ROI: 100%

Of course I realize that this is not statistically significant at all, but it still looks pretty nice :-)

This is how my most recent SNG went, it was 121 games. I thought that I had not played very well, but on reflection it seems that I made only three mistakes: twice refusing to call despite good or even great pot odds, and once overbetting AA preflop after an early raise. Overall, I am quite happy with the way I played here.


Hand 1: AK as BB, three callers. I raise to 4BB (160), only SB folds. Flop KK2... check. UTG checks, button tries to steal by betting 160. I flat call, UTG goes all-in! I call, he has JK.

AcJd in EP, call 40. Button raises to 200, player before me and I call. Flop K72 clubs, we both check, button bets pot. Other player folds but I have enough odds to call. Turn 2d, we both check. Flop 6h, I bet 200 into pot of 2000 as a steal attempt. He raises to 760. The pot is 3000 and I need to pay 560, those are great odds but I basically have nothing and I believe he has something. Still, at those odds it looks like I should have called.

AQ in EP, raise to 4BB = 400, all fold. I had noticed that bets of 200 and 300 were getting called.

K4 on button, all fold, 300 is enough to get them to fold here.

JJ UTG, raise to 300. CO calls, others fold. Flop T97, two clubs. On this dangerous-looking flop, I bet 500 into 750 pot. He raises me all-in (2500), I call although I basically expect him to have an overpair. And indeed he turns over QQ, but the turn is a Jack... Was it a bad call? I have to call 2000 into a 4000 pot. Given that he has a higher pair, I have 2 (J) + 4 (8) = 6 outs plus a backdoor flush draw, so maybe 7 outs in total. That's actually almost 30%! That nearly gives me the right odds to call, plus of course he might be bluffing (10% possibility according to Harrington :-) ) which gives me easily the right odds to call. Interesting, when I made the call and he showed his QQ I was pretty sure that it had been a bad mistake. Very surprising!

A hand that I was not involved in: button with AQ goes all-in for 1800, SB calls all-in for 1200 with KQ. Again, this looked very stupid, but I now see that he had to call 1100 into a 1500 pot. Against any pair below queens he is only slightly behind, a higher pair is extremely unlikely given the all-in, and even against AQ he has I think reasonable chances (38%?). Given that the button might also have been bluffing, again this was a good call. Whether the SB made these calculations is of course another question entirely...

AA as SB, EP raises to 4BB = 800. I reraise to 1600, not very subtle. After long thought, he folds. Silly move from me. Stack 6400.

A8, I raise to 3BB = 1200 UTG, five players left. Small stack calls for 740 with QQ and wins. Stack down to 4700.

A few hands later, I get TK as SB and raise to 1200 again. Same opponent calls, this time with 1480 and 74o! The 7 on the river keeps him alive, and I am now down to 3600 (blinds 200/400).

I steal a few pots and meet no resistance, but am "only" managing to remain stable. Down to 3 players, the one to my right has 10k and soon 12k. However, I then re-steal from him with A9 (all-in) and 55 (all-in). Both times he refuses to call. This puts me up to 7k suddenly. On the next hand, I go all-in for the third consecutive game, I have again A9 and do not get called: 8k. Then, the small stack moves all-in with 67, the big stack calls with A8 and the board comes 7-5-T-7-J. Now we suddenly all have about equal stacks!

With T7c, I (BB) and SB see a flop 963 with two clubs. He goes all-in, making it 6000 for me to call into a pot of 7200. I am actually favorite to get either a flush, a straight, or an overpair. And it in fact seems likely that an overpair would be sufficient to win this hand. Nevertheless, at this point I do not like to stake my tournament on a few draws and cowardly fold. (I had not actually looked at the odds that PokerOffice showed me here.)

Three hands later, my opponents go all-in against eachother: one raises to 3BB = 1800, other raises to 4200 with A9s, first one goes all-in on J8s and his opponent calls again. The moves of the A9 player were perhaps somewhat reasonable, but the J8 player was of course being a complete idiot. He cannot expect to be ahead here and more importantly, is giving me free money since I am now guaranteed at least a second place. This is the player that had 12k just 20 hands or so ago...

So the heads-up phase starts two hands later with him eliminated, blinds 300/600, my stack 5.5k and his 14.5k. On the very first hand, I call a minraise with T6 (note: you should usually call minraises heads-up with any two cards, just as you should call as SB; the pot odds are great) and flop a straight: 789. I check and he is nice enough to bet 2400 and call my all-in checkraise with 82.

Three hands later, I call with 92 and he checks with 84. Flop Q67, he checks and I make a continuation bet of 600. He calls so I am going to check from here on. Turn 5 gives him a straight... and he decides (naturally) to slowplay. However, the river is an 8, giving me a 9-high straight. Now he starts betting and we quickly get it all-in.