Playing 180-man SNGs 'til I collapse!

Since my last post, I've made a few deep runs in these things, and have been playing with a lot of confidence and getting good results. I'm generally making it through the first hour with precisely the amount of chips I want, and gradually developing my stack through out the second hour. I bubbled the final table a few night ago, finishing 10th, and last night finished 5th. I haven't been playing as many as I did when I started playing these, which I think has helped me concentrate a bit more. There is one big key to keeping myself in check and not getting bored: I almost always have been watching a movie, or doing something else to occupy myself so that I'm not only looking at the tournament window for 4 straight hours.

I played two more tonight, made it through the first hour with decent stacks in both, and caught some bad cards to bust out early of one of them. The second I managed to get in some good spots and get my money in good into some big pots, as well as a mini-tear of super-aggression that wound up picking me up some valuable blinds and antes. I finished the second hour right around 20k, and in good shape for my second final table run in 2 days.

I made it to the final on a bit of a short stack, but wound up getting back up around 30k and holding my own for a while. There were 2 big stacks, one of which was a complete donk and was running the table over. I was down around 26k in chips when the following hand came up.

With 9 players still in, and blinds at 800/1600 with a 150 ante, I limp in UTG with 88. I had my finger on the raise button, but I didn't want to get shut out of the hand if I got re-raised, so I decided to limp and see what developed. Action folds around to the big stack, who also limps, the rest of the table folds to the BB who checks.

We see a 3 handed flop of A-T-6, and the BB checks. At this point, I'm pretty confident that no one has an ace. The way the big stack was playing, he would have raised with any ace preflop, and most likely any two cards 10 or higher, as well as most, if not every pair. I bet 3200, and the big stack raises to 8k. He had already done this about 6 or 7 times at this FT, and a few of those times he had done it to me. I had folded everytime.

The BB folds, and at this point the only hands I'm worried about are hands like 9-10, 8-10, or something to that effect, with this guy's stack and the way he was playing, I was almost sure he would've raised preflop with JT, QT, KT, and definately any ace. I'm feeling pretty good about my hand at this point and make the call.

Now, I had already resigned myself to the fact that all my money was going in on the turn unless a really sick card hit. The worst card for me probably would've been a 9 or possibly a jack, since a lot of the hands I put in his range would either contain a 9 or jack or give him some sort of straight draw, in which case he would call my shove. The turn comes a 7, and I've already made my decision. I know that if I check he's going to bet, at which point I'm comfortable enough with my hand to feel secure moving in. Sure enough, I check, and he bets about 4k or so less than I have. I shove the rest pretty much instantly, and he folds. That's right...

He folds.

For those of you who don't understand why that's such a big deal, I'll run through it.


He bet 11k into a pot that had about 35k in it. When I moved in, I only had 5 or 6k more than his bet, which laid him more than 7 to 1 on a call. Basically, if there's a 1 in 7 chance he has me beat, he has to call here. The fact that he folded means that there was no way he could beat any hand that would move in here, which probably meant that he had absolutely nothing and did not connect to the board in anyway. Why risk that much of your stack on complete air?


That hand wound up being the key hand of the tournament for me, and what gave me the ammo to get to third place. Unfortunately, I had some more swings by the time 3 handed play came down and was forced to shove with Q high preflop in hopes of stealing the blinds from the button. Big stack BB wakes up with AQ, and it's goodnight for me.

I'm still happy with the way I played, and I think the play with the 8s shows a higher level of confidence that I'm playing with lately. I probably don't make that call there a few weeks ago before I started playing these regularly, and I'm happy with the way I'm playing.


Of course I realize that 2 final tables in 2 days isn't common , especially because I've only played maybe 5 of these in those 2 days, however this tournament specifically was pretty encouraging because during the majority of the tournament I don't think I sucked out in a big all in pot. When my money went in, at least in the key developmental stages of the tourney, I had the best of it. There was one big bluff I pulled off during the second hour, but that's for another blog entry....