Texas Holdem SNG tips
I saw this hand in a $5 Texas Holdem SNG a few days ago and it does highlight how bad the overall play is at these levels. We were still in the first level of play with the blinds at T10-20 and the starting stacks were T1500 when it was folded around to our hero who open raised from the cut-off to 60, the button called but the big blind re-raised to 200, both our hero and the button called making over T600 in the pot before the flop.
The flop came Ad-Qs-7c and the big blind bet out 650, our hero thought for a while and called and then the button shoved all-in. The big blind called and so did our hero. The cards were revealed and the big blind had A-K for top pair top kicker, the button had A-Q for top two pair and our hero amazingly had A-Js.
He was basically drawing dead to runner runner and the turn and rive cards were of no help and he was out in ninth place. I see these sorts of hands all the time in low-stakes SNG’s. Basically he made numerous errors in this hand. It was not an error to open raise with an A-J, that is of course an entirely standard play.
But the raise was cold called by the button and then the big blind re-raised a pre-flop raiser and a caller so the A-J was marginal at best. The suited nature of the hand made the call marginal but on the flop, he had serious kicker trouble and there was also the possibility that our hero was ahead as hands like KK,JJ, KQs, TT or even 99 could have re-raised pre-flop.
So now he was in trouble and when the big blind led out and bet the pot, this was a clear indication that he was beaten at the least by one player. The subsequent flop action merely confirmed his fate. But this hand to me indicates in a nutshell how numerous players approach low stakes SNG’s.
They simply wait for a good hand and then go with what they have even if at the back of their mind they know that they are beaten. Novice players make numerous mistakes in SNG’s (not just in SNG’s but poker in general). The first error is that they do not take advantage of the excellent software that is on offer. I used “Sit and Go Shark” which is one of the best SNG tools in existence in my opinion.
Using such software isn’t just an advantage, it is also a necessity these days. The table selection processes, ICM knowledge and a good sound understanding of the basics of SNG strategy will catapult any player into being a long term winner at the lower levels.
But if you are going to make money in poker then you are going to have to take the game far more seriously. If you don’t then there will be plenty of players out there who will. If you don’t put the time in or you simply cannot be bothered to use software or you cannot find the time to try table selecting or all of the other things that require effort then what in heavens name makes you think that you can make money long term playing poker?
Also I would definitely recommend that you set aside enough time to be able to play the game. Don’t rush it, don’t play an SNG merely because of the quick time frame and then look to get your chips in the middle as quickly as possible with the first decent hand that you get.