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Hey guys, I was playing some 36$ 9-max games today and I played with an interesting player.

His stats filtered to between 9-7 handed play in these games are VPIP/PFR of 22/14 over my my 180 hand sample. At first I did not think this guy could be a winning regular, I saw him make some pretty bad decisions ICM-wise in late game so I thought he would be a loosing player.

According to his sharkscope graph though he is winning with 12% ROI over almost 2k games at 21$ average buyin, it looks like he has had a huge heater in the 60s but his ROI in the 24's where he has played about 1,2k games is 10% in the non-turbos and 12% in the turbos (I can't tell which one he put the most volume in as sharkscope puts them both together) which I think is quite incredible.
I realize 1,2k games is a short sample but with such high ROI it is obvious that he is crushing those games I think.

Honestly I did not think such a high ROI was possible at that stake, from what I can tell he is usually 2 tabling which explains it a bit. If he was 16 table grinding with that ROI I would be really impressed .

I was curious about what he was doing so I observed how he played, some things I noticed was that he is limping hands like KQo in E/MP 9 handed at 15/30 which I think is unusual. I have seen a few other regs limp KQs but never offsuit.

Here is a sexy hand that I think I misplayed:
Full Tilt Poker $33 + $3 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 576894
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP1: t1110 M = 18.50
Hero (MP2): t1455 M = 24.25
CO: t1485 M = 24.75
BTN: t1470 M = 24.50
SB: t1470 M = 24.50
BB: t1500 M = 25
UTG: t1500 M = 25
UTG+1: t1890 M = 31.50
UTG+2: t1620 M = 27

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is MP2 with Q Q
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t40, UTG+2 raises to t180, 1 fold, Hero calls t180, 1 fold, BTN calls t180, 2 folds, UTG+1 raises to t1890 all in, 3 folds

The first limper is the 22/14 reg, raiser after him is unknown to me but had reasonable stats.

When it gets to me after the raise I think I should have made a re-raise and probably stacked off to any further action. I just called because I usually don't like stacking off preflop early on without AA-KK, if I had AK or JJ I'm pretty sure I would flat here but I think QQ should probably be good enough to re-raise and stack off with.

It is a bit borderline though because a reasonable player is probably folding AK or JJ after I make my re-raise in that spot since my raise represents such huge strenght in that spot so I would probably tend to get it in bad against good players.

Since the raiser was unknown to me I should probably have attempted to stack off but I choose to flat because of his stats, anyway after another guy calls and the reg who originally limped goes allin I choose to fold because it was the first time I ever saw him do that after playing a couple of games with him and seeing him limp a lot.

I thought he would be limping AA-KK preflop to protect his limping range and to limp-reraise in spots like these.
The more I think about it though I think I should have called because the pot was so huge after a limp, a 4,5BB raise and two guys calling.
It occured to me that he might decide to limp and then decide to limp-reraise bluff in this spot because of the amount of money in the pot, so I think there is a chance of him showing up there with like JTs. It's a bit hard to tell though because there are hardly any regs limp-reraising ever.

So what do you think his range for limp-reraising is? Is it a good play with AA, KQ, JTs?
I think it was pretty slick!

Since I think this player can improve his late-game ICM push/fold game he must really be doing something right to have such high ROI.

I was playing some 6max cashgames lately and I watched some videos about it, a common theme is usually to attack the bad players which obviously makes a whole lot of sense . In SNG's though I think most regs just have their standard range in early game and will play around 9-12 VPIP without adjusting to such things. So if you think about it, limping KQo can probably be profitable since if a reg makes a raise you can just fold, knowing you are dominated 100% of the time. The fish will just call with like K9 and then you can get the moneys post-flop.

So what do you guys think about limping decent hands in order to play with the weaker players? They're the ones who will be active in early game, usually they will bust early so you want to get in on the action right?

I think my stats with 7-9 players on the table are 11/9 which I think is very common amongst regs. It is how I have always played and it has worked out for me, it makes multitabling easy and I always know what to do at this point because I'm so used to the strategy.

However my ROI in midstake games is around 5% which I think is decent but it also means I have a lot of soulcrushing big downswings which could be helped by a higher ROI I think. I wouldn't mind winning more money is what I want to say I suppose .

So what do you guys think about playing a looser early game strategy in 9-max games? Is it better? Have you tried it? Does it take too much concentration to play multiple tables?
What do you think are profitable spots to open up your game? I mean all of this in a low-midstakes context. I know that in higher stake games you probably have to play even tighter than I do now since it will be tough to extract money post-flop from regs when you have hands like AQ.

People have leaks, but their strengths may mask these leaks and they may still be winning players.

Let me disclaim that I am not an expert SnG player, but in general folding a lot early on (like most regs do) means it's hard for you to make big mistakes (which is a good thing, esp when mass multitabling). However, I firmly believe there are edges to be had early on by exploiting the fish while the regs blind themselves down to push-fold mode every game.

You said it yourself: you hypothesize that it is possible to have a higher ROI playing fewer tables simultaneously than someone who is multitabling. Think about why, and you'll have the answer you're looking for.

People have leaks, but their strengths may mask these leaks and they may still be winning players.

Yes and in this case I think most of his leaks are in knowledge of ICM but his strenght seems to be in early game. So why not try to copy this style if it really is more profitable?

Let me disclaim that I am not an expert SnG player, but in general folding a lot early on (like most regs do) means it's hard for you to make big mistakes (which is a good thing, esp when mass multitabling). However, I firmly believe there are edges to be had early on by exploiting the fish while the regs blind themselves down to push-fold mode every game.

You said it yourself: you hypothesize that it is possible to have a higher ROI playing fewer tables simultaneously than someone who is multitabling. Think about why, and you'll have the answer you're looking for.

I think there are edges to be had too, and with the games being as tough as they are now I think it is important to look into any edge you can have.
If you can have a higher ROI while playing fewer tables then that means you are doing some things that you would pass on if you are playing many tables, but that does not mean that you can't play that way even if you are mass multitabling. Think about it, is limping KQ really going to take that much of my time and energy that suddenly I can't play as many tables?

If this guy can play his 10-12% ROI game on 2 tables at a time then somewhere in the world there should be someone who can 20 table and do the same thing, right? It seems physically possible to me .

I usually play 12 tables because I like playing tiled and thats how many I can fit in on my screen, I sometimes play 16 and I usually have no problem doing that.

So I think I will have time to add a few hands to my preflop range in order to increase my ROI. I will try to study this guy to see what hands he is playing and where.

What hands do you think could be +EV to play in these games that you think most regs are passing up on? Limping the SB for example, I usually play very tight in those spots but why not limp some speculative hands and stab flops?
I have been experimenting with the old limp-stab (mostly when I have like 10-20 BB from SB though and don't want to shove but have a decent hand) and it has been very effective for me so why not in early game for example?
Also I have been thinking about picking on regs more in the early game since they will usually only start playing back when blinds are like 50/100 or more. If their stack is too big to shove but any 3-bet will commit them then I think they will also almost never play back.

In 6-max cash the best cards to iso-raise the fish are hands with big cards in them since they will make top-pairs which you can valuebet, so that should be true in 9-man SNG's as well. I think that is why he limps KQ, to play pots with big cards against fish.

I know about the value of chips early and that every chip added is not worth as much as every chip lost, so I'm not talking about going crazy here. Just adding a few hands that might be +ev.

So why not try to copy this style if it really is more profitable?

Im not sure if it's possible to copy good post flop skills. Obviously you can start playing more hands against fish/unknowns but that doesn't really guarantee anything.

If this guy can play his 10-12% ROI game on 2 tables at a time then somewhere in the world there should be someone who can 20 table and do the same thing, right? It seems physically possible to me Smile.

It's probably really stressful to play 20 tables with loose stats early on and i think it's a thin line between loose and spew especially in sngs.

It's all about hourly rate and not about ROI.

Sure, it is nice to have a 10% roi. But a 4% roi when 12tabling is gonna give you a much higher hourly rate than 2 tabling with 10% ROI.

I think there are edges to be had too, and with the games being as tough as they are now I think it is important to look into any edge you can have.
If you can have a higher ROI while playing fewer tables then that means you are doing some things that you would pass on if you are playing many tables, but that does not mean that you can't play that way even if you are mass multitabling. Think about it, is limping KQ really going to take that much of my time and energy that suddenly I can't play as many tables?

If this guy can play his 10-12% ROI game on 2 tables at a time then somewhere in the world there should be someone who can 20 table and do the same thing, right? It seems physically possible to me .

Possibly it is just not playing more hands? It's also how he plays those hands and how much concentration he needs there. If you add hands to the point that you are playing one in 4 hands instead one in 10 hands, you will have a lot more decisions for the same amount of tables.

When adding speculative hands, it also means that your decisions will be harder. If you play tight early on, your hands are generally top pairs with top kicker or better. What happens when your general hand after the flop starts to be top pair with decent kicker or second pair?

What if the strategy is not better? What if he has a massive heater and his real ROI is around the same than the tight players? What if it is not about his game that rocks, but the way he game selects - if he needs just 2 tables open, he can weed out the bad tables? I think there's a reason why practically all winning SNG players play the certain style.

I have a feeling this guy is getting his massive ROI from running good somewhere else, not these games.

Also you have to consider the fact that playing loose at the start will change how people play against you in the end game. In general you want them to fold to your shoves, and that will be a little harder if you have a loose image.