I am wondering how many other winning poker players approach SnGs, especially 9 or 10 person (full table) SnGs. Specifically when you enter an SnG, is your stated goal to cash with the hopes of winning, or do you play to win?

I admit that I personally do not play to win. I play to cash. My goal is to play good, tight-aggressive poker. I don't call many raises, I let other players do that for the most part, but when I have hands I punish people for making mistakes. I try to avoid major confrontations or large pots early on with low blinds, unless they cannot be avoided. I just try to make sure that when I have a really good hand I maximize the winnings or minimize the risk, so I'm fine with raising large on AA or KK and having no calls. I actually do not like to see either hand early in a tournament. They are trouble hands, either I will double up if I get any action seemingly (the low buy-in SnGs are full of fish seemingly wanting to gamble it up) or I'll suffer a bad beat. I much prefer to see middle pockets so I can limp in an unraised pot and try to hit a set that will win me a lot of chips with less risk of a bad beat. All-ins before the flop just are not my cup of tea because I believe I can outplay opponents over the long run so having to make it about luck is just not my favorite situation.

My stats also reflect my general strategy. I pride myself on correct play near the bubble, and I can't even count the number of tournaments, probably most, where I'm 3rd, 4th or 5th in chips with 5 to play. Lately it has seemed like almost every tournament I think to myself, "Darn, I'm going to bubble aren't I?" But in the last 38 tournaments, since I started tracking again, I have only finished 4th one time. Quite a few more 5ths because I try to push hard and take advantage of people tightening up in that phase, so I'll do stuff like push all-in UTG with fairly weak hands if I'm down to 5-6 times the big blind (usually works but when I get called I'm usually at least holding live cards, haha). I've learned that you absolutely must have a large enough stack to scare people or your all-ins will just get no respect.

So I'm stoked about the way I am playing but let me share my stats and ask you guys how you play, if you see things a different way, etc.

In 38 tournaments I have cashed 25 times, including 8 straight and 12 of my last 13, 17 of my last 19, probably one of the greatest stretches in my poker career so far. Of those, 9 are 1sts, 4 are 2nds, and 12 are 3rds. Now I would normally be a bit concerned about the high number of 3rd place finishes, but actually because I have cashed more than 65% of the time I find them acceptable considering honestly a lot of those could have easily been bubble finishes. I rarely surrender a chip lead and bust out in third, so I'm not too disappointed. But what do you guys think? Do you play to win and thus have more bubbles but also more firsts? I've heard some people prefer that strategy because 1st pays so much better than 3rd.

As you can see though basically I either limp into the money and finish 3rd or I win, haha, I don't much mess around with 2nd. One of those 2nds, this last night of playing, Q-9 versus Q-6 (not all-in, we both flopped top pair) and he rivered me with the 6. That was kind of brutal. But in general I just don't finish 2nd. Once I make the money I start attacking blinds if the players are tight / weak or if they're aggressive I push all-in with the best hands I can find to steal blinds or double up and give myself a chance to win. I basically will admit I don't care about 2nd place. When it's down to 3 if I have enough chips to compete, I want 1st. If I don't, I'm willing to play very aggressive and take my chances and bust out in 3rd. I've also played a lot of heads up tournaments, about maybe 150 in a row on Poker Room at one point, so I have learned a lot about playing heads up and I think why I'm most proud of that 9 for 13 when it's down to 2 is because I generally don't have chip lead. One time on PR I won 11 heads-up tournaments in a row (but another time I lost 7 in a row, hehe, poker is a funny game).

Thoughts? Ideas? Criticisms?