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Poker Video: MTT/SNG by AMT (Micro/Small Stakes)

The title says "Espisode One" FYI

Downloading as we speak, really looking forward to it, enjoyed your first videos, even if I was not a beginner in stts, very clear and somehow motivated me to start 4 tabling, good results so far,I dont have this stupid urge to play hands at low levels, its fascinating how often you get good hands over 4 tables!
I hope you are going to get deep into theory in this series and also talk about software tools and their use.
Also, What is your view on 6-max vs full tables stts ? At the low levels (20-30 dollars) short handed seems more profitable (and fun) to me, but I am not sure I can back up this claim by any real argument!
Cheers, I hope your finals went well, I have just been there also!

e.

Watching it and loving it.
Also, I like the title of this series

Just finished watching it, very very informative first episode covering the basics cos like you said, not truly that much information on sng's so reinforced the things i was intuitively doing right while highlighting mistakes I have been making, mostly missing value and a little bit of FPS etc. Very good work sir, godspeed ya flaming demon of the darkest skies.

gogogo AMT!!!

sorry basic question here, I am not a native english speaker, what does spew means applied to poker? I guess something to do with being overly aggressive or loose, but dont know exactly...

Wow this is just a ton of info. Great video. I had been playing my AK AQ hands in the early levels all wrong for so long. Just that tip alone makes the video for me.... but there is just so much more here to digest above and beyond that.

Great debut!

sorry basic question here, I am not a native english speaker, what does spew means applied to poker? I guess something to do with being overly aggressive or loose, but dont know exactly...

If you make dumb plays you tend to spew chips. Kinda like giving them away.

Great video and really excited about the series. I have a couple of questions. First of all what are your feelings about playing high implied odds hands like Axs and SC's in the early game. Just always fold? Also, when folded to us in late position we should just go ahead and open all PP's right? Thanks!

Oh, yeah. DC needs a tourney forum.

Great job Alex,

Around 58:00 it was the KK in the BB hand... flop was JA9 2 spades... hero raises the villain and villain folds. How often are you showing your cards in this kind of spot? Never? Sometimes? Would it benefit to show hands like this early on for added table image, or just keep them guessing?

Once again excellent video, keep up the great work

edit: +1 to the tourney forum

I know nothing about SnG's, so this was pretty fascinating stuff.

AMT, I'd be really interested to hear what kind of players you think are suited to SnG's.

Judging by various things you said in Ep. 1, it struck me that weak-tight players, non-mathematically inclined players and patient players would all be suited to SnG's.

Seems to me that all the things that hurt these kinds of players in cash games - fear of aggression, complex real-time equity calculations, the need to fight for every pot, the action junkie nature of SH games - are much less of a drawback in SnG's.

Would be interested to hear your opinion. Looking forward to Ep. 2.

Hey thanks for the comments everyone! Seems like a positive response, glad you all enjoyed the first episode.

I'm on my way out but I'll try to touch on these questions:

aboulala,

I'd argue that the 6 mans, especially at low levels, are definitely more fishy and generally have weaker fields. The thing is you can't play as many at once, and ranges need to open up early. Also, the bubble and itm play are a bit deeper stacked (20-30bb range a lot of the time) so this adds a different dynamic. I'd say that 6 mans are pretty profitable and maybe moreso than the 9s at the lowest levels, but the thing is, more than one "good regular" in your 6 max sng's and it really kills your winrate, so it's a delicate balancing act and I do enjoy both though most of my sng volume is at full tables.

Re: spew- the term just means going overly crazy with hands, FPSing, throwing chips in in bad spots, etc... negatively con notated way of saying "you're putting too many chips into the pot"

892king,

Thanks

narcosis,

lol- thanks, I think.

I guess I'll save all of the individual thank you's for the compliments....but thanks everyone else. I'll return to touch on the rest of these comments later. Good luck grinding DCers! Double VPP week on stars for those of you who play there!

Great video, I'm looking fwd to this series

Oh, yeah. DC needs a tourney forum.

BIG TIME SECOND THIS!!..bye-bye xfactor

AMT,
Excellent vid, you are easy to understand and explain things well and in depth. I really like the intro...lol.
I used to play more sng's then I do lately. I play mostly limit now.
I do have one observation and two questions.

1) I was confused by you using the 98S hand as a illustration. I think you should re-enforce what you are trying to teach, unless you think this play is ok?
2) which leads to my first question, when I played a lot, I think I fell into most of what you are saying for early game by acccident. However I did play differently in the last two seats. I would play "double up" type hands for one bet. like SC's and Axs. do you think this is a mistake? and something I should drop from my game?
3) In limit, I am taught to find places to play verses the bad players. It seems the bad players abound in these small limit sng's, but the really bad ones are not around long. Shouldn't we be looking for places to play vs these bad players early, as we only risk a very small percentage of our stack vs a player who cant wait to go all in?

keep up the good work....good luck to us all.

AMT,
Excellent vid, you are easy to understand and explain things well and in depth. I really like the intro...lol.
I used to play more sng's then I do lately. I play mostly limit now.
I do have one observation and two questions.

1) I was confused by you using the 98S hand as a illustration. I think you should re-enforce what you are trying to teach, unless you think this play is ok?
2) which leads to my first question, when I played a lot, I think I fell into most of what you are saying for early game by acccident. However I did play differently in the last two seats. I would play "double up" type hands for one bet. like SC's and Axs. do you think this is a mistake? and something I should drop from my game?
3) In limit, I am taught to find places to play verses the bad players. It seems the bad players abound in these small limit sng's, but the really bad ones are not around long. Shouldn't we be looking for places to play vs these bad players early, as we only risk a very small percentage of our stack vs a player who cant wait to go all in?

keep up the good work....good luck to us all.

over a decent size sample (150k hands) of tournaments, in the low blind levels, I played these hands a lot and almost every one of them I was losing with. I could have horribly misplayed them of course, but I dont think early chips are worth enough to risk taking a hit with a draw. I think this is way more true of MTTs though

just my take

shyturtle27,

Generally they are standard folds preflop. There are spots in sng's however where it is definitely right to make limp behinds in big multi way pots, loose/passive tables etc... to a point where if you're comfortable post flop, they are definitely profitable to play. The thing is most people play most of these types of hands and given the structure of the tournament and the value of the chips early, it's just not profitable to a point of noticeable frequency in playing them. You'd be better off never playing them rather than playing them too often. Generally, fold them unless you have a good reason not to.

re: pp's...not necessarily. I definitely don't mind open limping the lower pp's even in LP especially because we don't get raised a lot at the low limits, it's still easy to play a big pot with a donk when we hit in a limped pot, bluffing in position becomes cheaper, etc... but if it folds to me in LP with like 77+ it's a pretty standard raise (some would argue limping 77 as well), and below that it just depends on the players behind and the table and stuff, though there isn't a problem with open limping the lower end.

re: the tourney forum--talk to Entity



Sharpy,

I have automuck on usually- I don't find very many profitable spots in SNGs to show my cards and make it worthwhile. This one certainly isn't one.


Chomp,

Not necessarily- I'd argue that mathematically inclined players make much better SNGers than most, and many with the pushbotting mentality and a generally aggro approach might fare quite well. I don't like to put labels on what type of players make good types of players in X game vs. Y game. Your goal should learn to think about how to make good decisions each and every time you act in any game you play, and why those good decisions are good decisions. Play what you enjoy playing Maybe a copout answer but I can't really judge the type of players in general that make good SNG grinders.

It's true that many players play SNGs bc they feel less lost than in cash games, but again I don't know that this is applicable to a label of a type of player vs to the people themselves. I find many intriguing aspects to SNGs that don't occur in cash games, and vice versa, which is why I'll always maintain some type of volume in all forms of poker.

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/25-Tournament-Poker

Mickeywins,

Thanks!

1) It was more of an FPSy example to show that there do exist times where people feel that they have a good handle/feel for how the blinds are playing, and aren't playing a ton of tables, and take an opportunity to manipulate this context in which they are playing to open up their range on the button and take opportunities that they feel are profitable to adding chips early. I don't generally advocate it, and especially not at low buy ins (which I was trying to stress in the video, perhaps I didn't do a great job of this and for that, I apologize), but there do exist times especially at the higher levels where opening up your early game at tough tables is needed to gain the edges that are already small as the blinds get higher/stacks quickly get shorter in SNGs. I guess I was trying to get people to think about the fact that these spots do exist within the realm of possibility, but aren't to be used with any type of frequency in the context that we are studying them. I felt that getting the thought in was good for promoting hand reading and just being aware of different situations that could arise. I may have done better by leaving the example out completely, though. Thanks for the comments on it.

2) If you mean limping, yes, drop it, because these hands specifically play well in multi way cheap pots at particularly weak tables, deep stacks and a feel for the situation. Basically, they aren't hands in turbo sng's that get a ton of value early in most spots that they're played in, so you should be sure that you have a good reason for not folding when deciding to play these hands. Regular sng's provide a bit more of a window to play these types of hands, though the general approach and strategy doesn't change a ton.

3) It sounds like you're discussing cash games. I addressed this in the episode a bit, but the idea is that our edge isn't as big early given the SNG context like it is in a cash game. You're really putting a lot more on the line to add chips that aren't as valuable vs players that you often have no read against. It's sort of the reason that we're able to always play big pots when we do play hands eary. Instead of spending time splashing around trying to navigate our way into what we think is a +EV spot floating with a draw vs a fish, we instead still realize that they're fish and that they give us action with our big hands, so putting the chips in the pot with those very speculative hands when the chips aren't as valuable really doesn't make much sense when we can get paid off post flop and treat TPTK like the nuts, while also maintaining our already valued chips and our image for when the opposition makes the biggest mistakes when the chips are the most valued: the late game push/fold time. Not like a cash game at all, though I must say I don't know a ton about minbet hold em compared with NL.


Hope this helps a bit, glad you enjoyed.

Great video, really looking forward to the next one.

I'm a beginner and have never bothered learning how to play SNG's so this is a really really basic question.
You say we don't cbet too much when we miss, so, raising it up with AKo and checking behind on a dry flop that missed us is an acceptable play?

AMT,

Could you explain why doubling up early doesn't double up your equity? I mean, you stated it and used it to show the % of winning you need, but didn't explain where the 18.44% came from.

For example, if i am playing a 50 man tourney with 2000 starting chips there are 100000 chips in total. Say I double up, I now have 4000 chips out of 100000. If the prize structure is the standard type, I don't see why my equity hasn't simply doubled. I know it must have something to do with the prize structure, but I can't figure out how to get to 18.44%.

Enjoyed the video, looking forward to the next one.

All the hand examples seemed to be at low-buyins against bad players. So you were getting value by playing fast and assuming that the opponent has a pretty wide range for calling you down or is likely to make a donk play. Does this change much as you move up to mid and high buyins and are facing better players? Do you start to slow down or play a bit more tricky with big hands?

Really good stuff.

Only thing that annoys me in these videos with PowerPoint (or whichever equiv. program you might use) content is the 'spelling error' red underlining words which aren't recognized get. Disable that please

AMT,

Could you explain why doubling up early doesn't double up your equity? I mean, you stated it and used it to show the % of winning you need, but didn't explain where the 18.44% came from.

For example, if i am playing a 50 man tourney with 2000 starting chips there are 100000 chips in total. Say I double up, I now have 4000 chips out of 100000. If the prize structure is the standard type, I don't see why my equity hasn't simply doubled. I know it must have something to do with the prize structure, but I can't figure out how to get to 18.44%.

An example : imagine you are heads up in a tournament that pay 2 places, you have the exact same stack than your opponent and win a coin flip so your stack doubles but your equity doesnt because all the chips doesnt mean all the money!

Great video, really looking forward to the next one.

I'm a beginner and have never bothered learning how to play SNG's so this is a really really basic question.
You say we don't cbet too much when we miss, so, raising it up with AKo and checking behind on a dry flop that missed us is an acceptable play?

I don't recall saying that? I may have said in big multi way pots, or in situations of an awkward stack size? If you're in a heads up pot on a safe board especially in position a cbet is probably standard. Not sure if I indiciated otherwise, let me know if I did and I can take another look.

cmore,

Hmm, let me try. A good older time sng poster, ChrisV, described a lot of this well, and I credit a lot of the simplicity to describing some of the generally well known concepts in this video to the way he put things in a couple of descriptions that he made on SNG play.

For starters, lets say in a cash game....a dollar is always worth a dollar. If a player is going to win a thousand or lose a thousand dollars on any given hand, with an equal probability of each occurence, then his expectation is neutral. In a tournament, the 'dollar always being worth a dollar' isn't exactly applicable, because chips change in value.

lets take the 50/30/20 standard stt payout, 100 dollar buy in....10 people with 2k stacks, lets say, for 20,000 total. the total equity is 1,000 dollars. The winner of the SNG takes the 20,000 total chips, but receives only 50% of that original 1,000 dollar total equity that the 20,000 chips represent. His equity has now diminished to 500 dollars. Does that help express the idea of the changing value of chips? Because this structure exists, we need to find ways to estimate the true value of our chips in a given tourney context, how much we can risk to gain X, etc.... and this is the idea behind equity modeling, and the basis for ICM and its adjustments.


astralcreep,

yeah, it was pretty simply put because the narrowness of our early game ranges and because of the weak opposition that we normally face making the situations as straightforward as they seemed in the video. As you move up, an unknown random is an unknown random and often plays against them won't change unless we have some type of information that indicates otherwise. As you move up, though, more winning regulars exist and the skill level of the 'average donk' may slightly increase, and they may not make quite the same crazy stack offs early. You'll find a lot fewer exceptions to the getting it in preflop with AK in level 1 type situation that you might find more at the lower buy ins, as a loose example. Things like 'slowing down' or 'getting tricky' is usually just adjusting to any specific reads I have on a player.

nakke,

Sorry, I'll try and figure out how to disable that for the next one!

I probably just misunderstood ^^

Anyway, keep up the good work.

Very nice Vid AMT. Loved the intro too.

One quick question which I think will be a no, lol.
I was playing a few sng's the other day and there was a player on 2 of my tables who 'sat out' for the first 20/30mins. Me and this player got talking when he came back and he claimed to nearly always do this for the first few levels he also said he was a winning player.

Do you ever do this?
Have you ever seen this from many players?

Aswell he did play the push fold strat when he came back.

BoOm

Bo0m,

Hope they weren't turbos That would be terrible.

As far as sitting out the first two levels, I'm positive that you can make this a profitable strategy, but I don't see how it's ever more profitable than actually making your decisions and being able to maximize value on the hands that you do get involved with in the early game, as tight as our playing requirements may be. Just because the chips are worth less doesn't mean they're worth nothing

Frankly, I've never done this. The only time you'll see me sitting out in a SNG is when I've timed out because I'm playing too many tables
I've never personally seen it from a player whose game I thought highly of.

AMT, in the slide about facing a raise in early levels you say to re-raise with QQ+. Are you prepared to get it all-in here with QQ+? What do you do when you're re-raised again. Say someone raises in front of you, you 3-bet and opponent 4-bets you or shoves. With KK, AA I'm assuming you're happy to get it in. But what do you do with QQ in this spot? Fold mostly?

Bo0m,

Hope they weren't turbos That would be terrible.

As far as sitting out the first two levels, I'm positive that you can make this a profitable strategy, but I don't see how it's ever more profitable than actually making your decisions and being able to maximize value on the hands that you do get involved with in the early game, as tight as our playing requirements may be. Just because the chips are worth less doesn't mean they're worth nothing

Frankly, I've never done this. The only time you'll see me sitting out in a SNG is when I've timed out because I'm playing too many tables
I've never personally seen it from a player whose game I thought highly of.

Thanks for the reply, they were not turbo's. Your right though (of course), it would be crazy to sit out the first level's incase you missed your A's V's there K's ( <---that never happens ) or your purple patch.

now we just need a HU sng series and I will be set for life

AMT, in the slide about facing a raise in early levels you say to re-raise with QQ+. Are you prepared to get it all-in here with QQ+? What do you do when you're re-raised again. Say someone raises in front of you, you 3-bet and opponent 4-bets you or shoves. With KK, AA I'm assuming you're happy to get it in. But what do you do with QQ in this spot? Fold mostly?

certainly not folding in a readless situation. People just stack off with so many worse hands, it would be awful to 3bet/fold. My default is to 3bet/call a shove and make a note every time. When facing thinking regulars, tighter players/players you have reads on that that are similar, flatting pf becomes an option, but rarely do I want to turn a monster pair into a bluff if I can avoid it.

Do you need to adjust differently for STT's than say, 45 mans? I've always wanted to grind STTs, but never able to really show a positive ROI for them. It could be the deeper stacks on the bubble that I'm not used to, but I've always been a 20ish% ROI winner in the 45s but cant do anything in the stt's, which doesn't make sense to me, because stt's should have less variance.

AMT - Great Vid. This is why I joined Dueces Cracked.

After watching this video and your last SNG vid....I think I have been able to identify a major leak in my game - not getting enough value out of my good hands - but am not sure how I should be thinking about it in a context that will allow me to fix it.

Example: I noticed that consistently when you think you're ahead of villians calling range, you like to take them to "value-town" and get a bet in on the river.

I think my leak is fear-based, but I noticed that my thought process is totally different. I notice that when I get a villian to call me down all the way to the river - and I still think I'm good against a majority of his range - I find myself playing the "what-if" game and tightening thier range so much that I'm happy to check it down to see if I'm good. I am always so scared of the re-raise, that I'm happy with my pot if I am good and feel like I saved bets if I'm beat. I shut down way to much to the raise on the river when I check back OOP also.

This may be an unfair or un-answerable question, but do you have a good way to articulate when or how I should be deciding to value-bet?

I think somewhere along my poker education trail, I missed an entire chapter on value-betting, because I don't think I incorporate it nearly enough into my game. I am deathly afraid of re-raises.

Also: can you give some advice on how to determine whether to call the over-shove after you put in the value-bet?

Thanks in advance.

Do you need to adjust differently for STT's than say, 45 mans? I've always wanted to grind STTs, but never able to really show a positive ROI for them. It could be the deeper stacks on the bubble that I'm not used to, but I've always been a 20ish% ROI winner in the 45s but cant do anything in the stt's, which doesn't make sense to me, because stt's should have less variance.

They do have less variance Definitely a lot of adjustments that go into this, among them the idea of the bubble not being the same at all, and the value of the antes and shorter stacks equating to much looser appropriate pushing ranges in mtt-sngs compared to stt's. this is just one general adjustment, the early and middle game are slightly different but play most like a STT compared to a big field MTT or something.

This may be an unfair or un-answerable question, but do you have a good way to articulate when or how I should be deciding to value-bet?

tough question to help you to understand on a general scale, but the main thing is that you should focus on what these players are doing. Most players call more than they raise and fold, so in many spots where you like your hand strength enough to get value post flop from it, you can decide how your hand rates vs what kind of hands they can call with based on the tournament spot/board/action. I know it's very general, but the more you study various spots and see conventional lines taken with weak hands the more comfortable you'll be in assessing when it's time to get value out of a hand, and how much value can be head. Ask yourself if he can legitimately call with worse. Be honest, bad players call with awful hands, they are bad and we can't ignore a loose player because we're afraid of getting called when TP or whatever rates to be best. Speaking mainly about rivers, you shouldn't be afraid of betting if you think he calls with worse and doesn't raise often. Don't convince yourself that someone will raise with one pair on the river or a marginal hand, they won't be bluff check/raising hardly ever if at all, so as long as you know how to react to any possible move by reopening the action, it's fine to decide to go for value when your sure that you have a feel for the situation, that he can call with worse hands, that you won't get blown off of a hand that you feel has decent but not a ton of showdown value, etc... I know it's very general but specific hand examples would help to illustrate the application of these various concepts.

re: calling the overshove...completely depends, I may have touched on it a bit above but otherwise it's pretty situation dependent and I don't know that I can answer this in a macro sense the way it was asked here. Sorry, good luck on the road to improvement!

Don't you mean 'entries' not 'entrees'?

when will part 2 be available?

how many vids will there be in the series?

what buy ins will they range from?


Ive seen all 3 of AMT's vids and Im eager for more!


thanks heaps.

when will part 2 be available?

how many vids will there be in the series?

what buy ins will they range from?


Ive seen all 3 of AMT's vids and Im eager for more!


thanks heaps.

part 2 is up

I believe there are 8 videos in a DC series.

it'll cover generic SNG play on an introductory level, and will cover all buy ins in theory.

Thanks

AMT you rock! You make great vids. Keep up the good work.

AMT rules, I love the series and they have already helped my SnG game tremendously. Great job on the thread followup as well!

this may be a really stupid question,(i haven't wathced the vido yet) but can some of these concepts be applied to MTT as well?

this may be a really stupid question,(i haven't wathced the vido yet) but can some of these concepts be applied to MTT as well?

Yes, they can. some of them become a bit less applicable in game but still are relevant. For example, ICM would apply as the 'tournament math' for all tournaments, even though it's presented here for STTs. You'd probably find that you would still apply a lot of these ICM and related push/fold concepts in say, multi table sit and gos and small field MTTs, but not so much in big field events. Main reason for this is that you'd have to be putting in stack sizes and range assessments for so many different players and situations that the math becomes so complex, so it's just not worth tangling up in it early on, but at say, the end stages of a big MTT/a MTT final table, it would be very applicable in-game to your decisions based on the payout structures and stacks [and other relevant factors that may come up in a given hand], and does exist throughout any tournament, the key being the implications of the structure and how that applies to the math.

Other concepts would probably apply as well but just differently based on similar implications of game, structure and context change that may occur between STTs and MTTs. I definitely think it's worth a watch for any tournament player looking to get into some study and background on tournament poker in general, even if not directly applicable as a non-STT grinder.

On the second QQ hand, where you advocate value betting the turn, what's a good bet size or range of bet sizes, especially considering that this is low stakes and you are unknown to each other?

Also, after we bet the turn, if they call, and the river isn't an Ace, King, diamond or Queen and they bet into us, how small must the bet be for us to call?

If instead they call the turn and again the river isn't an Ace, King, diamond or Queen, do we always check in this situation?

Without a read and in this situation that I don't have much experience with (especially in single-table SNGs), I'm not sure what to do. Experience probably counts for a lot here but I'll try to tease a solution out rationally. It gets quite long and involved and most of it is probably beside the point, so feel free to stop reading here and give me the simplified version

The hands I expect to give me the most value on the turn, and tell me if I'm wrong, are mostly: worse two pair hands, primarily 44-TT, high cards with a diamond, ace high or king high hands with a diamond, followed by the occasional A2,A3, and random junk hands with a deuce or ones that floated the flop and then picked up a draw or two pair on the turn.

The hands which have the most outs against us seem the least likely to have called preflop and then check-called the flop besides AK, which has 14 outs to improve (though the Q gives us the best hand, they can't know that).

Let's see what happens when I bet to deny AK proper drawing odds.
AK with a diamond, assuming all its outs are good can call a bet of 404 based on express odds alone. In reality, they can only call 338 without making a mistake (if they have no implied odds). Since, if a king, ace or diamond hit the board, we should fold to any reasonable bet, their implied odds very good against us but if they call a 404 chip bet on the turn, he would need to win 102 chips on average on the river. I did the math and if he suck-bet on every river that he improved for 400, we called every time there was no queen of diamonds and he folded every bet we make besides when we hit the queen of diamonds, he wouldn't recover those 102 chips on the river on average. But it all depends on how we respond to an A, K or river bet. If he bet a decent amount we'd fold all the time on his outs and he'd only lose money on the river when a Qiamonds: hit, which is much more likely.

Even less likely candidates that have many outs against us are A4 (14 outs), A5 (14 outs), A2 (13 outs), A3 (13 outs -even less likely than A3), K2 (13 outs) or K3 (13 outs) which could all play like AK vs us but won't trust all their outs and should almost never show up here cold-calling preflop OOP and check call the flop. These could all call large turn bets, but there's no real use worrying about them calling and outdrawing us as the ugly rivers they'll bring will often keep us from paying them off and betting enough to push them off their draw will almost always just be called by a hand that beats us and cause all the hands we want to call to fold besides these few anomalies.

It seems to me a bet of 404 into 520 is too big and that's under 80% of the pot. It won't get the job done against the luckiest and rarest of the hands on the turn and it could easily get many of the hands we want to call to fold instead.

Next most dangerous hand that might call a turn bet but doesn't have us beat is a QA who is 100% confident in a diamond or ace giving the winning hand, giving them 11 outs, which doesn't give them the express odds needed to call a half-pot sized bet (a turn bet of 238 gives the right odds), though they might have the implied odds (if they ignore Qs as outs - which is only Q in this case). Against this hand there doesn't seem to be any harm in betting at or a little above half the pot as they might assume they have 3 queens for outs or suspect that they might have the best hand already. If they overestimated their implied odds and included queens in their outs they could call a four-fifths or even pot-sized bet on the turn.

AQ is slightly better for us because a Q can hit on the river making them almost certain to pay us off when QA might not when Q hits. You could more

Other hands include pocket pairs with a diamond that have 10 outs, 2 pair hands without diamonds that have 2 outs that they can't be confident about, straight-flush draws that were picked up on the turn that have at worst 15 outs (though 45 with a diamond is so extremely unlikely it's basically irrelevant), but more realistically have a maximum of 11 and may even feel they have as many as 17 outs (such as 56 with a diamond believing any diamond, 4, 5 or 6 as outs).

Of these hands, betting half the pot almost always denies express odds for draws, but you probably want to bet a little bit more against those hands to let them make bigger mistakes by calling (and overestimating their implied odds) which might in turn cause them to bet bigger on the river when they do hit it hard.

Then again, there are a lot of hands that probably think they were good on the flop, or just caught a 3 and might be wary of calling another bet, especially a large one. Still, if they call half the pot, which they will or they won't, but most likely they will, they'll call 60-65% of the pot (which is slightly more than the flop bet). Not only this, the bet is large enough to deny good odds to most of those drawing hands (that you won't pay off when a diamond besides a Q hits anyway) without betting too hard. It'll also be very tempting for any pocket pair 4 and up.

I still haven't mentioned one option that I pretty much discounted right off the bat: an under half-pot sized bet.

Betting less than half the pot would get more hands that you beat to call, but it would also give great odds to the worst of the drawing hands, give your opponents less opportunities to make errors, and possibly induce a shove bluff or semibluff that you can't call because it looks very weak.

Now, given all my analysis of the situation, I'm inclined to believe a pot-sized bet or even a four-fifths bet are too big and serve mostly to drive out hands you want to call you. A half-pot sized bet seems decent but doesn't seem to get enough value, especially from people who aren't watching that closely, and those who are won't see a 60% bet or a 50% as very different without proof that they are.

My instinctive range would have been 50%-80% without reads, giving my inexperience. Now I think I've narrowed it down to 60%-70%. Should I be leaning towards 60% or 70%? 70% looks like a stronger value bet that quickly builds the pot and could be used to mask your hand later when you have the nuts or close to it on a relatively dry board. Still, I feel like the chips you save when you get check-raised, the added value you get from weaker hands that would call a half pot bet who will still call a 60% bet, but throw it away the closer you get to 70%, probably makes a 60% bet better.

The problem is you usually won't grab a calculator and figure out that 60% of 520 is 312 and then bet that without someone being very suspicious that you are looking to bet less instead of more. So I'd bet either bet slightly less, 300 (which is about the same as the flop bet), or slightly more like 325 or 330 to make it look like a nice round number that you quickly came up with yourself that wanted you to pad a little extra onto for the sake of profit.

So how is the bet size. 325 into 520 on the turn?

Sorry but I don't recall going over any specific hand history/playing any hands in this episode; could you specify which hand you are referring to (episode # and if possible, the time on the video when it comes up specifically)? Thanks.

Is there any way you can make the hand histories available for download attached to the appropriate video? That would be a useful feature, IMHO.


The hand occurs at 47:35 in Episode One of Last Man Standing.


Here's what happened in my own words...


Low stakes SNG Level 1, blinds 10/20, first hand of the SNG

Preflop: One fold, UTG+1 limps, fold around to Hero who raises to 100 holding QQ, SB cold calls, BB and UTG+1 fold


Flop: 3JJ

SB checks. Hero bets 140 into 240 pot. SB calls (quickly, you note).


Turn (Pot is at 520): 3JJ2

SB checks. Hero checks behind but in the video you recommend betting, and emphasize that though it's a delicate situation we're still a favorite that can extract plenty of value here. But I don't know what a good bet-size is and I don't think I can trust my lengthy and amateurish analysis.


Anyway, thanks for the quick response and great videos. I'm back to crushing microstakes SNGs (in my mind) after viewing a few of your videos, which are so much more useful than Moshman's book ever was for me. It might've introduced me to some of the concepts, but there's no substitute for listening to a proven winning player put it all together and explain it in a way that only a good teacher can. Also, I no longer have acne and I wake up feeling refreshed in the morning. Okay, I'm joking about this last part, but the rest I really mean. Keep up the good work.

Time Link to 00:14:29

time for blindlevel increase depends on the site you play at. For example at ongame regulars are 8mins, turbos 3mins.

momo,

So much for the quick response Sorry, must've not seen this a year ago, as sometimes happens. I actually don't hate checking the turn (I think it's fine to bet too), but if I bet I'd go with something like ~300; a bet that can get called by these bare Ad/low pocket pair type hands where they might be folding if we bet too big, and giving them a good price to draw with some equity still if we bet too small.

urinpain,

Thanks for pointing that out. I think I prefaced the series by saying that my statements in this regard were referring to the Stars games for the most part, but of course it's important to take note of the specific times/levels at the site that you play on. I don't think the strategy implications will be differing much based solely on these time differences, though.

This is probably a very stupid question, what is FPS? Is it Fancy Play Syndrome?

Yes

FPS = Fancy play Syndrome

just watched this video ... after going on a bit of downer for the past week. thankfully, something must of stuck as out of 2 games I played after watching this, I came 1st in 1 & 2nd in another.

AMT

I've just been watching episode 2 of MTT principles, and Daaaaang16 has a differing opinion on pocket pairs in MTT's to the one you expressed in this episode.

He agree's that all pairs are playable from all positions (relative to table dynamics), but instead of open limping smaller pairs, open raising them to balance ranges and increase potential pay out if we hit our set against somebody hitting TPTK etc.

Now I understand that his is an MTT series and yours am SNG series, so there are differences, but MTTSNGs are covered in both. I'm curious as to your opinion's on this, and are there any considerations I should take when adopting this approach? Also, do you believe would it be profitable in STT's?

My initial thoughts are that when conidering opening a hand, a raise is better.

Hi Farmer,

Couple of things to consider in response to your inquiry:

1) This isn't a MTT series, and I don't really cover MTT SNGs in here either more than stating some of the basic differences in terminology and structure of the games briefly.

2) This was made was over 2 years ago. While there is plenty of useful and relevant information to today's SNGs (IMO!), games have changed quite a bit, and as such, some strategy considerations have as well.

3) I think limping said pairs was and is a very fine strategy if used as part of a balanced strategy, even in some MTT situations. That said, I play quite a bit differently now than I did back when I was producing this series. For better or for worse, I raise with a lot higher frequency with small/mid pocket pairs early on in EP in most structures/situations, although fwiw I do still think there's going to be some better arguments for the limping side of things in SNGs> MTTs generally speaking.

Hope that answers your question(s).

Thank You

Time Link to 00:27:31

So if you're on the button or small blind you're still only limping with your small pairs 22-99 instead of raising?

So if you're on the button or small blind you're still only limping with your small pairs 22-99 instead of raising?

When opening pots I will raise these in most situations. See the above inquiry from Farmer as it may relate to your question here.

When opening pots I will raise these in most situations. See the above inquiry from Farmer as it may relate to your question here.

Thanks AMT, much appreciated.

would limping in ep with small/med pocket pairs get exploited by isolation raises like you see in cash games? would it turn your cards face up and allow better players to play well against you?

would limping in ep with small/med pocket pairs get exploited by isolation raises like you see in cash games? would it turn your cards face up and allow better players to play well against you?

The bias against confrontation doesnt exist in cash games like it does in SNGs early on, so you certainly won't see it to the same degree. That said, yes, it is possible that someone tries to exploit your limps by iso'ing. We should be able to pick up on tables where that's going to be an issue/the players in question and hopefully adjust accordingly (mainly by open raising or open folding instead, as the case may be).

While some people will understand what you're doing early in a hand, we're probably not making the profit from the limps against these players in the first place nor was it the intent. We're capitalizing against the weak players who treat one pair as very strong and who are prone to limping hands like broadways and suited connectors (hence won't really often be narrowing your range past that).

Finally, many, even very good opponents play way too many tables nowadays. This makes it a lot harder to narrow a semi regular or random opponents range enough to be confident in him only and always having low pp's/having hit sets in given situations, which should work to our advantage here, where said regs in question probably be just as likely to group you with randoms that limp a bunch of randomly marginal hands early as they are to narrow you down to the few hands in your actual playing range.

Note that always and only making one move in a given situation is likely to let even the most unobservant or mass tabling players gain insight into your strategies to a confident degree.

New member, looking forward to watching this series. How come there is no STT forum? There aren't enough members paying STT?

I see, looks like I should cancel subscription if I'm going to play STT or ?

Lelantos you should post your questions/hand histories and other stt related stuff in the tournament forum as it is a type of tournament.

Just want to check if all of the play in this series is still relevant as it is nearly 4 years old or do micro SnG's still play pretty similarly?

For example I have been donked at by villain a few times with really undersized bets which when raised have pushed (I guess they were thinking randomly like a check raise but with the smallest bet possible) and also doing this (all streets) and showing a monster and even the nuts (obviously they have missed lots of value but kept me in the hand). I don't personally agree with this kind of play and don't do it but I have seen quite a few players do this.

Time Link to 00:34:02

restart here aboout flat and cold calling with AQ AK