In my quest to become a well rounded poker player, I have been trying my hand at tournaments. I have read Hoh 1 cover-to-cover 2x. i believe I fully understand the basic principles.

I have been playing the 45 and 9 man SNG's on Pokerstars. For the most part in the 9 man;s, I can make the final 4 pretty easy. In fact most of the time I generally am second or third in chips. This is where I run into all of my problems. I start to loosen up my play. While this generally works for quite some time, once players start to fight back I start spewing chips. I either stack off w/ a mediocre hand or I try to make a big move and get caught.



I have stacked off w/ a TPMK (Q9) against TPTK (AQ) when I have raised from the button and got a re-raise from the BB.

In all I think I need some type of guidelines for bubble play. I will be reading Hoh vol. II starting tommorow.

Why would you want to read HoH2 for SnG's?

It's really for MTTs and even here it has weaknesses and emphasizes pot odds too much. I don't think it discusses 9-man pushbotting at all. Alex' video or a PXF subscription plus learning/understanding ICM is what you want.

Well I have stopped spewing when I get near the bubble! Now I can't seem to win a coinflip or domination spot!

It seems that whetehr or not I make the money comes down to a big hand that I lose. Tonight it has been:

1010 vs AJ (AJ wins)

JJ vs 1010 (1010 wins)

KK vs AK (AK wins)


Winning any of those hands would have put me in a good spot to take either 1 or 2 in the SNG.

Variance, what a bitch.

SOOOO annoying. You sit and play well, playing good cards/good spots and you get run down by donks.