This is my first attempt to create a post about strategy, so please bear with me. I have been playing online for about a month. I play 95% S &G's or MTT's. The tracker says I have placed in the money in about 37% of the tournies I enter. I have no idea if thats good or bad. I know I don't have nearly a large enough sample to work with, but it is what I have.

Here is my main issue: I find myself bubbling way too often for my liking. I have numerous 4th's when top 3 get paid in the S & G's. I finished 11th in a MTT with 267 entrants in which the top ten got paid (that was especially fun) and I finished 202nd in a 2500 player MTT in which the top 180 got paid.

I tend to find myself short stacked most of the time as I bubble, although there have been a couple of times where I got super aggressive and it cost me.

My question is this: is there any particular strategy that you employ as you get close to the money. The times I have been short stacked, I find myself with almost no choice but to push due to blinds. Do you play more aggressive, less aggressive??????/ Any advice would be appreciated.

I gamble like crazy in the early stages of MTTs. It may sound insane, but I like to jam with AK if I'm in late position and a bunch of people have limped. I much prefer going out in the first 30 minutes on an even-money shot than being forced all-in by the blinds on the bubble with 92o. In no way are you even close to a big payday in either situation, so why not take the risk early and save yourself some time if you lose?

As for going out on the bubble... it sounds like you aren't stealing enough. Tournaments are a test of skill in robbing the blinds and antes as often as possible. If you are fortunate enough to be seated to the right of someone who is obviously stealing blinds, you have the unique opportunity to snap off their blind steals with re-raises. The skill is all in seeing the table dynamics and exploiting the tendencies of everyone else.

The imporant statistic in SnGs is your return on investment. Total your profits (after buy-in and fees) and divide by the total of buy-ins and fees.

If this is in the 25-40% range then dont worry about how much you are bubbling, or your final position, you dont need any major strategy overhauls. Also look to improve your heads up play if youre not winning a reasonable percentage of those (given the starting chip stacks).

You arent getting rich from the difference between 1st and 3rd (but you can go broke finishing out of the money too much) ...you are grinding out an income by not finishing out of the money too often, which also means that when you are out of the money you are on the bubble often. If you are profitable but arent getting to the 25-40% range there are a number of places that could be looked at, but I wouldnt spend a lot of time thinking about short stack play..that is pretty straightforward if youve read Harrington Vol 2 and understand M.

BTW, your 37% in the money seems a little low to make a decent profit. If your distribution of wins was split evenly betwee 1/2/3 then you are only earning about 5%. In a 9 table tourney youre in the money 1/3 of the time just from random play. You should look to be in the money closer to 55% of the time. Then a distribution of 50% thirds, 30% 2ds and 20% 1sts should give you 35% or so return.

You may have the same problem I use to have. I'd wait too long to become aggressive and blind out not recognizing when it's too late. Read Dan Harrington's 2nd book. It has a chapter about M & Q. "M" is a way to calculate how many rounds you have left. I'll try not to butcher it...

For example let's say the blinds are 100-200 and you have 1000 in chips. Your M would be... 1000 / (100+200) = 3.333. This means you have less than 4 orbits before you blind out (red zone). you can't be waiting for premium hands, and when you push... it's gotta be all-in. You need to losen up more when you get in the 10-20 M range.

The next step is to calculate Q especially when it's short handed and SNGs as you talked about. Q is only used at the final table (10 or less players). Q for 4 players left would be 4/10 or 0.40.

Take the 3.333 x 0.40 = 1.333 or.... the dead zone. You've waited too late. Harrington explains all the levels & zones and how to play them. It's a good book, if I could only remember where I put it.

I see a lot of players making mistakes toward the bubbles of S&Gs and MTTs when they're on an extremely short stack. Maybe you're making this type of play. The mistake they make is in failing to quantify or estimate their fold equity. Often times I see players starting to push with any two cards just because they've read or heard that they MUST PUSH once their M is x or they have x big blinds.

There are times when you find yourself with almost no fold equity, and when that is the case, you need to give yourself a fighting chance with a reasonable hand.

I appreciate your replies. MK, I think you are partially correct. As I get closer and closer to being blinded out I certainly tend to lower the expectation of just what it is I am willing to push with. The other day, in the tourney I described above where I finished 11th (260 started, top ten got paid), I was at a table of 6, I was the shortest stack of the 11 total remaining players and I got A-J unsuited UTG.........in my mind at that point, I had to push, I really wanted all folds to steal blinds, but i guess others wanted me out because I got two calls (K-J unsuited and 9-9).

Going back in my mind, I certainly can recall making my stand with cards that arent so great, so I will try and watch what I make my move with. Thanks for the advice.

P.S. The flop on the hand above was 2-7-J, the turn a 4 and the river was a freaking 9. Oh well, ce la vi.

You're right to have less standards when deciding when to go all in on a short stack. There is no problem with the situation you described.

Just to hammer the point home:

Ten-handed table in a tournament on the bubble. Blinds at 600/1200 and you have 1600 on the button. It folds around to you. What range of hands do you move in with here?

Your M explanation is right, but not Q. What you are describing there is the adjusted M. Q is the ratio of your stack to the average stack. The lower it is the more aggressive you need to be.

Any hand that's a favorite over a random hand, i.e. any pair, Ax, Kx, any 2 offsuit cards T8 or better, any 2 suited cards 96 or better.

I was kind of asking the guy that needed help. But thank you. A gold star for MK.

Black X for both of you for answering a question with not enough information. There are stack and player profile considerations that might lead you to move in here with any 2 cards

I never answered it. I just posed it.

you answered it by giving a gold star to MK, indicating agreement!

I'll make it very simple. You have only seen one round at this table and have no reads on anybody. The BB and SB have you comfortably covered.

Even then there is at least one narrow case that still might lead you to move in with any two cards, and that is if SB and BB are also shortstacked (but have you covered) but SB has BB covered after BB calls you and pays his SB. Prize considerations might then lead SB to fold to secure that lead if BB succumbs to the TC pot odds, and cause BB to fold to not fall behind (or further behind) SB.

All of that is true if we can ignore the word "comfortably" in my response, yes.

lol...that depends on your definition of "comfortably". having you covered by 1M? 2M?

My only point is that you cant play with hard and fast rules. You need to analyze every situation in its entirety before you make a decision.

That is most definitely relevant and applicable to the situation at hand.

:twisted: The situation as presented still isnt close to all of the factors you might consider! I'm not saying they will change the decision often, but it does happen.

Sorry for responding to that, strat. I thought you were directing it at me.

As for what you guys discussed...I have to disagree with what copernicus said above. In fact, after thinking about it a bit more, I take back my initial response about pushing with any hand that's a favorite over a random.

This is an obvious example of having 0 fold equity. BB will be getting 8.5:1 on his call, which means it is correct for him to call with anything, even if he could put us on exactly AA. 72o vs. AA with both suits covered is only an 8.1:1 dog. If anything, there are considerations that would lead you to fold many hands that I included.

You are the button at a 10-handed table, which means you'll get to see 7 more hands before before the BB comes around.

Well, youre not really disagreeing with me. I wasnt excluding situations where you might decide to narrow your range, just pointing out that there is really no such thing as an auto-fold or auto-push without taking into account more information than was provided.

In your example though first Im not sure where you are getting 8.5/1. Even if SB calls there is 5600 in the pot with 1600 for BB to pay, or 3.5/1.

Also Im not sure why, if someone will call with any two cards you would tighten up your standards beyond beating the average hand. With a single opponent you push with hands that will beat his average calling hand, which in this case is the average hand.

Even though you have 7 hands to go before your next SB (not BB), you want a hand with only one or two callers which means that your middle and early position hands would be at much greater risk than you face now. That might lead me to loosen to a below average hand right now, especially if the stacks might lead either the SB or the BB to fold so we are heads up.

The pot size if you push is 3400. It's 400 for the BB to call. The 1200 he's already invested are not his chips. They are part of the pot.

No, the problem is that the BB is receiving such an excellent overlay, he can call profitably with every hand, which includes many below average hands.

You are going to have to show down a hand regardless of when you push, so you are better off waiting for a hand that gives the best chance of winning. And if you have to face more opponents, so be it. The possibility of triping or quadrupling up should outweigh the benefit of possibly getting it heads-up here with a marginal holding.

Isn't 55% it$ a bit unrealistic?

I thought anything over 40% was considered doing well.

For S&G's 55% is completely unrealistic long term. Anything over 40% is very good.

55% in the money finishes? I dont think thats unrealistic in a 9 table SnG if your first priority is to make it into the money, and let the cards determine your position in the money.

What kind of average "skill advantage" do you need to finish in the top 3 at 55% instead of 33%? It would take me a while to figure out how to do the math on that but intuitively if equal skill (50%) gets you in the money 33% of the time then improving that by 2/3 should take no more than a 1/3 * 2/3 improvement (because youve got 3 spots to improve to), so a 60/40 skill advantage should be enough. 1/3*2/3*.5=.11+.50=.61

Another way to estimate it is that there are 84 ways that 9 players can finish in the top 3, ignoring where in the top 3, and randomly 28 involve me. How much do I have to re-weight the 28 up (and the 56 down) to change the percentage Im involved in to 55%?

[28*60/40]/[28*60/40+56*40/60]=52.9%

My records arent as good as they should be, and ive been playing more MTTs than SnGs lately, but I think my in the money percentage is somewhere around 50%