SnG 11$ a pure nightmare …

Atoks

Joined: 01.06.2008

02.11.2008, 18:42 0

My turn to whinge ...

About a month ago I first started to read into the SnG/Tournament strategy articles. I liked the ideas and the concepts and I decided to try them out. I first played some 2+.4$ SnGs on Titan. Experiencing moderate success (fish were hiting the board quite often) I saw the potential SnGs had and decided to try play them for a month. Found it to be much easier on my nerves and general well being compared to the NL SH so I switched over full time. I had the BR to support 11$ SnGs and I got a very good rake back deal along with a 600$ startup bonus and away I went. Played almost 1k tournaments by the end of the month and had a ROI of 6% (I was not the best player, and the starting upswing really blew my head away so I guess that had some effect on my loose-ness, resulting in more played hands. I fixed that problem to a huge degree using ICM manager and SnG wizard).

The past few days however have been pure murder. Stealing the BB first in from SB made me face better hands most of the time, my pairs were useless against high cards, my dominant hands preflop were turned into dogs on the flop and surely lost by the time river came, ppl made all kinds of runner runner hands, nothing I did (supposedly correct according the SnG wizard) seemed to work out for me.

As it is my ROI atm went down to under 3%! In total I lost over 70BIs! I'll admit to being responsible for 10% of the loss (pushing AQo early when blinds were high, table had 7 left and I had 11BBs left, falling for some slowplays like shoving ATs from the BB with 10BBs left after 2 limps, called a CO and MP1 all in with 55 and 66 respectively, I know there were some more I can't think off right now...), but come on! It's like any 2 cards I get are worthless!

I hope someone who went through such dry times playing SnGs drops by this thread and has some good advice to offer on how to get through this with minimal loss and maximum profit. I play 11$ SnGs (8min levels), played up to 9 at a time, but dropped to 7 when the pain started and am now playing just 4 at a time, I analyze every tourny with SnG wizard and I play around 3k hands on the ICM manager every day. I just don't know what else I can do... any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

4 replies

sirilidion

Joined: 15.04.2008

Posts: 1,650

08.11.2008, 00:24 0

that terrible for you. I got only a forty BI downswing in SnG. the thing is taking that beats can effect you're game dramaticly so watching the videos, posting hands, reading the articles is really important. Are you adjusting the ranges of you're opponents this makes a real difference.An other leak you have is not moving down when you had less then 50 BI of the previous limit.

What else you can do is learn an other form of poker like cashgames or fixed limit or take a break for a while and try again

An other player I know who had a really bad downswing is a helemaalnicks and he now has build his role enough again to have at least 100 BI for the $ 60 SnG. I found his blog if you're intrested in reading it

nick's blog

Best mtt result this year: 379th in Sunday Storm for $ 543
Best ever (online): ( biggest single cash ever $ 2258.40 in a $ $ 11 deepstack mtt for 2nd place)
Goal this year get my bankroll to $ 5000 through mtt's and stt's

_Anonymous_

08.11.2008, 02:00 0

I found when I had a similar experience and just couldn't make a profit on SnGs for a while that switching to cash games for a bit helps. You just need to keep in mind that the downswing will eventually end and your luck will change for the better.

Atoks

Joined: 01.06.2008

Posts: 1,434

08.11.2008, 05:26 0

Thanks for the response. To the BRM question, at the time of the post I had about 110-120BIs left for the 11$. In regards to the ranges of my opponents, they play so tight that it's very easy to steal from them. Late stage only a handful seem to know what they are doing, the rest mostly wait for premiums or high end cards to push with. There's not much SB vs. BB play when SB is first in usually either. Traps are easily spoted, mainly limps or minraises. The regulars that are there however play a more then solid game, thankfully there's not many of them and I got a few reads on them as well.

I've studied my games even more after this happened. I found some mistakes and I fixed them to another big degree.Also my luck changed quite a bit recently, made it back up to almost 1900$. But it went down under 1800$ today as well. I'm just not sure if I'm doing everything right. According to SnG Wizard I am, but then there's adjusting to ranges that makes the whole thing questionable. Often I've pushed when according to the ICM I shouldn't have and often I haven't when I should have but I felt that those were the right actions give the opponents. I don't really see how stats could be all that useful here either. OK for the regulars yes, but even then u can't be all that sure he's holding something really strong or just stealing if they'r any good. Anyone wanna get into that for me a bit, how stats can help improve the results?

ATM my ROI is at about 6% (not exactly sure) over just under 1300played. I guess the spread isn't good enough for an acurate assesement. It sure isn't all that tho. I just need a few tips, a bit of direction, or just for someone to tell me I'm doing it right or wrong or what the hell is going. It seems I'm doing well but the resuts don't say it yet. I'll join the beginner training later today, ask Chenny if maybe he has time to check my play. Else I'll try get Unam to coach me for a few sessions. It's doable playing SnGs, I can even see it possible having a 20+% ROI on this level but I just need a bit more to be able to get there. What I need more of I'm not really sure. Hoping the pros help out a bit.

Anyways it's not as bad as it was then. My game improved as a result so that's something too. Just need to keep going, keep learning, get more experience, try play the best game I can. Apart from that hopefully I'll get some more good results and things really pick up. Cause anything below 15% on 11$ SnGs ... well ... it just doesn't make me too confident for the higher limits really.

_Anonymous_

10.11.2008, 01:57 0

Originally posted by Atoks

I've studied my games even more after this happened. I found some mistakes and I fixed them to another big degree.

Self study and analysis is very important, I see already you have passed the ego trap that says "I played 90% perfect, this is just variance" or "its not my play, its the cards"
Congrats
Happy chum hunting

[Closed] SnG 11$ a pure nightmare ...