SNG Lesson with Jennifear (P5's)

[Fritters]

So this past week I had a SNG lesson with Jennifear, a well respected pocketfives (www.pocketfives.com)member and a true SNG genius! I asked her permission to post about some of the different scenarios from the lesson and she said it was fine, so later on I'll be posting some of the examples that we worked through to demonstrate how to play different spots in a 9-max SNG. For now, I'm just going to give a very general summary of the lesson for anyone interested.

Basically, I filled out a form describing how I play certain spots in a SNG and what I feel my trouble areas on. From there, Jen asked me a bunch of questions regarding push/fold techniques for heads up, 3 handed and 4 handed. This was about 40% of the material we went through and we covered everything in great detail. She was very clear at explaining things and was more than willing to sidetrack from her lesson plan when I had questions - which is awesome since many teachers have trouble with stuff like this. In addition to this, she sent me links to a variety of online tools to help me analyze my play on my own.

Next, we talked briefly about low blind play - but I'm pretty good at that already so we only spent about 10% of the time here. Still, I learned a lot to improve my game here - mostly taking advantage of my position.

We spent the rest of the time talking about mid blind play, which is where I struggle the most. Just by looking at my SNG's finishes on sharkscope, Jen was able to determine multiple holes in my mid level play (stacks of 12-16 BB) and I'm already seeing results here just after some minor corrections.

In short, what I ended up with was an 85 page IM conversation that is effectively a SNG books written specifically for the holes in my game. I was absolutely amazed at how quickly and precisely we covered material that I was fuzzy on, most of which I didn't even know I had problems with.

I'll post some of the specific things we did in this thread later on, but for anyone who is serious about learning the details of SNG's, I would recommend shooting Jen an email. She is very good at giving you great info, and giving it to you at a level that you'll understand. Her website is www.jennifear.com and the lessons are currently $199 for a 4 hour session (though, I expect this to go up since she keeps getting excellent results from her students).

Also, she's from Niagara Falls so I asked her if Seneca's tourney buy-in fee was beatable and she said absolutely and kept referring to the poker room there as her old candy shop (before she became an online baller)!

[jc17]

Originally Posted by Fritters

So this past week I had a SNG lesson with Jennifear, a well respected pocketfives (www.pocketfives.com)member and a true SNG genius! I asked her permission to post about some of the different scenarios from the lesson and she said it was fine, so later on I'll be posting some of the examples that we worked through to demonstrate how to play different spots in a 9-max SNG. For now, I'm just going to give a very general summary of the lesson for anyone interested.

Basically, I filled out a form describing how I play certain spots in a SNG and what I feel my trouble areas on. From there, Jen asked me a bunch of questions regarding push/fold techniques for heads up, 3 handed and 4 handed. This was about 40% of the material we went through and we covered everything in great detail. She was very clear at explaining things and was more than willing to sidetrack from her lesson plan when I had questions - which is awesome since many teachers have trouble with stuff like this. In addition to this, she sent me links to a variety of online tools to help me analyze my play on my own.

Next, we talked briefly about low blind play - but I'm pretty good at that already so we only spent about 10% of the time here. Still, I learned a lot to improve my game here - mostly taking advantage of my position.

We spent the rest of the time talking about mid blind play, which is where I struggle the most. Just by looking at my SNG's finishes on sharkscope, Jen was able to determine multiple holes in my mid level play (stacks of 12-16 BB) and I'm already seeing results here just after some minor corrections.

In short, what I ended up with was an 85 page IM conversation that is effectively a SNG books written specifically for the holes in my game. I was absolutely amazed at how quickly and precisely we covered material that I was fuzzy on, most of which I didn't even know I had problems with.

I'll post some of the specific things we did in this thread later on, but for anyone who is serious about learning the details of SNG's, I would recommend shooting Jen an email. She is very good at giving you great info, and giving it to you at a level that you'll understand. Her website is www.jennifear.com and the lessons are currently $199 for a 4 hour session (though, I expect this to go up since she keeps getting excellent results from her students).

Also, she's from Niagara Falls so I asked her if Seneca's tourney buy-in fee was beatable and she said absolutely and kept referring to the poker room there as her old candy shop (before she became an online baller)!

Sounds great, I can't wait for the examples.

Also, $199/4 hours is a VERY good price for 1-on-1 coaching.

[harryn]

Wow this sound great!!! I should consider taking advantage before the price goes up.
Thanks for posting on the site.

[themerk]

cool. i am looking forwad to seeing her thoughts on things in reguards to SNG strategy. i listen to the pocket 5's podcast every week but havent checked the site in awhile. i probly need to do so.

[Fritters]

Heads Up Play in SNG's

Probably one of the most valuable things I learned was how to play heads up when the blinds are very high. We used a Nash calculator to determine how to play from the SB with different stack sizes, where your play is determined by the number of BB in whoevers stack was shortest. The tool we used to determine push ranges can be found at http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sn...alculator.html and is FREE! Here is an example of the output and a run through of how to read it. Here, I've entered blinds of 300/600 - 50 with both players having stacks of 5000.

You'll notice that the SB can profitably push 68.3% of their hands and the BB should be calling with 45.4%.

A few things about these ranges - they are ideal. If the SB always plays the Nash range and the BB always calls the Nash range, then both players are playing a perfect game.

Another thing to look at is the hands that they expect the BB to call with, like J7s and T9 offsuit. In my experience (and Jen's), players are not willing to call off a 10BB stack with hands this weak. This means you can profitably push even WIDER than 68.3%!

Not giving away all the details, here is what I learned by using this website and considering different ranges I expect players to call with.

With ~10 BB SB can push 100% of hands profitably (we did the calculation for 23o and sure enough, it's profitable when you're around 10BB).

Around 7~9 BB, SB can push about 75% (players are more willing to call here).

Around 5 BB or less, SB can push around 80% of hands.

So what can you take from all this? When you get heads up play very very very aggressive from the SB! It's fun and it even has math to back it up!

Whether or not you should call from the BB if the SB pushes is less interesting - it's a straight pot odds calculation. If you think a call will earn you more chips in the long run, then make the call otherwise fold and push your small blind.

More to come later in the week...

[billyb1969]

I can't wait to see what you have learned. gl btw

[theman]

Good stuff here Fritters.

[JEWCY]

excellent posts. these should really help people and one of the better threads i have seen in a while

[harryn]

Originally Posted by Fritters

Heads Up Play in SNG's

Not giving away all the details, here is what I learned by using this website and considering different ranges I expect players to call with.

With ~10 BB SB can push 100% of hands profitably (we did the calculation for 23o and sure enough, it's profitable when you're around 10BB).

Around 7~9 BB, SB can push about 75% (players are more willing to call here).

Around 5 BB or less, SB can push around 80% of hands.

So what can you take from all this? When you get heads up play very very very aggressive from the SB! It's fun and it even has math to back it up!

Good post!
Does it matter how many BBs your opponent has?

[Fritters]

Play is determined by whoever has the shortest stack, since that is effectively what you're playing for. So if you have 20BB and your opponent has 5BB, you should play the 5BB strategy.

Also, I'm getting way too much credit for this thread - I'm just a messenger! If you like the stuff that I'm posting, splurge for the lesson - you will not regret it.