I have always enjoyed the SnG format, in fact, when I started playing it was about all I played. As far as I am concerned they provide the full poker experience; the strategy shifts of changing blinds, the threat of elimination, and the joy of scalping your opponents. Players who enter them regularly and do well gain valuable heads up experience as well as a grounding in final table strategy whilst limiting their potential losses. All in all what is not to love about the single table tournament?
Well, I played against an opponent recently who according to Sharkscope has lost $15,000 in around 500 games. Maybe he or she could make an argument for not enjoying them. I would suggest that had this player been playing another format the losses could have been considerably greater.
Why are some players so bad at SnG’s? I play the same people again and again and they never seem to cash, whilst the same old faces are carving up the prize money. What are they doing wrong? The answer is simple; timing. If you watch players who have the highest ROI in this format they are rarely active in the first few blind levels unless they have a premium hand.
Here is how I see it:
The SNG is a marine food chain, bare with me! Early on all the barracuda get busy in a frenzy of activity mostly getting fat on the scared and timid minnows. Every once in a while they find themselves scrapping with the sharks and occasionally they are even able to hurt them or even scalp them but by the time you get to the middle of these tournaments the landscape has changed. The minnows are gone and the barracuda carry on flailing about aggressively now they have grown in size and the tight passive whales are next to become involved fearing the increasing blinds so they take each other on. All the while the sharks sit and wait to see who comes out alive that’s when the game really begins. Whoever comes out on top is usually easy prey. The barracuda who have become used to being the most aggressive find it hard to adjust as the Sharks get busy and better still if the Whales survive they find themselves getting picked apart slowly. Patience wins out. Why run around chasing the small fry when you can let someone else accumulate all their chips and just take them in one go?
“Achtung” Dan Hofinger is a London based poker professional who can assist those wanting to break into live play through his own journey of bad beats and well-played hands.
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