seem so easy to beat, yet I can not increase my bankroll. Many have tried to help me out and I appreciate it, but I'm still not where I want to be. I'm at a consistent 130 dollars playing the 3 dollar sit n gos. I have read and studied Sit N Go strategy by Moshman, and have read tons, and have about 2 years experience under my belt. It just seems if i don't get a hand early stages, and I try to blind steal mid stakes, I just get called or if I do get called its impossible to take pots post flop because these players will call with literaly anything. Any further advice? I play the standard tight early aggressive late game strategy, but I can't seem to win as much as I would like.

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i still disagree with a lot of ppl here. this person is a break even player at 3$. what i see as the problem here is the original player is using med level - advanced strategies with the reference to moshman on a lo limit table and getting mixed results. because again a lot of strategies in these poker books arent meant to be applied for these micro lims unless they are specifically written for these levels.

your getting called because again these ppl dont care or dont know basic poker strategy. again id recommend u get a few bucks together and take a shot at the higher games just to see if u apply the strategies advocated by moshman in his book and to see if ur game is better set up for a stronger field. there are alot of ppl that can play higher games but have way more trouble playing the micro lims, see if u fall into this category.

At least in SNG's, I don't see how you can show a profit by moving up if you can't beat the level you're currently at. It may be different for cash or MTT's, but this really is the case for SNG's, which is what OP plays (also what I play).

If you can't figure out what the best strategy is and adjust to beat the $3.40's on Stars, you are definitely not ready to move up (not saying this isn't the case for OP, just stating in general). To beat the $3.40's, you really just got to play tight in the early phases, bet your hands strongly for value, and steal the blinds once effective stacks are < 10bb's. Don't get wrapped up in FPS in these games. Seriously, bluffing doesn't work so don't do it. It's an easy adjustment to make, and if you can't even do that and the other things, you don't stand a chance if you move up. These are legitimate leaks that need to be addressed.

I mean, it's probably true that the $6.50's play pretty similar to the $3.40's on Stars, same for $6.50's and $2.25's on Tilt, but to me that's not really playing "higher stakes". Even the $16's aren't really considered high stakes, and I know that there are a ton of good regs playing those games. Above that, you're starting to push the smallest edges and the best way to make a lot of money is just to get in a ton of volume.

The OP doesn't really even have a bankroll to sustain the up and
downswings of a $3 SnG table and you want him to go higher?

Right now he is holding his own, he states he is being consistent.
Eventually if he keeps playing the way he describes he will add to his bankroll and be able to move up.

Just my .02

OP, are you playing Turbo or regular SNG's? Unless you're playing Turbos, which I personally don't recommend, you should be able to play patiently and wait for your spots in the early stages.

You should pay very close attention to the table dynamics and bet with any two cards when you feel there's a high likelihood of taking the blinds from the proper position. Don't be afraid to fold to a re-raise, and don't panic if your stack drops below the average.

The good news is that you're not a losing player. The other good news is that there are a ton of really bad players out there. Does that mean you'll lose a few tourney's to some really bad play? Absolutely. Does that also mean you'll be in a position to cash in these things enough to increase your bankroll over time? Absolutely.

On a final note, my personal preference is to play one tourney at a time. Multi-tabling works for many, and you can get some really good advice in that regard from many here who do so. However, I also think there are a lot of players who aren't really very good who think multi-tabling will even out their game (reducing variance). But until you are actually a proven winning player, that's just going to keep you from really focusing on your game and where you need improvement. Just my thoughts, and I already know the most focal among us disagree.

Leo 50 said:

The OP doesn't really even have a bankroll to sustain the up and
downswings of a $3 SnG table and you want him to go higher?

Right now he is holding his own, he states he is being consistent.
Eventually if he keeps playing the way he describes he will add to his bankroll and be able to move up.

Just my .02

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no, no, of course u make total sense.

yeah i see ppls point of following good brm here now, yeah thats a good valid point to bring up.

but this person tells me they have been playing sngs for 2yrs and is following moshman. . . im not thinking they are a beginner here and actually may be suited for a higher game- skill wise but yeah they dont have the roll right now. thats why i suggest getting some more $ while practicing good brm.

but i mean whats the alternative? sit there and stagnate until they figure out how to beat the lo lim? - when they might be able to beat a higher level already. i dont know. . . id rather build up a roll from an outside source and play higher. if it doesnt work out then yeah im not suitable for the higher game but at least i know for sure where i stand.

but im saying follow the good brm principles but get a few more dollars to move up. and were not talking about a lot here.

ckingriches said:

OP, are you playing Turbo or regular SNG's? Unless you're playing Turbos, which I personally don't recommend, you should be able to play patiently and wait for your spots in the early stages.

You should pay very close attention to the table dynamics and bet with any two cards when you feel there's a high likelihood of taking the blinds from the proper position. Don't be afraid to fold to a re-raise, and don't panic if your stack drops below the average.

The good news is that you're not a losing player. The other good news is that there are a ton of really bad players out there. Does that mean you'll lose a few tourney's to some really bad play? Absolutely. Does that also mean you'll be in a position to cash in these things enough to increase your bankroll over time? Absolutely.

On a final note, my personal preference is to play one tourney at a time. Multi-tabling works for many, and you can get some really good advice in that regard from many here who do so. However, I also think there are a lot of players who aren't really very good who think multi-tabling will even out their game (reducing variance). But until you are actually a proven winning player, that's just going to keep you from really focusing on your game and where you need improvement. Just my thoughts, and I already know the most focal among us disagree.

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i think this is very solid very awesome advice. no turbos, 1 table at a time etc very solid advice. but we should be past this point right now with 2yrs of playing sngs and following moshman with what the original poster wrote.

swingro said:

What?

U say u have to play with better players to win?

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Bizarre ain't it?

The STT´s are dead, try instead the multitable SNG´s, for instance 180mans (turbo, $2.20) on pokerstars. Soft field, easy to beat and multitable - and a great bankrollbuilder !

dj11 said:

Bizarre ain't it?

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It may sound bizarre & I hear many members here on CC say stuff simliarly.

THe thing is.. in micro buyins you can make all the adjustments in the world for the tables... it's still a gross game.
just tried a few for the fk of it tonight.. & all were prime examples
One game I played 3 hands.. Once when blinds were 40\80 I raised in MP with TT... & every single player after me called the raise, LOL @ this kind of play (it was only the 2nd hand I'd played). flop was K65, I check.. guy bets POT.. and two others call.. LOL again (one had 43sooooted & called off the rest of his stack on the turn) < yay.. these are players we want on the tables.. but when there's 4,5 or more of them it can be a real joke. (that same hand on a $10 sng.. I 'might' go hu on the flop there.. or not.
In that game I'm down to 1100chips it's 40/80.. MP minraises.. I'm on BTN with AQs.. I ship obv.,.. and he snapcalls with K6o (I was shocked that I only got the 1 caller, lol).
I think in super micros you're actually better off to play the turbos. In the reg. speed games you're getting 4 & 5 players seeing the flop in early levels.. no preflop raises are respected at all.
idk.. it's just a different game... and to suggest there's not much difference between a $16 & a $2... is totally untrue. In the $16's there are alot of regs., some of them up $50K in profit. The game is played differently at higher buyins. Sure we can adjust (we MUST adjust).. but still imo the super micros are really a joke. (maybe alot of the members here will only have an edge on those kinds of tables?.. who knows?.. maybe they don't know the difference??)

Mr Whatever said:

i still disagree with a lot of ppl here. this person is a break even player at 3$. what i see as the problem here is the original player is using med level - advanced strategies with the reference to moshman on a lo limit table and getting mixed results. because again a lot of strategies in these poker books arent meant to be applied for these micro lims unless they are specifically written for these levels.
From what i know of that book, it's a pretty basic sng strategy. That once you know the underlying concepts in the book, you will be able to adjust your game to suit most micro-mid staked levels
your getting called because again these ppl dont care or dont know basic poker strategy. again id recommend u get a few bucks together and take a shot at the higher games just to see if u apply the strategies advocated by moshman in his book and to see if ur game is better set up for a stronger field. there are alot of ppl that can play higher games but have way more trouble playing the micro lims, see if u fall into this category.

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This is some of the worst advice i've ever heard. From what i know, moshmans book is very basic, covering all the stuff you need to know to get started, And yes it might seem like it's a really advanced book, but that's only covering stuff like equity, ICM etc. If the guy can't beat the 3's, he is nowhere near ready for the 6es, he will get owned by all the "meh" regs, and he won't know how to adjust to anything else.

cjatud2012 said:

At least in SNG's, I don't see how you can show a profit by moving up if you can't beat the level you're currently at. It may be different for cash or MTT's, but this really is the case for SNG's, which is what OP plays (also what I play).

If you can't figure out what the best strategy is and adjust to beat the $3.40's on Stars, you are definitely not ready to move up (not saying this isn't the case for OP, just stating in general). To beat the $3.40's, you really just got to play tight in the early phases, bet your hands strongly for value, and steal the blinds once effective stacks are < 10bb's. Don't get wrapped up in FPS in these games. Seriously, bluffing doesn't work so don't do it. It's an easy adjustment to make, and if you can't even do that and the other things, you don't stand a chance if you move up. These are legitimate leaks that need to be addressed.

I mean, it's probably true that the $6.50's play pretty similar to the $3.40's on Stars, same for $6.50's and $2.25's on Tilt, but to me that's not really playing "higher stakes". Even the $16's aren't really considered high stakes, and I know that there are a ton of good regs playing those games. Above that, you're starting to push the smallest edges and the best way to make a lot of money is just to get in a ton of volume.

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Finally some sense in the thread. The 6'es however are way better than the 3's, they even have some of the $16 regs filtering down as they can't win on those reg infested 16's tables. Most of those games are just so reg packed that your going to have to be really really good to even show a decent profit.

Daniel72 said:

The STT´s are dead, try instead the multitable SNG´s, for instance 180mans (turbo, $2.20) on PokerStars. Soft field, easy to beat and multitable - and a great bankrollbuilder !

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lol. Hardly dead. And playing those ST MTT's you can expect a lot more variance, they will be harder to multitable than the 9 mans, and if the guy is not overly familiar with 9 man STT concepts, he probably won't do too well in the 180 mans.

Poker Orifice said:

It may sound bizarre & I hear many members here on CC say stuff simliarly.

THe thing is.. in micro buyins you can make all the adjustments in the world for the tables... it's still a gross game.
just tried a few for the fk of it tonight.. & all were prime examples
One game I played 3 hands.. Once when blinds were 40\80 I raised in MP with TT... & every single player after me called the raise, LOL @ this kind of play (it was only the 2nd hand I'd played). flop was K65, I check.. guy bets POT.. and two others call.. LOL again (one had 43sooooted & called off the rest of his stack on the turn) < yay.. these are players we want on the tables.. but when there's 4,5 or more of them it can be a real joke. (that same hand on a $10 sng.. I 'might' go hu on the flop there.. or not.
In that game I'm down to 1100chips it's 40/80.. MP minraises.. I'm on BTN with AQs.. I ship obv.,.. and he snapcalls with K6o (I was shocked that I only got the 1 caller, lol).
I think in super micros you're actually better off to play the turbos. In the reg. speed games you're getting 4 & 5 players seeing the flop in early levels.. no preflop raises are respected at all.
idk.. it's just a different game... and to suggest there's not much difference between a $16 & a $2... is totally untrue. In the $16's there are alot of regs., some of them up $50K in profit. The game is played differently at higher buyins. Sure we can adjust (we MUST adjust).. but still imo the super micros are really a joke. (maybe alot of the members here will only have an edge on those kinds of tables?.. who knows?.. maybe they don't know the difference??)

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I agree with that statement. I havent played any of the reg speed games, so i really can't comment. But what you say sounds about right to me. And i totally agree that people who say that $3 games play like 16's are pretty stupid, and obviously have no idea what they are talking about.

I've played a ton of the micro 3.40 turbos, it's just like 2-3 "regs" per game (they are not even close to good, and are usually tight push/fold bots) and the rest are just bad average players. Anyways they are so ridiculously easy to beat, all you really need is a set of basic shove/fold ranges and know some decent ranges to re-steal with (all should be covered in moshmans book i'd imagine, might need to actually read it, instead of flicking through it..) and you should be able to beat those games for a tidy profit.

A lot of poker is about adjusting, whether its a ring game or a sng. If you cant learn to adjust to the typical play/players you're facing be it level 1 or level 2/3/4+ then you'll never win. Yes it's true that the micros are very much a value game and can be quite boring but it is still an important skill to learn. You have to remeber to only play 1 level above your opponent or you'll be leveling yourself.

I agree with what PO said. I have recently started playing ss MTT, and at first it was really frustrating to have 4 people call my LP re-raise. Since I learned playing cash games, I just started using small stakes limit holdem ("no foldem-holdem") concepts, and it worked out much better for me. You just have to expect a lot of callers early on, so don't get married to your hand and pay attention to the board. Oh yeah, and don't bluff in the early stages, people will call it down with anything. The funny thing about it is that if you play tight and be patient, a lot of the other people will knock each other out, then you can just chip away at the stacks when the blinds start going up and people don't know how to handle it.

cjatud2012 said:

Generally speaking this is probably pretty bad advice, no offense. To quote someone who can put it better than I can:

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Even if u can deposit a decent bankroll to play at high buy-ins SNGs, you should play at your lvl.

Is a verry bad advice .

If i will deposit my income for a mounth from my real job i would have 2 times my bankroll . But i am pretty sure i would loose it quick if i play 10-15 times the actual buyins i play. I have a bankroll of 200+ buy-ins and according to bankroll management i could play at higher stacks.
I do not do that because i am still having big problems at this lvl. Going higher i am sure i will be a sitting duck for the sharks.

I do not understand how can u say u can do better at higher lvls if the chances of winning decrease because of the better players.
Moshman's book says that your equity decrease when there are better players at your table .
That is only theory. But with my experience of a low limit buy-in sngs going up in limits require a lot of skill.
Not the same thing for cash games where anyone can call a 4 bb raise at lower limits. But according to Ed Miller even those can be beat if you play good poker and wait for the hand than can take down an entire stack.