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30 Days From Now Where You Can Be After Completing This Course
2)
SNGs Introduction, Why These Games Are Great For Building A Bankroll
3)
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Starting Bankroll, Get Off To A Flying Start By Finding The Most Profitable Games
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Summing It Up Key Take Away Points And Tasks For The Next 7 Days!
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Choosing the easiest games is huge when it comes to maximizing your profits and getting the full
benefit of this course. Ill confidently predict that the players who find the poker sites with the
most inexperienced players (fewest pro grinders), and take the time to identify (then avoid) the
winning regulars will progress to financial freedom much faster than those who decide that their
current site will do!
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Remember, this is just an illustration to explain the relationship between ROI and Multi-tabling. My
personal belief is that the negative effect per table diminishes over time (once you have got used
to 4 the jump to 6 and then 8 is actually comparatively small). We probably started too high with
20% too though choose a soft site such as Titan and play during the evenings and weekends and
this might well be achievable!
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You will have less decision time per hand when multi-tabling. I recommend that you treat hands
which might have been marginally profitable when playing one table into 'folds', particularly easily
dominated hands such as unsuited high cards where your post flop action might have depended
on knowing something about your opponents tendencies. Getting reads on opponents will be
somewhat trickier while you get used to multi-tabling, with only the craziest of them becoming
visible. This requires some adjustment to your strategy too youll need to play in such a way as to
maximize your advantages and make the most money from an average opponent. The next part
of the course explains the best way to do this starting with the basics and going from there.
One of the exercises I want you to practice at the end of this part of the course is to add one more
table to your current comfortable limit. If you play one table at a time then two is just fine. You will
be surprised how fast this becomes normal and how easy it is to watch multiple tables and best
of all, adding another table now will help you when it comes to the 3rd part of the course.
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Yes, I really am saying you should fold a pair of 9s when first to act, instantly muck ace-jack to any
action ahead and re-raise with only the top few hands in the early stages. There are two linked
reasons for this. Firstly your main profits will come from the later stages of SNGs, and secondly any
chips you lose during the early stages are worth far more than any chips you win this will be
covered below! I would only ever limp hands at those tables where raises are being called, while
people are not re-raising often.
One more thought, if you are considering whether to call a raise, whether your call closes the
betting should be one of the factors you assess. If you are last to act, and your call will ensure you
see a flop then you are sure of the price and can make a good decision based the odds you are
getting and hand you hold. If a limper entered the pot, someone raises and then you call then the
betting is still open. In this case the limper could choose to re-raise. Here you can not be sure that
calling the initial bet will get you to the flop, so you should be more cautious with the number of
hands which you call with.
Starting Hands And Aggressive Opponents
It is not just the number of opponents yet to act that you need to take into account when selecting
playable hands. If you have identified one or more light raisers who have yet to act, this can
change your strategy considerably. Of course, at a table where many players usually limp or are all
super-tight the opposite could be true. Aggressive re-raisers who will act after you for the
remainder of the hand mean you have to tighten your own opening requirements. While this can
be frustrating at times, bear in mind that you will often have the opportunity to build a big pot
those times you do hold a premium hand against these types.
Starting Hands Are Not Rigid
I suggest any starting hand chart act as a guideline only. As you gain experience in SNG
tournaments the appropriate times to play more hands or tighten up further will start to become
clear. Once you feel comfortable that you are disciplined enough to fold that small pair if you miss
your set then you might want to add a few more pairs to your range as one example.
Folding easily dominated hands such as Ace-Ten or King-Jack off suit is probably the fastest win
new players can achieve from starting hand discipline. With a tight range you will take full
advantage of those opponents who can not fold their easily dominated hands when they do hit
part of the flop!
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Finally for this chapter - position, that is acting last after the flop, is huge in all forms of poker.
Simply by playing more hands when you act after your opponents than when you are first to act
after the flop you will have a profitable edge against them. We will return to position again and
again in this course for now it is important only to understand that this simple concept is far
more important than most beginning players believe. Stay tight when first to act and open up
when last, with the dealer button being valuable enough to be worth protecting.
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Back to our example - unless our player flops a big hand of 2-pairs or better, things are going to
depend on guess work after the flop. In a low level SNG your opponents are going to play
unpredictably at best, getting the information you need, will often cost chips that could have been
saved for the all important mid-stages and bubble. Get into the habit of folding these marginal
hands to a raise, especially with players still to act. A key part of our strategy is to seek easy
decisions, and avoid close things whenever possible.
This same scenario happens again and again in poker, players call with Ace-Nine, King-Jack, QueenFive suited and all sorts of hands only to find they have no idea where they stand after the flop
comes
Early Stages Tip: Choose hands which are unlikely to be dominated (big pairs or big aces) or hands
which will give you instant feedback on the flop* get in the habit of folding those tempting but
expensive in between hands.
*Hands like this include small pairs, with which you are basically trying to hit trips or fold to post-flop action is you miss.
Chasing Against The Odds is a common mistake, especially at the lower limits. Many of you will
have suffered the horror of watching an opponent call half of their stack with only a flush draw,
only to hit it on the river. Compounding this type of error is that many opponents will simply callcall-call with their draws, not raising until they hit their miracle card
Learn those basic odds and outs (Click to see the article) before you play another game. Instead of
calling you should often be making big raises if you find yourself with a strong draw giving your
opponent the chance to fold. If someone chases then be thankful, offer them a good price to
continue and think of it in terms of the chips you will make over time, and not the individual hand.
Whether you opponent hits or misses if they take current odds of 2/1 from the pot on something
that will happen only 1 in 4 times they will lose money and actually lose it very fast. Without
these type of players poker would be a more difficult game by far so make sure you identify them
and take their money gracefully.
Over Valuing Hands I already covered this a little when talking about domination. However, overvaluing hands goes even further. Aces, Kings and Queens are seen by novice players as throughtickets to a double up, and are often horribly slow-played, allowing opponents with small pairs or
drawing hands to catch up. This mistake is easy to counter, just wait until you can beat one pair
and get those chips in.
An even bigger mistake when over-valuing hands is to be too stubborn after the flop. Some players
treat a flopped middle pair like a certain winner and will resist all moves to get them to fold. Over
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playing one-pair hands is a killer in most forms of poker, make sure you keep a close eye on your
own reaction to these hands and are capable of folding them when the action gets heavy
particularly if there is more than one opponent in the pot.
Playing Passive, Calling, Horrible Poker: Calling too much is often the single biggest leak lower
limit SNG players have in their games. The way to look at it is that you only have one way to win a
hand when you call call call you have to show your opponent the best poker hand at showdown.
Now, more than half of hands never get to a showdown, someone wins the pot before any holecards are revealed. Think that passive callers prosper over time? Of course not, those rare times
they do bet rather than everyone realizes that they have a monster and quickly folds.
Playing positive, aggressive poker not only gives you more ways to win, it saves you chips when
you are beaten too. Raising that mid-strength hand and getting re-raised allows you to fold (or see
a flop and then fold when you miss) for only the price of the initial bets. If you call with these
hands you will never be sure if your opponent is bluffing, since you showed weakness which
inspires many of your opponents to continue betting.
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In the middle game the tendencies of your opponents are key, you must get aggressive when
folded to and steal your share of blinds and antes. By noting who are the players more likely to call
you (or raise back) and targeting the tighter and more cautious players you can add to your chip
stack without taking on too much risk. Part #4 of this course contains many mid-game tips for
now playing positively when folded to and tight when there is action ahead will get you safely to
the bubble more often than not! Click below to check out Titan now!
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If Player A were to raise 3 times the blind to 900 and player B were to re-raise all-in then the PotOdds Player A sees are huge. The total pot = 900 (the raise) + 550 (the blinds + antes) + 3300
(Player Bs call + re-raise all in) a total of 4750 and it costs A his remaining 2400 chips to call. This is
just under 2-to-1 odds, meaning A only has to win the hand 35% of the time to show a profit. Let us
be honest, how many hand combinations which legitimately raised here are less will win less than
1/3rd of the time against the entire range B could have re-raised with?? Not many! This example is
with 11 blinds, as we get to 10, 8 or even less the logic for pushing all-in gets even stronger were
we considering raising 2.5 times the blind, continuation betting and then folding to resistance with
1500 chips left!!
Of course, with many of the hands A is legitimately raising he would be happy to pick up the blinds,
so pushing all-in has the effect of getting many of the hands which might have re-raised to fold.
The key is this:
If The Pot-Odds You Receive After Raising Mean That You Will Be Forced To Call Any Re-Raise,
Then You Should Usually Push All-In To Start With.
I wrote a dedicated article explaining Why All In? in SNG Planet explaining this concept with more
examples, we will keep the number of links back to the site to a minimum you can find it fast via
our site search function on the top right hand side.
Bubble Mistakes, Where Your Cash Will Come From!
Now you understand the premise behind all-in poker I can start to cover at some of the major
mistakes your opponents will make at the bubble of SNG tournaments. Again, these errors are
covered in detail in Part #2 of the course, which will turn you into what is commonly known as a
Bubble Ninja!
For the time being the concept I would like you to understand is that doubling your chips at the
bubble will usually only increase your average win in dollars over 1000s of tries by 50%... that is to
say the relationship between your chip stack and your winnings is not linear.
Here is a simplified example it is important that you understand the dynamic here.
There are 4 players left each with 3000 chips, we will ignore the effects of the blinds for now (they
are 300 / 150 for the record!) and imagine that every player is equally skilled and experienced in
the game. While in the short-term, chance will affect any individuals results, over 1000s of games
each player would end up winning an equal share of the pots. Again keeping things simple we can
assume $25 of a $100 total prize goes to each player, on average and over the long run.
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Now we take an all-in confrontation between players A and B. Player A wins and her chips go to
6000 with player B getting nothing at all for busting in 4th place. Now, with a 20% / 30% / 50% prize
pool payout each player is guaranteed at least $20 (the 3rd place prize money), and all have a
chance of coming in 1st or 2nd too.
Having more chips always helps! Though to have doubled the $25 in average winnings to $50
player A would have to win every single time and with the other players still having 3000 chips
each that is simply not going to happen.
Incidentally, players C and D were not involved in the All-In hand, yet their average win in this
particular game just shot up, they are now guaranteed $20, one of them will definitely win $30 and
both have a chance of $50!
If we look at the average winnings, we will see that if the situation with one 6000 chip stack and 2
* 3000 chip stacks were replayed 1000s of times A would win an average of $38, while C and D will
average $31 each (to choose approximate examples).
Key Point: Player A risked $25 in average winnings to win $13 more in average winnings by
calling Player Bs All-In At The Bubble.
This has a bigger effect on bubble strategy than many players realize. Here is why:
When you call an all-in on the bubble your risk (in average winnings) is almost twice as big as your
potential gain from winning the hand. This means you do not just need a better hand than your
opponent, you need to balance the risk / reward by having a hand which is better than a 2-to-1
favorite against the range of hands your opponent could be playing.
If your opponent has a reasonably tight range there are actually very few hands which make it
worth risking $25 worth of equity to win an additional $13 we are often talking in terms of
premiums such as aces, kings and queens only. Even against a loose raising range your King-Jack
or Ace-Ten is not going to be a 2-to-1 favorite, if you take a 60% edge when you need 67% to show
profit you will go broke over time the fact that many of your opponents do not understand this is
exactly where your profits will come from!
Instead of thinking about the bubble in terms of chips, start to think of how much average
winnings you are risking compared to how much more average winnings you might gain and
then choose hands where you increase that average profit only.
Good players understand this and know the ranges of hands they can profitably push and call with
at the bubble, bad players do not and will make horrible errors such as the following:
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Calling too much, for example calling with Ace-Eight is a horror at the bubble in most
circumstances using the logic explained above. While the caller feels smug when his opponent
shows King-Ten, all he is doing is spewing average profits over to the players not in the hand at his
own and the pushers expense!
Not Pushing All-In Enough. You see, any opponent who understands prize pool equity will be
reluctant to call all-ins. This creates situations in most games where your opponents will fold so
often that you will win money just from the folds. Since those times you are called any hand has
some winning chances there are often situations where it is correct to push any 2. We will teach
you to spot them in part #2 of this course.
Not Accounting For Stack Sizes: A simple example is people who fail to use a big stack to their
advantage, especially when the other players have medium sized stacks. Since they are all trying
to avoid busting 4th you can literally own the bubble in these circumstances. A great trick is to keep
the bubble alive when a mini-stack is at the table while you steal from mid-sized stacks. We explain
this one in the SNG Planet Article: Keep That Bubble Alive and will cover the concept later in this
course.
Calling less and pushing all-in more will instantly improve your bubble results. Once you get a
handle on the type of players who will call you and those who raise light you can use the math to
your advantage. Again, part 2 of the $16 / Hour SNG Blueprint is dedicated to helping you become
a master of the bubble. For now getting the chips are not equal to average winnings concept
straight, think of prize pool equity risked against prize pool equity gained - and start using this to
your advantage.
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While this article is part of a course on SNGs, it can also be used for high blind play in normal
Satellite tournaments or larger multi-table tournaments. SAGE works with a single prize, when you
are heads up at the end of a SNG you are guaranteed 2nd prize as a minimum. You can thus think
of SAGE as being for the difference between 2nd and 1st (usually an additional 20% of the prize
pool). Adding a 3rd player would add complexity to this simple system we point readers to our
ICM articles for more information on this.
Introducing The 'Power Index' Score
The SAGE systems benefit is simplicity. There are 2 key factors, both of which are very easy to
work out then a simple chart for deciding on your action. The keys factors are PI which stands
for the Power Index of your current cards and R which is the ratio of the smallest stack to the big
blind. For each R there are then numbers given for the SB to push all in and the BB to call based on PI.
Working out PI is done like this: Each card is given a power number based on its rank. Ace= 15 /
King = 13 / Queen = 12 / Jack = 11 and the others at face value. To get the PI of your hand take the
highest cards power number, double it then add the number of the smaller card. For example
Queen-Eight would be (12*2)+8 = 30.
For suited cards you add 2 points to the total and for pairs you add 22 points. So the highest PI is for AceAce (15*2) + (15+22) = 67 and the lowest PI is for 3-2 off-suit (3*2) +2 = 8.
So, based on the value of R here is a list of what PI you can push and call with.
Push from SB
Call From BB
PI 26
PI 30
PI 25
PI 29
PI 24
PI 28
PI 23
PI 26
PI 22
PI 24
PI 21
PI 17
PI 17
ANY*
Those who want an even more simple strategy to get them started with heads-up play with less
than 10 times the big blind can simply call with the top 50% of the range of hands their opponents
are pushing all-in with, and push all-in with just under double the range they believe their
opponent will call with. Though you will need to be capable of adapting to very tight or crazy loose
opponents! In Part #4 of this course I will show you how to move from an unexploitable heads-up
game to one that can actively exploit the tendencies of your opponents.
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- At the bubble chips you win will often only be worth half as much in terms of average winnings
as chips you lose. Instead of asking whether your hand is better than that of your opponent as
whether your prize pool equity risked is adequately compensated by your potential gain.
- When heads-up at the end of the tournament, employing a simple system such as SAGE will
make your play unexploitable, ensuring you get your fair share (or more!) of 1st places!
One of the most significant aspects of profitable poker is finding the soft games. If you did not
check out Titan Poker then make sure you do so now. You will find the SNG tournaments far more
profitable than many rival sites and can take advantage of our double bonus offer of 100% match
to your first deposit and $20 in additional free cash. Simply use Bonus Code BLUEPRINT when you
register. Click below to check out Titan now!
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