Just Poker Talk

It’s been a while since my last poker tip; I just haven’t had time to play poker and, in turn, can’t learn anything new from mistakes or what not. In the past month I’ve played one session of NL Hold’em and two $5 dollar SNG’s, making about $60 in three hours of play, so I’m anxious to play more, in hopes that I’m really starting to understand the game, however, in all likelihood, I’m in the midst of a hot streak and should be playing it out instead of wasting my good fortune, but sometimes there are more important things than poker.

What I’ve noticed in the two $5 dollar SNG’s that I played last month is the surprising passiveness of the players compared to the $3 SNG’s that I occasionally played at Doyle’s Room. Maybe the passiveness has to do with the culture at Full Tilt Poker, I’m not sure, but what I do know is that these $5 SNG’s can be lucrative if the passiveness of the players is a norm. I’d also like to say that the blind structure at Full Tilt Poker is the best I’ve come across during my migrations to and from various poker sites.

Looking at the $3 SNG’s at Doyle’s Room, the players call any raise no matter what the size of the bet, especially in the early rounds. At the same time these are not exactly maniac tables, like you’d find at the $1 and below SNG’s; the players seem to last longer and by the time most of the players are eliminated, I’ll usually be short-stacked and forced to go all-in with less than stellar holdings. Then all I can do is hope and pray that I catch a good hand.

Compare this to the $5 SNG’s at Full Tilt, where everyone folds to preflop raises and, if they do call, will fold to a continuation bet on the flop. It’s easy to steal blinds and bluff players out of pots. This keeps my stack at a decent amount until I hit a hand. The other positive that comes out of this is that I’m able to withstand a bad beat and take gambles on coin flip situations. None of this was possible at Doyle’s Room, mostly because I could only win with a good hand.

I’m aware at that I’ve only played two $5 SNG’s so far. That is hardly enough data to judge if this is true, and I will write a follow up post once I play more poker again. I could very well lose the next three I play and make this all moot. But logically it makes sense that a $5 SNG would be easier and less luck oriented than a $3 SNG, since players at the upper micro-limits (25NL and 50NL) play tighter, but are not necessarily good players on account that many of them are tight-passive rather than tight-aggressive. Granted this differs depending on the poker room, but my suggestion is to avoid the lower level SNGs; they’re a crapshoot and not a good way to improve your SNG play.

Previous Poker Tips:
Poker Tip #5: Flash Back to the Schoolyard Dynamic
Poker Tip #4: The Lay Down
Poker Tip #3: Faith in the Rush
Poker Tip #2: Check Raise

poker, strategy, SNG, Full Tilt Poker