S.T.T.'s on Tribeca

RichardB2

I've been playing my way up from the micro levels of S.T.T.'s on Paddy Power starting at $1 and am now at $25 so I'm no expert but I'd like to hear some feedback on the following thoughts;

Firstly since they pay $45, $27, $18 to 1st, 2nd, 3rd this means that, once the table reaches the "bubble" phase, simply surviving into the money means a bump of $18 to your ROI which is double the jump from 3rd to 2nd (27-18=$9) and identical to your gain moving from 2nd to 1st (45-27= $18). Surely this means surviving the bubble is at least as important in terms of tournament equity as building your stack at this time.

IMO the ideal time to build your stack comes once the blinds reach level 4 and increase from 150/300 to 200/400 meaning that a standard pre-flop raise of 2xBB makes the pot at least 2,600 if called or 14% of all chips on the table. This level also inevitably leaves a few stacks low enough to be vulnerable to being bullied/pot committed if they call. Additionally you can now focus on sussing out your opponents play during the early levels.

At the risk of seeming to contradict myself with an exception to the rule, many players seem to become obsessed with getting their stack big enough to play for a win before they make the money. With this in mind I look for previously aggressive players who push with a small/medium stack which I cover + 4xBB. Previously tight players pushing on the bubble are unlikely to risk going bust with week pocket cards so I'll respect their raises.

Clearly once you've reached the money playing aggressively for a win is far superior strategy rather than hanging on for an extra $9. This may seem a tad blunt but by this stage I tend to treat any weak Ace or small pair as worthy of leading at the pot committing my chips.

Sorry to be long winded but please feel free to abuse my ignorance. :-)

Scotty #

RichardB2 wrote:

simply surviving into the money means a bump of $18 to your ROI

$18 winnings - $11 entry = $7 "bump"

Mellor

Scotty # wrote:

$18 winnings - $11 entry = $7 "bump"

4th place = $0-$11
3rd place = $18-$11

A difference between 4th and 3rd of $18

Scotty #

Mellor wrote:

A difference between 4th and 3rd of $18

I know that but I don't consider 3rd in a $10 stt to be an $18 bump to my ROI. I finish 4th a lot more than 3rd or 2nd because I play for 1st. I believe that playing for 1st and bubbling a few times is still more profitable than just trying to make the money. With a $34 profit for 1st and only a $7 profit for 3rd I'm quiet happy to do this.

By the sound of the OP he's exactly the type of opponent I want when we're near the money.

Sparky1808

RichardB2 wrote:

IMO the ideal time to build your stack comes once the blinds reach level 4 and increase from 100/200 to 200/400

Surely they go to 150/300 after 100/200, either that or i've been playing the wrong STTs for the past 5 years.

dvdfan

The idea is obvious and simple that while people like yourself are happy to take 3rd place even if it means scraping through with 2-3 BB, this is one of the best times to accumulate chips. Ive done it starting off and there is plenty of other people will do it for many reasons including that theyre playing out of their depth and not losing $20 is more important than winning $70+ or whatever the amount is. If your a good player and youve moved through the levels so i presume you must be then youll probably do ok but there is more value in playing more aggressive.

But i dont think aggressive on the bubble is set in stone. Its usually more profitable to play the opposite to your opponents and on the bubble youll more than not see people tighten up, if your raising alot of hands (some good some not so good) and the table is tight and the blinds are large then your going to accumulate chips very quickly while they get blinded away. What i try and do here if im not shortstacked and the table is reasonably tight ill open raise 3x the blinds but ill lower my standards to raise hands like Q10, A7 etc but also open raise the premium hands 3x and if my premium hands get re-raised im happy to get all in but if one of my lesser hands like A7 get re-raised im dropping it. Because the table is tight im going to be making more profit stealing blinds than i will be loosing when one of my bad hands are re-raised. This is an excellent way to play if your a big stack because raising 3x is only a small percentage of your stack compared to the other players so you can bully them about. But i have no problems here with someone not calling an all in with A10s,AJ or even less than premium pairs because they have a large stack and want to protect it as long as your been agressive open raising and not letting your big stack dwindle away.

However on the other hand if the blinds arent so big and there are 2 aggressive players raising alot then this would be a good time to tighten up unless your shortstacked. Also you wont get many showdowns at this stage but youll begin to see very quickly whos aggressive and whos not, even people that have played like a rock early stages may get very aggressive now.

Youll also be heads up alot so to speak if one or the other 2 folds so knowing wheter the opponent left is aggressive or not will also help in this situation, if hes playing very tight and hes the only one left to act raise any 2 cards, by the time he gets p1ssed off youll have made enough and might tilt him into pushing into one of your good hands, if hes very aggressive fold unless your willing to call a raise and/or get all in because hes likely to raise you if you limp.

This works for me but maybe your strategy works well for you, whats your ROI, at the end of the day if this is good enough then you cant be doing too much wrong, if its not maybe try dropping a level and trying the more aggresive approach until you get used to playing the new way without affecting your bankroll to much. Im running out of ink so ill leave it at that:D

Lafortezza

What was the gist of the original first post? It's been deleted now.
Be a shame to lock this thread now that it's got a few good replies.

dvdfan

RichardB2 wrote:

I've been playing my way up from the micro levels of S.T.T.'s on Paddy Power starting at $1 and am now at $25 so I'm no expert but I'd like to hear some feedback on the following thoughts;

Firstly since they pay $45, $27, $18 to 1st, 2nd, 3rd this means that, once the table reaches the "bubble" phase, simply surviving into the money means a bump of $18 to your ROI which is double the jump from 3rd to 2nd (27-18=$9) and identical to your gain moving from 2nd to 1st (45-27= $18). Surely this means surviving the bubble is at least as important in terms of tournament equity as building your stack at this time.

IMO the ideal time to build your stack comes once the blinds reach level 4 and increase from 100/200 to 200/400 meaning that a standard pre-flop raise of 2xBB makes the pot at least 2,600 if called or 14% of all chips on the table. This level also inevitably leaves a few stacks low enough to be vulnerable to being bullied/pot committed if they call. Additionally you can now focus on sussing out your opponents play during the early levels.

At the risk of seeming to contradict myself with an exception to the rule, many players seem to become obsessed with getting their stack big enough to play for a win before they make the money. With this in mind I look for previously aggressive players who push with a small/medium stack which I cover + 4xBB. Previously tight players pushing on the bubble are unlikely to risk going bust with week pocket cards so I'll respect their raises.

Clearly once you've reached the money playing aggressively for a win is far superior strategy rather than hanging on for an extra $9. This may seem a tad blunt but by this stage I tend to treat any weak Ace or small pair as worthy of leading at the pot committing my chips.

Sorry to be long winded but please feel free to abuse my ignorance. :-)

Here it is if the OP dosent mind me re-posting it.

Mellor

lafortezza wrote:

What was the gist of the original first post? It's been deleted now.
Be a shame to lock this thread now that it's got a few good replies.

Basically that the difference between 4th and 3rd place is greater than 3rd to 2nd. And equal to the jump from 2nd to 1st.
And the OP was wondering was it correct to take this to mean that making the money is as important as getting there with a massive chip stack.

It obvious that coming third is better than 4th, but 50% ITM @ 3rd only, will turn out a horrible loss.

RichardB2

Mellor wrote:

Basically that the difference between 4th and 3rd place is greater than 3rd to 2nd. And equal to the jump from 2nd to 1st.
And the OP was wondering was it correct to take this to mean that making the money is as important as getting there with a massive chip stack.

It obvious that coming third is better than 4th, but 50% ITM @ 3rd only, will turn out a horrible loss.

Neatly Summarised Mellor. One Slight Clarification though.

I'm really talking about situations where you're on the bubble and faced with a situation where playing a hand could gift the shorter stack a money finish at your expense.

I understand that generally aggressive play is preferable in most situations.
As I was saying, re: stack building, there seem to be better options where tournament equity won't be effected quite so drastically.

RichardB2

dvdfan wrote:

The idea is obvious and simple that while people like yourself are happy to take 3rd place even if it means scraping through with 2-3 BB, this is one of the best times to accumulate chips. Ive done it starting off and there is plenty of other people will do it for many reasons including that theyre playing out of their depth and not losing $20 is more important than winning $70+ or whatever the amount is. If your a good player and youve moved through the levels so i presume you must be then youll probably do ok but there is more value in playing more aggressive.

But i dont think aggressive on the bubble is set in stone. Its usually more profitable to play the opposite to your opponents and on the bubble youll more than not see people tighten up, if your raising alot of hands (some good some not so good) and the table is tight and the blinds are large then your going to accumulate chips very quickly while they get blinded away. What i try and do here if im not shortstacked and the table is reasonably tight ill open raise 3x the blinds but ill lower my standards to raise hands like Q10, A7 etc but also open raise the premium hands 3x and if my premium hands get re-raised im happy to get all in but if one of my lesser hands like A7 get re-raised im dropping it. Because the table is tight im going to be making more profit stealing blinds than i will be loosing when one of my bad hands are re-raised. This is an excellent way to play if your a big stack because raising 3x is only a small percentage of your stack compared to the other players so you can bully them about. But i have no problems here with someone not calling an all in with A10s,AJ or even less than premium pairs because they have a large stack and want to protect it as long as your been agressive open raising and not letting your big stack dwindle away.

However on the other hand if the blinds arent so big and there are 2 aggressive players raising alot then this would be a good time to tighten up unless your shortstacked. Also you wont get many showdowns at this stage but youll begin to see very quickly whos aggressive and whos not, even people that have played like a rock early stages may get very aggressive now.

Youll also be heads up alot so to speak if one or the other 2 folds so knowing wheter the opponent left is aggressive or not will also help in this situation, if hes playing very tight and hes the only one left to act raise any 2 cards, by the time he gets p1ssed off youll have made enough and might tilt him into pushing into one of your good hands, if hes very aggressive fold unless your willing to call a raise and/or get all in because hes likely to raise you if you limp.

This works for me but maybe your strategy works well for you, whats your ROI, at the end of the day if this is good enough then you cant be doing too much wrong, if its not maybe try dropping a level and trying the more aggresive approach until you get used to playing the new way without affecting your bankroll to much. Im running out of ink so ill leave it at that:D

Excellent stuff DVD, just what I was looking for.
Especially the last paragraph.

For the record I've only been keeping records since the $10 level so there's only 700 odd games and I'd be reluctant to take all the trends as gospel but;
ITM 48% comprising 1st: 21%, 2nd: 10%, 3rd 17%.
Overall my ROI is 38%.
Interestingly my ITM % has fallen slightly at higher levels but been more than compensated for by a rise in my win %. Probably this is a combination of being very passive initially and perhaps improving a little with practice.

dvdfan

Heres my $10 results

ROI 28.7%

ITM 45.8%

Total Tourneys 96
Multitable utilization 1.21
Total entries $1,056.00
Total prizes $1,359.00
SNG Profit $303.00

$/Tourney $3.16
# hrs 59.46
$/hr $5.10
Avg Finish 4.19

And my % finishes

Finish % Number
1st 16.7% 16
2nd 15.6% 15
3rd 13.5% 13
4th 14.6% 14
5th 7.3% 7
6th 9.4% 9
7th 10.4% 10
8th 6.3% 6
9th 6.3% 6
10th 0.0% 0

---

Heres my $20

---

ROI 13.9%

ITM 44.0%

Total Tourneys 298
Multitable utilization 1.31
Total entries $6,556.00
Total prizes $7,470.00
SNG Profit $914.00

$/Tourney $3.07
# hrs 147.36
$/hr $6.20
Avg Finish 4.30


Finish % Number
1st 12.8% 38
2nd 13.1% 39
3rd 18.1% 54
4th 13.1% 39
5th 10.1% 30
6th 13.8% 41
7th 7.4% 22
8th 6.0% 18
9th 5.7% 17
10th 0.0% 0

---

My $20 level took a good hammering when i tried multitabling so i know i can do a bit better but these samples are too small but i said id post them anyway just to show you your doing pretty well, tbh i cant realistically see you getting any higher than your doing at the moment 38% is very high ROI. Maybe just post the hand history of these hands your having a hard time making a decision on the bubble would be the best option.

ArmaniJeanss

Excellent posts Richard and DVD.
I'd definitely be in the camp that 3rd in a $10STT is an $18 'bump' rather than the Scotty viewpoint that its only worth 18-11 = €7. (though his view is obviously valid).

I believe there are certain occasions where you have to forget the 'only winning matters' mantra and concentrate solely on getting that 3rd place in the bag. Like if the shortstack is disconnected or if the chips stacks are something like 11000, 500, 4000, 2500(you), at level 150/300 then in my opinion its criminal to get involved with non-premium hands - you have a penalty kick for 3rd place, so hands which you would normally be pushbotting on the bubble are suddenly hands to be folded.

And as a side note if you happen to be the guy with the 11K stack in my artifical example above, then go after the medium stacks pre-flop and try to keep the shortstack alive as much as possible. The amount of idiots I see at $25 level who think its a bigstacks job to bully the small stacks rather than the medium stacks is amazing.

RichardB2

dvdfan wrote:

. Maybe just post the hand history of these hands your having a hard time making a decision on the bubble would be the best option.

The specific hand that set me off here was;

U.T.G. - 1,600
Button - 5k
S.B. - 6.5k
B.B. - 3,120
Figures are approximate from memory.

Blinds are 300/600.
UTG & Button fold and SB goes all-in. I'm in the BB and find pocket deuces.

Aside from the obvious argument that the short stack should consider playing any two cards here when he's next on the BB for 1/3+ of his stack.

My thinking here is that while the SB might very well be bullying since if he had a real monster he wouldn't want to chase me away I'm effectively still looking at a race against most random pocket cards and a 4/1 dog against a pair. Thus I calculate myself to be marginally behind overall assuming a 1 in 6 chance I'm facing an over pair ( 20% winning chance = 16.66*.2 = 3.33% ) or in a race 5 out 6 times ( 50% winning chance = 83.33*.5 = 41.66% ).

The figures are rough because I'm on a 30second clock but if I give myself a 45% chance of success for a 2,520 call to win 3,120 thus the call is +EV.

The counter argument I'm having with myself is that to fold here leaves me likely to limp into the money as the short stack but with enough that an all-in hail mary might still leave me in a position to challenge for 1st.

dvdfan

Any info on how SB has been playing, has he been raising your blind regularly, whats hes raising range, does he push all in often?

I havent calculated the maths of it all but Id be leaning to a fold, because it smells of a pocket pair, raising 3x with say 66 is going to put approx 1/3 of his stack and if you call that hes very likely to have at least 1 overcard on the flop and then the hand becomes very hard to play so hell want to push it all in before you see a flop, as you said its very unikely to be AA,KK,QQ as he wouldnt be pushing them all in in a hurry. Possibly AK,AQ or AJ but i think its a pocket pair more often that not here so im happy to fold especially with the blinds coming at the small stack.

If the situation was reversed i think pushing with 22 wouldnt be all that bad, but i dont like calling with them.

Let us know how it all played out after you get a few more replies

RoundTower

OK, try doing the maths.

If you call and double up you will have 6240, the others will have 5k, 3380, and 1600. Your expectation is about 0.33 of the prizepool. (try playing around with this ICM calculator.)

If you pass you will have 2520, the others 7100, 5000, and 1600. Your expectation then is about 0.21 of the prizepool using the same calculator.

If you call and lose your expectation is 0.

You need to win this pot about 63% of the time for it to be worth risking your 0.21 to win 0.33. Probably the SB has 2 random cards. That means you should call with 88+ or so. If you give him credit for any kind of hand selection here you probably can't call with TT, and certainly never with 22.

This shows the value of limping into the money when you are 4 handed in a SNG, it is really huge. Note that you much more than double up when you go from 2520 to 6240, but your expectation much less than doubles.

DeadParrot

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

The amount of idiots I see at $25 level who think its a bigstacks job to bully the small stacks rather than the medium stacks is amazing.

Great point AJ, it took me a while to realise this , I used to/sometimes still have the habit of playing with the FEAR.

Actually some great points all through this thread. I seem to be stalking Dvd on the STT scene at the mo

dvdfan

DeadParrot wrote:

Great point AJ, it took me a while to realise this , I used to/sometimes still have the habit of playing with the FEAR.

Actually some great points all through this thread. I seem to be stalking Dvd on the STT scene at the mo

Is that stalking my threads or have youve been playing with me on tribeca, have i been embarrasing myself again??