Game Summary:
Full Tilt Poker
$2 SNG
Finished 1 out of 9
Gain: $6.75
It's January 1. 2007 is only 2 hours old. I just got back from my improv show (www.nationalcomedy.com).
Let's dive into a game. I log into Full Tilt and find a $2 SNG to play. The other games were just not filling up at the time and I wanted to get into any game ASAP.
I decide to use my regular SNG strategy. Play tight in the first few level and hope to get lucky. Then look for double up opportunities and get the medium stacks to fold. Then play aggressive when 4-5 handed play.
I think the key to my success here was patience. I was running pretty card dead the first few levels. I maybe won only two hands and not for much. You don't want to give up a lot of chips on mediocre hands. Let the aggressive players win these small pots because you can use it against them later on.
Mistake people made. Very quickly we lost three players.
Two players decide to try and double up fast in the second level. With two limpers, the button goes all-in with 1,120 with KQo. The big blind calls with pocket 7's. King on the turn give it to the button and 7's are knocked out. The problem - we have gamblers and they overplayed their hands. KQ wanted to steal the pot, they could have done that with a small raise. Pocket 7's is a low to medium pair, the likelihood was that they were up against two overs. It's just too soon to put your tournament at risk.
Turning points. Throughout this game, I'm basically just trying to stay alive and look for moments to earn some chips. It wasn't until the 10th level that things turned around. Blinds are at 120/240 and I have 1500 in chips. I'm battling a passive player, slowly building a pot until I finally the river hits my hand and I win a 1040 pot. Later I'm dealt AK against the chip leader. I go all-in against his pocket Jacks and double up with a King on the flop.
You've got to win races in order to win tournaments.
When I'm head to head, my strategy is to figure out how the other person is playing. My opponent was playing tight. I basically stole whenever I could and fold under aggression. We played for almost 30 minutes, because I didn't want to go all-in with him unless I felt I could beat him. And I finally did.
Finally, I'm dealt KQo and I'm faced with a large raise. I figure I'm against a low pocket pair so I call and I'm up against 6's. Queen on the flop and I will 90% of the chips.
Last hand I have A8o and I'm raised all-in again. I call against Q-10 and I win the tournament.
Good start to the year.
Alan Ng
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