Strategy—single table

There are several different kinds of SnG's, ranging from single table events to multi table events. I prefer the single table SnG's because they take around an hour and that usually fits nicely into my playing schedule. While they have limit SnG's, I play exclusively NL so my strategies are all based on a NL table.The first order of business in any SnG is to determine who your opponents are. Most SnG's will have at least one guy who will be risking all or substantially all his chips very early, sometimes in the first few hands. Occasionally there will be two or three of these maniacs. You need to identify who they are immediately. It usually isn't difficult. The first round limits are 10-20, so if a guy raises it to 400 on the first hand, that's a pretty good indication. You basically want to avoid confrontations with the maniacs unless you've got a premium hand. If you've got aces and they raise it big, push it all-in. If you've got AJs, dump it. The maniacs hardly ever do well in SnG's. They may bust out two people in the first five hands and build their chip stack up to 5K, but they will piss it all back to the field because they just can't stop playing like a maniac. Sooner or later the tight players will push it all-in (usually with a very good hand) and the maniac will donate all his chips back. Happens all the time. Almost in every single SnG I've ever played.The next category of opponent is the "out of his element" player. This is the guy who thinks NL and limit are pretty much the same and so when he bets, he bets the minimum and when he raises, he raises the minimum. During the first round (10-20), he'll bet 10. When he raises preflop, he raises 20. These guys are not used to making (or facing) big bets and because they don't really know how much to bet, they just push the button Pokerstars provides to make the minimum bet allowed per limit. They generally try to limp into a lot of pots in the early rounds and will usually muck when facing large raises early.Then there are the "tricky" players. I put tricky in quotations because they are the players who think they know how to play SnG's but in reality are really very mediocre. These are the players who will limp with AA or KK trying to trap you. They make obvious position raises, tend to "pattern bet" and are just generally not very tricky at all. Most players fall under this category.Last but not least, are the real tricky and/or solid players. These guys won't hesitate to re-raise someone's weak preflop raise. They play tight but not too tight and when they enter a pot, they can play passively or aggressively, you just never know. These are the guys to watch out for. They change gears a lot, playing like a maniac for a hand or two, and then check-folding after they make a preflop raise. I sort of place myself in this category and fortunately for me, there aren't a lot of us playing the low limit SnG's.So that's a quick snapshot of your likely opponents. It doesn't take more than a hand or two to start getting a feel for who fits into which category. General Strategies:The early rounds: Limp often in the early rounds unless your table has more than one maniac. The idea is to see cheap flops while holding mediocre cards in hopes of catching a good flop. I will limp early in SnG's with hands like Kxs, T9, 56, Axs, QT, KT, J9 and other similar mediocre hands. I will call out of the SB with just about anything, exceptions are 72o and the like. Remember, this is not a ring game. Your goal here is to bust people out, not to save or gain an extra bet or two, like a ring game. You've paid your buy-in and are now no longer risking any money to call the extra half bet out of the SB, for example. So your thinking needs to be completely separate from ring game thinking regarding what you will limp with. When you get a big hand in the early rounds, either raise it big or limp. First, I will almost never limp with AA, KK or QQ. If I get one of those hands, I will raise at least 4x the BB. If someone has raised in front of me, I will re-raise (probably all-in). If I have AK, I will either raise or limp, depending on the kind of players I'm against. Usually I like to limp with AK and get rid of it if I miss the flop. I will even fold AK if one of the tight players raises big. Remember, I'm talking about the early rounds here. I usually won't get into huge preflop confrontations in the early rounds unless I have a big pair. Once you've limped, your post flop play needs to be very solid. You need to be prepared to fold top pair when you have a shitty kicker and someone makes a large bet in front of you. When you're in the pot with a hand like J9 and the flop comes J high, check it if there are 5 or more players in the pot. Evaluate the action before just automatically continuing. If someone bets the minimum, go ahead and call. If someone bets 300, dump it. When playing mediocre hands, you're looking for huge flops. Straights, flushes, two pair, etc. Flopping just top pair, or second pair is nothing to get excited about. When you flop a big but vulnerable hand, make large bets or raises to push out the draws. For example, you have 55, flop comes 5K9 with two of a suit. Someone bets 100 in front of you. Raise that bet huge - either all-in or close to all-in. Do NOT let someone draw cheaply when you flop a hand. If someone is going to draw out on you, force them to make a bad call to do it. If you get cute and try to suck them in with little bets, you'll get burned. Middle rounds: If you've survived the maniacs and the limits are at about 50-100, you will probably have a stack around 2K to 3K. Now you will tighten up your starting hand requirements. You will no longer be limping with mediocre hands. Even if the table is still passive and other players are doing a lot of limping, resist the urge to limp. You can occasionally limp with something like AJ, KJ and the like but otherwise you are mostly raising or folding. Now when you flop top pair, you will bet more aggressively. Your goal is still to bust players so you want strong hands, big aces, kings and queens and pocket pairs that can flop sets. Blind stealing: blind stealing is worthless in the early rounds. There's just not much tourney equity in stealing 30 chips. But once the blinds get to 50-100, a successful steal is worth 150. From that point on, be prepared to steal when its folded to you in a late position. I generally won't steal at this point unless I have at least a mediocre hand. A7s, KT, QJ, etc. If I've got 52o, I'm not going to attempt a steal. If you wake up with a premium hand in a steal position, all the better. If you've got AKs on the button and its folded to you, your raise will appear to be a steal raise and the blinds may play back at you. If the blinds play back at you while you're holding a premium hand, come back over the top.Dealing with a blind stealer: part of your strategy at this point will be to start "training" your opponents. If you're in the BB and its folded to the SB who makes a minimum increment raise (meaning the smallest raise possible given the current limit) re-raise him. If the SB just limps and you have any sort of playable hand, raise him then too. The idea is that you are training your opponents not to take shots at your blinds and also training the SB not to just limp hoping to see a cheap flop. The effect of this training is that your opponents will start folding to your BB which saves you from having to pay the BB for that round. (All of this advice assumes you have at least an average, if not above average stack).The End Game: One word. Aggression. When its down to 4 players, everyone gets tight. If you have a chip lead, start making large preflop raises regardless of your cards. Nobody wants to bust out fourth so your opponents will be folding just about anything to a large raise. Take advantage of that by stealing pot after pot, preflop. Your goal now is to build a huge chip lead so when it gets down to three and eventually heads up, you have a big lead. Now, I'm not suggesting you raise every single hand. But any ace, any two faces, any pocket pair (even 22), hands like that.When a short-stack goes all-in, don't be afraid to call him if you've got decent but not great cards. A5, K9, pocket pairs, etc. are all fine to try to take out a short-stacked player.If you and your opponents are all pretty much equal in chips, don't be afraid to be the one who's most aggressive. You may bust out but you have to be ready to risk that on any given hand. The goal is to win, not to just fold and fold and fold, hoping for AA. The best way to win is to push your opponents around so much that they finally play back at you with less than great hands. I call that the Gus Hansen Effect. Because you're raising so much at this point, when you actually have a great hand like AK or JJ, they will go all-in on you and then you get paid off.But. This is poker and nothing works every time. You will lose some big pots, big hands and even bust out in the first ten minutes if you run into some real bad luck. But that won't happen often.