Single Table SNG's vs. MTT's why I chose MTT's

I have been playing MTT's just about every night, and I try to make sure I play at least 1 per night, but end up with usually 3 or 4 under my belt. I am doing small field sizes 45 or so players, and once I get efficient and proficient at that I will move up to larger fields. I have made 3 consecutive final tables in these 45 person tournaments, I have scored a 1st place finish yet because I still need to figure out how to get more chips going into the final table. The competition in these lower limit MTT's is relatively weak, wild, and unpredictable which actually makes them quite interesting at times. I am anxious to get up a few levels though.

The reason I chose MTT's over SNG's is that SNG's are not real poker, and what I mean by that is SNG's have a set strategy there are hundreds of articles published about how to win at a 1 - table SNG. Basically it comes down to blind stealing, and pushing all in when they get big enough to make it worth it. You have to change gears at the right time in SNG's, and for the most part the biggest skill to have in SNG's is chip management, and there are ICM calculators out there to help you make the correct decisions based on stack size. The main reason for this is there are a fixed amount of chips in play since it's one table, so you aren't going to get a guy moved to your table with a large stack there are only X number of chips in play period. Once the blinds get big it becomes a crap shoot even if you are the chip leader, that's why the all-in play late in SNG's is so powerful.

I am eventually going to be playing everything again from cash games, SNG's, and all variants of poker, but focusing on tournament strategy is big for me right now. I already play SNG's fairly well when I don't get bored with them, and I am decent at cash games. MTT's have always been up and down for me (Like they should), but I feel I have left some decent cashes on the table by making stupid mistakes, so I am out to iron out those glitches.

I continued playing my 5 table tournaments last night and I cashed in 4th place in the only one I played. The tournament was interesting because there was about an Hour delay because of network problems in the middle and it threw off my rhythm a little bit. Here are a few blogworthy hands:

This is an example of taking pots down with continuation bets:

nuttygoon posts the small blind of 250
Templeformer posts the big blind of 500
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to The-Marksmen
sucat folds
BIMH folds
SDPlayboy folds
gottadance71 folds
The-Marksmen raises to 1,000
nuttygoon folds
Templeformer calls 500
*** FLOP ***
Templeformer checks
The-Marksmen bets 1,000
Templeformer folds
Uncalled bet of 1,000 returned to The-Marksmen
The-Marksmen mucks
The-Marksmen wins the pot (2,250)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,250 | Rake 0

Seat 9: The-Marksmen (button) collected (2,250), mucked




Here is an example of how I slow played a good flop from the small blind:


The-Marksmen posts the small blind of 60
The Random posts the big blind of 120
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to The-Marksmen
Yatesermeister calls 120
ALAMO14 calls 120
secho99 calls 120
glasscards1965 calls 120
Golden Toe2 calls 120
The-Marksmen calls 60
The Random checks
*** FLOP ***
The-Marksmen checks
The Random checks
Yatesermeister checks
ALAMO14 bets 120
secho99 folds
glasscards1965 has 15 seconds left to act
glasscards1965 folds
Golden Toe2 calls 120
The-Marksmen raises to 360
The Random has 15 seconds left to act
The Random calls 360
Yatesermeister folds
ALAMO14 calls 240
Golden Toe2 calls 240
*** TURN *** []
The-Marksmen bets 1,100
glasscards1965: Damm
The Random folds
Thinman68 (Observer): talk to me
ALAMO14 has 15 seconds left to act
ALAMO14 folds
glasscards1965: 10-Q
Golden Toe2 calls 1,100
*** RIVER *** []
The-Marksmen bets 120
Golden Toe2 calls 80, and is all in
Uncalled bet of 40 returned to The-Marksmen
*** SHOW DOWN ***
The-Marksmen shows three of a kind, Eights
Golden Toe2 mucks
The-Marksmen wins the pot (4,640) with three of a kind, Eights
Golden Toe2 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4,640
Seat 4: Golden Toe2 (button) mucked [Qd 5d] - a pair of Eights
Seat 5: The-Marksmen (small blind) showed [7c 8h] and won (4,640) with three of a kind, Eights


Those two hands are an example of how I have been getting my chips as of late, finding a few cheap situations to limp and flopping monster, and surviving by blind stealing and stealing orphaned pots on the flop. In the past few tournaments I have played in, I have also gotten a lot of chips from players who call all-ins with flush draws and they don't hit. I didn't realize so many players can't get away from a flush draw on the flop especially early in a tournament.

Well that's all for now, thanks for the comments Zeke I am glad someone can enjoy this blog other than me.

New Focus!!!!!

My poker "career" for lack of a better term has been break even for the most part, I haven't had to invest a lot of my own money into it to keep playing. I have been fortunate to score enough wins here and there where I could keep playing, but I am not satisfied being "break even". I have been wanting to move up in levels for a long time, but can't sustain a big enough bank roll to do so.

Since, I got back from Vegas I have been reading some poker books, consulting a few of the poker communities I am a part of, and analyzing my stats and hand histories as much as possible. I figured out that I have been trying to learn Cash Games, Tournaments, Single Table SNG's, and a little bit of Omaha and Stud mixed in. That is way too many disciplines to try and learn at one time, so for the time being I am going to primarily focus on Multi-Table tournaments almost exclusively. I think my cash game play is okay enough for trips to Hard Rock, Derby, and the Tampa Dog Track where I can play and not go broke, and maybe make an okay return if things roll my way.

My tournament play has been slowly getting better, but not at the rate I would like it too. So I have been playing $5 - $20 MTT's lately online, and I have been happy with my play even though I haven't cashed much in any of them. A funny thing happened in one of them I played in I was moved to a table and I noticed a player with the name USF-Grothe, and the reason it was funny is the guy plays quarter back for the school I graduated from LOL. Here he is on Full Tilt playing a MTT on a Tuesday night, I was hoping to get in a pot with him and re-raise him just for the hell of it, but he got eliminated shortly after I got to the table. Here are some screenshots below, and the hand he went out on.







As for my results in that tournament I ended up finishing 10th, I was a bit pissed at myself because I had played really well the entire tournament and one mistake put me out of the tournament. Here is the hand I went out on:

Blinds: $200/$400

The-Marksmen (Button) -

The-Marksmen raises to $800
SB Folds
BigdogJack (BB): raises to $1200
The-Marksmen calls

The Flop:


The-Marksmen raises all in $3700
Bigdogjack calls

Bigdogjack shows:

Turn:

River:





I went broke with a pair when I didn't even need to take the risk, I had targeted bigdogjack as one of my blind stealing targets because I had stolen from him in the past. I should have trusted my instincts when he re-raised me, but he didn't re-raise me all that much and for some reason I thought I was up against Ace King. But when I pushed all-in something told me he had an over pair, it took him a long time to call which was surprising once I saw what he had. I had enough chips to last until the final table, but I was a bit to aggresive. Lesson learned.