I’ve been working on my NL Hold’em tournament skills, and I’m pretty good at the early and middle stages; in the ten-seat sit-and-go tournaments I find myself in the top four most of the time. Unfortunately, it’s usually three or four, with the rare foray into the top two. (I am turning a small profit at them, according to PokerTracker, but not as much as it could be.) Frankly, my short game/endgame skills just suck.
None of my books address this very well; I understand that it is a major focus of the second volume of Dan Harrington’s superb Harrington on Hold’em, coming out next month.
In the meantime, I ask the great poker minds of this board–what are some good strategic guidelines for when the seats get empty and the blinds get big? What is your advice for someone who just can’t seem to get over that last hump?
Is your goal to win or to cash? If you just want to cash, shut down when it’s down to four and let someone else get blinded/busted out first. If your goal is to win, what works for me if I have a deep enough stack is to pound the blinds and/or short stack with pretty much any hand with possibility. I rarely call when it’s bubble time; raise or fold. Some of my success with this move is because I tend to play very tight in the early stages so I have the table image to help me get away with steals.
All advice subject to change based on any of about 50 factors.
Otto, if the SDMB was one of those forums where members could buy other members custom titles, I would buy you one that said King of Hold 'Em. You show up in Hold 'Em threads like I show up in NA$CAR threads.
That being said, your advice is dead on IMO. Once you get to heads up, the shittiest of hands will win, so it becomes more about the betting. If you have a decent hand (any paint, any pocket pair, any running pocket cards) bet big.
The value of suited cards goes down. The value of card rank goes up. Aggresion becomes more important. Psychology enters into the game at this point in a big way. As a short-handed or heads-up match progresses, there’s sort of an ebb and flow that takes place. As the cards are dealt, pure randomness dictates that players will get runs of good and bad ‘luck’, for short periods and long. If you win a couple of hands in a row you start to gain a psychological edge over your opponent. If you can learn to exploit that, know when to lean in on the other player and when to back off, you can control the game.
In my opinion, this is where the real skill exists in poker. And there’s a large variation in skill between the best and the average. Anyone can read a few books and learn to beat a soft ring game. It just takes discipline. But to be a good short-handed or heads-up player, you have to be a fast thinker, and you have to be a shrewd judge of the situation.
There are “great poker minds” here? I gotta pay more attention. My game obviously has some flaws - I just seem to cycle up and down, instead of hitting a steady rise.
In online sit-in-go’s the #1 factor for getting in the money is pure aggression in the end-game. You can’t wait for cards any longer because the blinds are ramping up, so you need to steal. You only need to steal a few large blinds, typically at the 50/100, 75/150 and 100/200 levels to make it in the money. Small stacks who were getting chipped down will bust out or you will have bought yourself time to catch a big hand and bust someone. If you’re playing SNG’s on Party or a Party skin I’d advise you to spend your juice elsewhere because the structure is ridiculous.
If you’re playing SNGs in the $10-$30 range you should be able to steal alot of blinds with any two cards. Remember these players are just as scared of busting out on the bubble as you are. Also remember that players are out to steal your blinds as well and if someone min-raises your blind from a steal position or completes the SB you need to push back occasionally.
Head-Ups, raise your button with any-two cards. Any piece of the flop becomes extremely valuable and bet your strong draws hard.
