45 Player SNG Tournament Strategy
Craig Fleck Crushes The Full Tilt 45-Man SNGs. Here We Bring You An Insight Into Craig’s Personal 45 Player SNG Tournament Strategy.
45 man tournaments is personally one of my favorite tournaments to play when sitting down at the tables. I mainly play on Full Tilt Poker when playing 45 mans; other websites do offer these tournaments but with a different structure. PokerStars offers turbo 45 man tournaments where antes eventually come into play unlike Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt is set up without antes ever coming into play which allows a player to sit around a little longer and gives them a chance to choose their spots rather than being forced into them. This is why prefer 45 mans on Full Tilt but nonetheless I am going to give you advice that will help you in these tournaments where ever you play 45 Man SNG Tournaments.
First off I am going to discuss the advantages of playing tight early in the tournament. Next I will talk about choosing yours spots by evaluating your opponents at the table. Finally I will discuss the advantages of being aggressive when the blinds are bigger and the pots actually mean something to your stack.
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SNG600
 45 Player SNG Strategy - Getting The Basics Right
Let’s start with my basic SNG strategy to every tournament and that is to play fairly tight and let the hands come to me. When starting the tournament I don’t like to get to fancy with the blinds only being 15/30. I only play strong Sit N Go starting hands (strong pairs, AK, or AQ) because there is no reason to get involved in the pot with mediocre hands when the pot is only 45 chips. My goal is preserve my chips as much as I can until the blinds/pot is more valuable. Hands like QJ and A9 can get you into a lot of trouble if you try to over play them because the majority of the time you will be dominated by a superior hand. Let the hands and situations come to you and avoid playing mediocre hands and I guarantee your results will only get better.
45 Player SNG Strategy - Opponent Specific Plays
The key behind taking advantage of certain situations is knowing your opponents at the table. It is very important to pay attention to the actions of your opponents and to take quality notes. For example let’s say you have AJ in the small blind and the player a couple spots to the right of you has been raising every chance he gets. Odds are your AJ would be ahead in this case because he is probably raising with any two cards and this gives you the opportunity to attack this player. Now say you have the same hand in the same situation but this time the player raising has never raised a pot before. This is the time where you may want to lay low because if the player is really tight then it may indicate him having a much stronger hand than AJ. This is where knowing your opponents and your table comes into play. Same situation but the players raising are 2 different kinds of players so evaluate the situation and try to make the best decision possible.
45 Player SNG Strategy - Selective Aggression
My last tip in these mini poker tournaments is to know when to be aggressive. Say there are 12 people left in the tournament, blinds are 250/500, and you have a stack of 4000. With a stack like this it’s either an all-in or fold so picking your spots correctly really comes into play in this point in time. A player in this position can sit around more than usual though because there are no antes eating away at your stack. Now let’s say we have the same amount players left and the blinds remain the same but instead you have a stack of 9500. In these types of tournaments you are sitting in a good position because the stacks don’t get deep in 45 man tournaments. Since there are only 12 people I would recommend being a little more aggressive and start raising mediocre hands like QJ and A9 (the hands I told you to stay away from earlier). I say this because only 6 players make the money and a lot of players will be timid to enter a pot because they are wanting to make some money back. Take advantage of this and become the aggressor.
Referral / Bonus Code = SNG600
I hope this advice will help you become a better 45 man SNG tournament player so let’s recap of what we went over. First off I really can’t stress this enough and I feel playing tight early will really help plus it’ll make the other players respect you when you need to take certain pots down. Secondly observe your table and take good notes on your opponents. Don’t let situations go by that would allow your chip stack to grow. Finally when other players become scared to enter the pot in hopes of making the money; this is when you need to become the aggressor and put the pressure on your opponents. Take this advice and apply it and see what it can do for you. If all else fails just run good and you’ll have no problem making the money. : )
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Further Reading On Multi-Table SNGs
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