seeking sng help

all of a sudden im running terribly bad at 9 man 1.20 sng's. Before i was doing pretty good, cashing in at least 1/3 of the games i played. in the last 10 tourneys i am 2/10 (3rd place finishes only) with 4 bubble finishes. I don't like to blame it on bad luck, granted i been losing almost all race situations, so there has got to be leaks in my game that are just coming through. I've posted hands in HA and have gotten great advice there but those are just a couple situation specific spots. I might be playing to passive after a terrible week of bad beats i don't know. but after all that rambling my question is, is there anybody that is willing to help review some of my games? i don't know what hands would need to be evaluated so id have to really go through and study some of my losing games, or even winning games. or any other advice tips, links to good strats...anything you can give me that you think could really help turn things around for me.

here's a link to my stats from Topshark if interested http://www.pokerprolabs.com/Clambake420/pokerstars.aspx

Ten games is literally nothing, it's such a small sample size that you can't read much into it. I went on a 15bi+ downswing last month at the $6.50's, I made it all back in like two days. That's pretty standard, in fact even larger swings are pretty normal for STT's. So all things considered it could be a lot worse. Just keep playing your game, as long as you put in the volume it'll all even over.

I could take a look at a couple of hand histories for you if you'd like, just PM me if you're interested. There are probably some leaks that you do have, I mean we all have leaks, but it always helps to have another person to ask why you're doing what you're doing. And again, your results are probably due to variance more so than leaks. Also, post in the monthly thread, most of the good discussion on STT's is in there at the moment...

One more thing, I would suggest moving up to a level where the rake is less. Paying 16.67% rake is ridiculous. Do you play on Stars or Tilt?

cjatud2012 said:

Ten games is literally nothing, it's such a small sample size that you can't read much into it. I went on a 15bi+ downswing last month at the $6.50's, I made it all back in like two days. That's pretty standard, in fact even larger swings are pretty normal for STT's. So all things considered it could be a lot worse. Just keep playing your game, as long as you put in the volume it'll all even over.

I could take a look at a couple of hand histories for you if you'd like, just PM me if you're interested. There are probably some leaks that you do have, I mean we all have leaks, but it always helps to have another person to ask why you're doing what you're doing. And again, your results are probably due to variance more so than leaks. Also, post in the monthly thread, most of the good discussion on STT's is in there at the moment...

One more thing, I would suggest moving up to a level where the rake is less. Paying 16.67% rake is ridiculous. Do you play on Stars or Tilt?

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yea i know i just quoted 10 as a nice even number its more then that. as far as moving up a level, id love to start playing the 3.40 tables but does a $45 bankroll allow for those levels, but yea i cant stand the rake at those 1.20 tables. play at PS, i have a FT account but no real money on there.

join out thread it for sng players. https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/

i'm more than willing to help by reviewing HH's as well. collin moshman's sng stategy is a required reading imo. also there is software that makes it helpfull to play these. download PT3 use thier trial up then you can download HEM for their trial afterwards. Also SNGWIZ has a 30day trial as well but make sure you got a good grip on stategy before you use it imo. pleny of us in the thread will help you hope to see you there.

On the topic of sample size. Here is something I posted on another (weak) forum.

Ever had a bad streak where it seemed like you couldn't win anything at all? Want to know the best thing to get over that bad streak? Play more. Yup, put in more volume of hands at the cash tables or fire up more SNG games and keep on playing.

If you're on a losing streak, this may seem like the opposite thing you'd want to do but it's actually not because the more games/hands you put in, the more accurate the reading as far as ROI% and profits go.

Here is a simple example of the drastic changes that can occur with small sample sizes and big sample sizes.

Lets say you play 100 $2 HU SNGs and you win 70% of them. To simplify things, there wont be any rake.

70($4) - 100($2)
$280(Won) - $200(Buy-in)
$80 in profits = 40% ROI

Now lets say you lost your last 5 games and only win 65/100 of them.

65($4) - 100($2)
$260 - $200
$60 in profits = 30% ROI

So, after losing 5 games, your ROI drops by 10%. That is insane!

What if you put in 1000 HU SNGs with similar results? Again, we'll be looking at a 70% success rate vs losing last 5 games.

700($4) - 1000($2)
$2800 - $2000
$800 = 40% ROI

695($4) - 1000($2)
$2780 - $2000
$780 = 39% ROI

With the same losing streak, but at a higher volume of games, we're only dropping 1% ROI. This is a huge difference compared to dropping 10%. So, it's clear to see what a large sample size can do as far as getting an accurate reading on if we're a winning or losing player. So, just because you may have lost the last 10-15 sit and go's, if you've only put in 40 games thus far, this bad streak is probably pretty insignificant. Also, this is why a good BRM plan is important because it'll help us deal with bad variance. The tighter your BRM plan, the easier it is to grind through these tough streaks. Just keep on playing, get your money in good, and you'll prevail in the long run.

cardplayer52 said:

join out thread it for sng players. https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/

i'm more than willing to help by reviewing HH's as well. collin moshman's sng stategy is a required reading imo. also there is software that makes it helpfull to play these. download PT3 use thier trial up then you can download HEM for their trial afterwards. Also SNGWIZ has a 30day trial as well but make sure you got a good grip on stategy before you use it imo. pleny of us in the thread will help you hope to see you there.

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yea i hear everybody talk about this book, i guess its time to get it and find out what its all about. back in the day i tried those software's but that was before i knew jack about anything, so maybe ill give them a try again. Been poking around that thread, when i find an exact situation ill post in there so you guys can help me out.

I think my biggest flaw might be playing to tight late, and slowly spewing chips either as chip leader or mid-low stacks, folding to to many 3bets or weird shoves, letting blinds eat me when i should be getting agg...I don't know. I had to take a little break from SNG's and started playing a little .02nl ring after becoming bubble tilted.

good post philthy, that puts things into perspective pretty well.

hey Clambake, this may sound overly simplistic but i find when i am running really bad... i play no hands. most times if you do this you are down to the last 5 or so and then when you hit a big hnd play that. sometimes no action is a whole let better than doing anything

Stop worrying about short term results, they are completely worthless. To figure out your true roi within 1% or so you'd need thousands of games, so obviously the results of any run under 200 games is pretty statistically worthless, especially since you are specifically trying to find a run of games where you did poorly.

I'm far from a major poker player right now but I do have a suggestion. One thing I do is review any tournament that I think I could have done better. I use a free poker replayer so I can go through any of my tournaments. Basically it allows me to replay the tourney graphically based my hand history from Stars.

Just have the hand history emailed to you. Then copy/paste it to a text file. Import that file into the player and have it play it back for you. You can stop, go back, go forward even going each by each single hand everyone plays.

The one I use looks like they're about release a new version:

http://www.universal-replayer.net

inosomething1 said:

hey Clambake, this may sound overly simplistic but i find when i am running really bad... i play no hands. most times if you do this you are down to the last 5 or so and then when you hit a big hnd play that. sometimes no action is a whole let better than doing anything

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I've gotta disagree.

Running bad means you're making good decisions but losing in the short term. If you're making good decisions then you shouldn't need to change your playing style at all - you just keep making the good decisions, ride out the variance and the positive results will come.

If you turn into a super-nit and start playing scared whenever you run bad it'll take you even longer to recover. If your confidence is shot so bad that you don't think you can play your best game you're probably better off quitting and doing something else altogether rather than staying and playing sub-optimally.

Note that running bad and playing bad are two different things. If you're losing because you're playing bad then obviously you'll need to change your game. But if you're just running bad then all you need to do is ride it out and try not to let it affect your game.

Like others said, this is variance. I know what you talk about. I try not to be affected when those things happens. When you're running bad, all those things seems to always happen: you are losing too many races, you lose hands where you dominated (AK vs AQ), when you push first in with an ace, there's always a better ace in one hand of a remaining player to act... When this happen, I play different game. Playing MTT is a complete different strategy so this help evacuate bubble frustration...