The SNG vs. MTT mentality and my insights from reading Felicia and 2+2

So, felicia (not going to link her as I don't want to appear to be a link whore as I just linked her earlier this week) made a post asking how much time do you study poker (hand histories and forums and books and such) and I realized that I don't do this very often. So today, as I recovered from some food poisoning I read through some 2+2 forums on MTTs. I haven't organized my thoughs, as per usual, so this post could be long or short (this is the most likely result) and very meandering and will likely not cover all the topics I wish to hit.

1) Restealing. I have never done this. I am not even sure if restealing is trying to steal from stealer or stealing from the person stealing from the stealer. In any case, I know that when I attempt a steal I am not typically doing it with utter crap, but I have done it with Q9o or 68s, so call it what you will. Once I make a steal move, how I react typically depends upon how much of my stack I have put in and how much of a raise there is. If I put in 4BB that equal 10% of my stack, I will lay down to a huge raise. If I am simply reraised my bet, I will smooth call and see if the flop hits me in the belly with the thought that if it hits me well I will get paid off. Unlike the guys at 2+2 I don't know if this is + or - EV and, frankly, I don't know even how to figure that out. What I do know is that my game has changed over the last three plus years and that without studying hand histories, I still learn from my mistakes if they are big ones. My concern is that I am making a lot of non-obvious mistakes and not realizing it. Clearly, my total EV is positive since I am significantly ahead in poker.

2) MTT and SNG contrast/comparrison. I was reading a post on 2+2 regarding using SNGs as experience for bubble play and final table play in MTTs. Let me say this: SNG play is very different from MTT play for the most part. Getting to the final table in a MTT and playing the final ten is not at all akin to playing a 10 person SNG. Why? First because someone comes in with a huge chip stack in the MTT, wherein everyone in a SNG comes in the same. Second, in your average SNG you are looking at 5 people who are worse than you (Perhaps that sentence should be altered to a first person perspective since this might be read by a true fish), while in a final table at a MTT you are looking at 9 other players who have over the passed 5 hours+ shown that they are not the typical fish. You may find 1-3 who have just hit cards (that may be how I've found my way into final tables, but I'd like to think that is not the case). Third, the blind structure in a MTT will likely equate to a higher amount to start than the SNG (the SNG that I play at starts with 1000T and 5/10 blinds thus the BB is 1/100 of your stack). Unless you have built a stack quickly and early, your final table blinds will likely be at least 800/1600 with average chip stacks much less than 160000 (if the size of the tourney is larger, each of the numbers will be larger, but the unrelated proportion rings true). Additionally, the blinds in a SNG will raise at a quicker rate as a proportion of your stack than a MTT.

This is not to say that SNG are useless to the MTT player. Once the blinds reach 30/60 in a SNG, you will begin seeing tighter hand selection and early bubble play. Thus, bubble play last 30-50 hands in a SNG. 30-50 bubble play hands per SNG can lead to assistance with MTT bubble play.

What I have learned about bubble play is this:
a) Blind stealing is important.
b) Not getting involved in many hands is important.
c) Raising with moderate hands in late position with a chip stack is important.
d) Knowing that the other players know a, b, and c and if they don't they won't be bubbling unless they are hitting cards.
e) Knowing when to push, and when to fold. Pushing is a must. See below.

Given the above, I disagree with some 2+2ers on something. It has been said that you want to induce your opponent to make bad calls or have them dedicate more to the pot than they want. What I haven't seen is anyone discuss the -EV of letting people see flops during bubble play. I am sure it has been, but not on the forum posts I read today. Why is this? Variance gets in the way. Lets say you are middle chip stack with 5 left and top three pay. Inducing calls from marginal hands may be a profitable thing to do in a cash game and may pay off more tournament chips in the long run, but guess what, I don't play tournaments to get tournament chips, I play them to make money. More tournament chips may help to get there, but they are not an ends themselves. You may get a call with QJ if you raise 300T when you have 77 and you may hit your 7 to make trips 1 out of 7 times on the flop but you will not get much more in terms of T chips from the QJ if they haven't hit their q or j. What if you miss and the flop comes J62 rainbow. Will you donk off more chips with your 77 trying to get a feel for where you are? What about when the flop comes 8910? Will you waste chips chasing a draw? What this really gets to is this: You are in a 50/50 hand where you will most likely donk off some more chips or just take pot. Now there is a corrolary to this: If you raise some much that you would only be called by a premium hand, then you are getting the dog of it in the long run. I guess this is true, but we must then discuss what is a premium hand in a bubble situation and then apply the real world situation.

You know what, I am going to stop there because I was going to get into a big discussion re: not wanting action in bubble situations without having the math handy, plus there are so many scenrios that must be taken into account, such as chip stacks, position, prior play, etc. My statement is simple and not backed up by math, so take it for what it is, my undocumented experience playing poker, saying that action on the bubble allows variance that you don't want. Ideally you keep the small stacks from seeing anything cheap, and thus forced to put their money in the pot as dogs or for them to get blinded to the point where even if they have the best of it going in that it would still be an EV to call them (such as they are so short stacked the blinds have to call or that doubling up doesn't really help them).

3) I don't look at hand histories. To be honest I am not really all that hip on how to use them to improve your game. Part of that reason is that I play nearly exclusively on paradise, with which poker tracker only works if you mail hand histories to yourself, and that is a lot of email to be sending to myself. Again, I know what hands I should and should not be playing. I still play K6 if I am the first one in the pot. I still play 9Qo too often. I probably dont' get the right EV for hands like KK or whatever. I know I play small pocket pairs more than I should. But these are reasons I don't play cash games online. I want to know more about people's experience using PT or other such tracking programs with SNG and MTT because how you play a hand is influenced by more than position. It is affected by the blinds/length of time into the tourney, whether you are about to bubble, how you played the hand the last time, whether you are trying to induce players all in, whether you have a read on players as being ultra tight or loose, and so on. Being as I am the most experienced poker player in the group I discuss poker with, I don't have these answers and haven't chatted with more experienced players about such things, so if you have a moment, let me know how PT or its like do with MTT or SNG stats.

4) Making the money on MTT. Profitability of MTT only arrives when you can reach the final table on a semi-regular basis. However simply reaching the final table does not provide a profitability as any MTT knows. Making the money is little more than getting your buy-in back. Heck, rarely does one make any significant gain in a tourney without reaching a final table. And on several occassions, making the final table does not assure a significant gain. In any MTT the real goal is top 5 (preferably top 3). This is where the money is, and we all know it. So why am I repeating what you already know? So I can think of myself as smart for figuring it out by myself, duh! Actually, the reason I say this is because I must decide my MTT strategy. There can be two opposing strategies. The first is guns blazing, build a chip stack and risk getting knocked out so that you can coast into a top 5 one out of every X tournaments. The other strategy is simple survival wherein you rely on thhe guns blazing players to knock out other players until you make the money and the final table. The goal under this theory is that if you do this enough cards will hit you flat in the face and you will do more than survive once you hit the final table and you might finish top 5 or better. I think my style is first hour hands received dependant. I think I play my hands as they come for the first hour. If I get good hands, I try to see what I can get for them. If I get knocked out, oh well. If I get 27o for the first hour, I will post and fold and not force it. Then, once I know where I stand after most of the idiots have been eliminated I will choose my path. I don't really choose these routes conscoiusly, more I play to what my chip stack allows.

I don't know why I just posted this except to expose myself for the donkey I am. Feel free to stop by my table and tell me I am going down.