Small Ball in SnG's??
Who plays small ball???????? Do you like the idea, or does it not work online very well??? Those are my main questions!!
Here is my experience with playing small ball!
First of all, I just want to point out that I like to change my strategy of play depending on the table, blinds and chip stack. I also like to switch a lot when I am at a table to confuse people. So, this was my general strategy yesterday, but not the only style.
I decided to test out small ball yesterday, as I have been doing a lot of research on the subject, and it seemed to work well for me.
I played in 4 $11 buy in SnG's at party.
Results:
3rd
7th ('bad beat' - kind of - no regrets)
1st
1st (ended up having to play very TAG, as I became very small stacked early on some questionable shoves by others where I folded - small ball didn't really work for this table at first, but did in the end. So, I guess it's not always going to work)
I like playing this style rather than my usual 'only play premium hands and push a lot with them' style. It seems to be 'harder' to play small ball post flop, and you for sure have to be able to fold KK if you play small ball (more callers), but it seems the return if played correctly is quite good.
Now, this was just a 'test' run and I obviously don't have enough games under my belt to show any type of impact, but I thought I would post my good experience and see if anyone else plays similar styles to this.
Has anyone had good success by implamenting small ball? What types of advice would you give to someone just starting to learn about it?
I feel like if small ball is not played correctly, you turn into a donk.
Here is my experience with playing small ball!
First of all, I just want to point out that I like to change my strategy of play depending on the table, blinds and chip stack. I also like to switch a lot when I am at a table to confuse people. So, this was my general strategy yesterday, but not the only style.
I decided to test out small ball yesterday, as I have been doing a lot of research on the subject, and it seemed to work well for me.
I played in 4 $11 buy in SnG's at party.
Results:
3rd
7th ('bad beat' - kind of - no regrets)
1st
1st (ended up having to play very TAG, as I became very small stacked early on some questionable shoves by others where I folded - small ball didn't really work for this table at first, but did in the end. So, I guess it's not always going to work)
I like playing this style rather than my usual 'only play premium hands and push a lot with them' style. It seems to be 'harder' to play small ball post flop, and you for sure have to be able to fold KK if you play small ball (more callers), but it seems the return if played correctly is quite good.
Now, this was just a 'test' run and I obviously don't have enough games under my belt to show any type of impact, but I thought I would post my good experience and see if anyone else plays similar styles to this.
Has anyone had good success by implamenting small ball? What types of advice would you give to someone just starting to learn about it?
I feel like if small ball is not played correctly, you turn into a donk.
Comments
This strategy is only successful for people who are strong post-flop players. If you find this type of play harder to figure out, you're not ready for this style - yet.
Until that time just be careful your not losing value on your playable hands by focusing on keeping your game small - especially in STT's where the opportunity to extract value is generally smaller. Your example above with the KK is an example of this strategy improperly played. Small ball does not mean play your huge hands soft. If you have KK with the intention of having multiple callers Ur doin it wrong.
I guess I should explain. When I said 'harder' - with the single quotes - I was trying to imply that it involves more concentration and is different. It is a bit 'harder' I guess, simply because it involves more thought. To be honest, I have been getting bored with waiting, so using a style like this where I can get a feel for the cards and reads and pay more attention to player actions, I don't get so bored and I play better. So, no, I do not actually find it harder to figure out, but there is an obvious learning curve that I need to go through.
$11 buy in SnG's is a great place for me to learn. So, I'll stick with diving right in to learn the SnG strategy. Thanks for your opinion, though. My post-flop play is quite good, acutally.
As far as KK, I'm not slow playing it at all and the amount of callers when you have KK might be more, but, from my experience yesterday, there were still only a few callers when I got huge hands. Most of the time someone would think I was bluffing and re-raise me, forcing me to go heads-up. This also put more money in the pot since others players that probably normally wouldn't have called if I pushed (if they acted after me) were in for the smaller raise, but folded to the larger one put on by the other players (again, like I said, it isn't always the best strategy to use and I like mixing it up, but if you feel you will get re-raised, why not try to get more money in there?).
Now, this all depends on position too, of course. If I'm first to act, I put in a larger raise pre-flop. Maybe 4 or 5xBB, just to get most of the callers out. So, yeah, I agree, but I don't shove as much as I used to. I used to not give myself a chance to fold KK when playing in tournaments. If playing Small Ball, you have to be able to fold KK. That was my point.
Again, it all depends on the table too. Small ball didn't work on the last table until the end of the game when the blinds were bigger and people weren't pushing as much. (I was the huge stack at this point, so the raises that put others all-in sometimes were small to me, but huge to them)
Also, a little more on the tables I played this on. The blinds went up slowly. They weren't turbo or speed tables. I find these tables easier to play and win. That's a large factor.
So, yeah, so summarize, my post flop game is good, but I want to improve it. How better to improve it? I figure playing and reading to learn is the best way, don't you think?
And, I do play KK more aggressively and I think about my bets when playing, but I still want to give the image that I have nothing. I have been thinking about what others could be on, like draws and stuff, and how much I would need to bet to push them out of the pot on the flop. So, if I don't only have one caller pre-flop, I likely will on the flop. Either way, I try to make it 3 callers at most with a huge hand. But, I don't play it as aggressively as I did before. I'm also not risking all of my chips most of the time either, so I avoid more 'bad beats' to A-rag os.
But yeah, I am learning and I do need advice. Thanks for your advice. Any other would be greatly appreciated.
If the blinds go up slowly (like the SnG's I was playing, the stacks are deep enough. Again, I wasn't only playing this style. Only if I had a comfortable chip stack.
But yeah, this for sure wouldn't work well if I were playing a turbo or speed table. And yeah, I did switch it up when the blinds got to the 50/100+ marks. Again, that also depended a lot on how many chips I had.
When I was huge in the lead for chips, I liked stealing the 150 worth of blinds regularly.
I fully agree though. It's tough to implament this style later on in the tournament. It's also tough when you are playing against loose aggressive players. But, I guess that's why you need to be able to switch your style. That I am good at.
One thing I just thought of. This style leaves more room for tilt. I am also pretty good at avoiding tilt.
you can do it early in the sng.. but playing tight works as well since the general strategy is:
tight early
pushbot late
If you want to try smallball, you should be doing it in MTT's not sngs
In SnG's the stacks are only deep enough for small ball through the first couple of levels.
Given that your skill has to be sooo much better postflop and that a 10-20% stack increase is relatively insignificant, I don't think playing small ball merits much.
50%-70% of the STT is going to be played where blinds are >7% stack size, hence for 50-70% of the SnG - small ball is fundamentally wrong.
The edge in SnG's, especially small stakes, comes from understanding ICM and using position to take advantage of other weaker players who don't understand that opening KJs utg for 1x,2x,3x or 4x BB is fundamentally wrong etc etc.
The objective is to seek out these players at our table and make their stack ours.
A great SnG player can control a game without preflop stack committal.
Using min raises, small control bets (both pre and post flop), 2.5xBB steals, etc should all be part of of a good game plan, but this shouldnt be our only game plan.
This changes in MTT, where you are not as close to the money and continually building our stack is imperative.