Small ball poker and Sit n Gos

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Sonnith

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Like the title says could small ball poker be applied to a Sit n Go tournament (9 handed one table) the blinds increase every 10 mins from 5/10 i play on absolute thank you to who ever replies
 
cjatud2012

cjatud2012

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Hi, welcome to Cardschat.

Good SNG Strategy consists almost exclusively of tight play early on. While it is true that in the first few levels there is slightly more room to maneuver post-flop, I would still not recommend it. Small ball requires very very good hand-reading abilities, and the consequences for being wrong and losing a part of your stack are far greater than the benefits of increasing your stack by a little before the blinds begin to escalate. So you can play a few more hands, but not a ton.

If you're looking to widen your pre-flop hand range, I'd suggest pocket pairs and good suited connectors, like T9s. These types of hands are good because they flop hands with good equity, like sets, big two pairs, or pairs with good draws, that you can feel comfortable stacking with. When you try to play like Daniel Negreanu, however, and limp in with 75o from middle position, you are going to flop a lot of marginal hands that you won't be able to play for your whole stack, and it's not worth the risk, cause your tournament equity won't increase a whole lot when you try to make great reads or get to cheap showdowns.

The importance of position and implied odds cannot be overstated either. Without those two things, it won't be profitable to play those big play hands, e.g. small pairs and stuff. You want probably ~20:1 implied odds, and that's when you are in position. Simply put, without those odds, you won't make enough money in the long run. I say those are the odds you need for when you are in position because it's a little easier to extract value when you're in position than when you're out of position. If you're out of position you need even greater implied odds, more than 25:1 I'd say. So if you're at 5/10 blind levels and someone raises to 30, and the effective stacks are 1500, you have 30:1 to implied odds. However, if blinds are 15/30 with the same effective stacks, and someone raises to 90, you're now getting less than 20:1 implied odds, so it's not worth playing the "implied odds" type hands.
 
OzExorcist

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Even though that sounds like a SnG with a very slow structure, I still think the answer is no.

Small ball doesn't really work with short stacks and even when you're sitting with a "deep" stack in a SnG it's still rarely more than 30BB. Since your opponents won't necessarily even have that much, effective stacks are even smaller again. You just don't have the room to maneuver and take shots at multiple small pots.

I'd be more focussed on refining your shove/fold game once the blinds rise. SnGs are much more about making good decisions at that stage and winning the big pots than they are about small balling in the early stages.
 
Jillychemung

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I'd be more focussed on refining your shove/fold game once the blinds rise. SnGs are much more about making good decisions at that stage and winning the big pots than they are about small balling in the early stages.

+1 - I'd go as far as saying that SNGs are ALL about how well you play shove/fold.
 
Colbefc

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Although I agree that in sit n go's tight is always good
early on there is always free money to be had early
on from the usual terrible players, in any 9/10 seat
sit n go there are bound to be at least 2 or 3 complete
fish/maniacs and this is money waiting to be taken

there is nothing better than doubling up early on
in a sit and go, sometimes it doesnt work out but
if I can get all my chips in with AA or KK I will

tight is right against good players but against
maniacs it is not always the case

I am not clever enough to understand implied odds
and all the math, I go by feel and it works ok for
me,
 
cjatud2012

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+1 - I'd go as far as saying that SNGs are ALL about how well you play shove/fold.

I would rebuttal that by saying that while this is true, there are things we can do in the early- and mid-game that are very important because they will make the late game more profitable.

Small ball is not one of those things, however :p
 
Bwammo

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Ummm, yeah so I definitely play small ball on a daily basis in STTs, even in turbos. As long as we have a stack that can manage it, and the players we're up against are willing to play flops, small ball is totally sweet.
 
cjatud2012

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Ummm, yeah so I definitely play small ball on a daily basis in STTs, even in turbos. As long as we have a stack that can manage it, and the players we're up against are willing to play flops, small ball is totally sweet.

Can you go into more detail about this? What blind levels are you doing this at?
 
Bwammo

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Every blind level, it has more to do with how many blinds i have than where we are in the tournament.

At 15/30 if the situation is right I'll raise to 70 or something with a wide range from LP if folded to. At 50/100 I'll do the same type of little raise but now maybe a minraise or 220 raise or something from LP if folded to with the same range so long as my stack can handle the bet+potential continuation bet.

*edit*

I go into the concept in more detail in the other thread you created.
 
cjatud2012

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Ahhh okay I see. I guess that's not really what I think of when I think of small ball, you put a lot of emphasis on position, which I suppose is the point of small ball, lol. But when I hear small ball I just think of Negreanu limping in or min-raising with all sorts of junk from middle and late position. That's probably wrong though, just based on tv crap that I watch on HSP or wsop or whatever.

I feel like you're describing a good, aggressive blind-stealing strategy that maybe starts a little sooner than it does for most other people.
 
Bwammo

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I feel like you're describing a good, aggressive blind-stealing strategy that maybe starts a little sooner than it does for most other people.

Blind stealing isn't the goal in my world...it's merely an added benefit.
 
cjatud2012

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Heh, then what's the goal, dare I ask?
 
Bwammo

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To play flops in position against weaker players with weaker ranges.
 
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