Ive been reading books, SNG strategy mailing lists,and videos.
But i cant seem to beat micro sngs!!!
Its SO frustrating!
I feel like im playing my best (using all the skills ive learned) but i still cant win!!
Im going to post some hand histories from yesterday where bubbled or finished late.
Literally ANY comments or suggestions are welcome and MUCH appreciated!

I played 6 sng yesterday and only caashed in 1 leaving me with LITERALLY A NEGATIVE $6.66 PROFIT like wtf!



#1 BUBBLE 6MAX- This hand basically sums up this past week.

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 100/200 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 3.94 BB
BB: 10.88 BB
UTG: 10.43 BB
MP: 6.02 BB
CO: 6.88 BB
Hero (BTN): 6.88 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q Q

fold, fold, CO raises to 6.88 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 6.88 BB and is all-in, fold, fold

Flop: (15.25 BB, 2 players) 4 5 7

Turn: (15.25 BB, 2 players) 6

River: (15.25 BB, 2 players) A

CO shows T Q (Flush, Ace High)

Hero shows Q Q (One Pair, Queens)

CO wins 15.25 BB

# 2 BUBBLE 6MAX

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 50/100 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 17.67 BB
Hero (UTG): 10.81 BB
CO: 31.11 BB
BTN: 9.1 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 8 8

Hero raises to 10.81 BB and is all-in, CO raises to 31.11 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 9.1 BB and is all-in, fold, fold

Flop: (32.22 BB, 3 players) Q T J

Turn: (32.22 BB, 3 players) 4

River: (32.22 BB, 3 players) 7

Hero shows 8 8 (One Pair, Eights)

Main Pot [28.8 BB]: (Pre 2%, Flop 7%, Turn 4%)
Side Pot#1 [3.42 BB]: (Pre 50%, Flop 48%, Turn 39%)

CO shows 8 8 (Flush, Jack High)

Main Pot [28.8 BB]: (Pre 2%, Flop 11%, Turn 23%)
Side Pot#1 [3.42 BB]: (Pre 50%, Flop 52%, Turn 61%)

BTN shows T T (Three of a Kind, Tens)

Main Pot [28.8 BB]: (Pre 95%, Flop 82%, Turn 74%)

CO wins 32.22 BB



#3 BUBBLE 9MAX

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 75/150 NL - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (CO): 9.87 BB
BTN: 19.3 BB
SB: 18.04 BB
BB: 42.79 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A 8

Hero raises to 9.87 BB and is all-in, BTN raises to 19.3 BB and is all-in, fold, fold

Flop: (21.23 BB, 2 players) J 8 T

Turn: (21.23 BB, 2 players) 6

River: (21.23 BB, 2 players) J

Hero shows A 8 (Two Pair, Jacks and Eights)
(Pre 29%, Flop 19%, Turn 9%)
BTN shows 9 9 (Two Pair, Jacks and Nines)
(Pre 71%, Flop 81%, Turn 91%)
BTN wins 21.23 BB

#4 BUBBLE 9 MAX

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 150/300 NL - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 12.82 BB
Hero (CO): 4.79 BB
BTN: 22.64 BB
SB: 4.74 BB

4 players post ante of 0.08 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.83 BB) Hero has A 6

Hero raises to 4.71 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 4.71 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (11.25 BB, 2 players) 8 3 Q

Turn: (11.25 BB, 2 players) 5

River: (11.25 BB, 2 players) 6

Hero shows A 6 (One Pair, Sixes)
(Pre 70%, Flop 52%, Turn 0%)
BTN shows 6 T (Flush, Queen High)
(Pre 30%, Flop 48%, Turn 100%)
BTN wins 11.25 BB

#5 (This game was kinda me tilting)
Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 25/50 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 38.48 BB
Hero (BB): 13.88 BB
UTG: 41.1 BB
UTG+1: 53.06 BB
MP: 28.48 BB
MP+1: 28.5 BB
CO: 28.1 BB
BTN: 38.4 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A J

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 6 BB, fold, Hero raises to 13.88 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 7.88 BB

Flop: (28.26 BB, 2 players) 2 7 Q

Turn: (28.26 BB, 2 players) 4

River: (28.26 BB, 2 players) Q

Hero shows A J (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 59%, Flop 13%, Turn 7%)
BTN shows K Q (Three of a Kind, Queens)
(Pre 41%, Flop 87%, Turn 93%)
BTN wins 28.26 BB

#6 (The one i cashed but still. WTF!!)
Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 100/200 NL - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 18.97 BB
SB: 48.54 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K 9

SB raises to 2 BB, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop: (4 BB, 2 players) Q 9 6
Hero checks, SB bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Turn: (8 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero bets 2.67 BB, SB calls 2.67 BB

River: (13.34 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero bets 6.67 BB, SB calls 6.67 BB

Hero shows K 9 (Two Pair, Queens and Nines)
(Pre 41%, Flop 80%, Turn 5%)
SB shows 6 A (Full House, Sixes full of Queens)
(Pre 59%, Flop 20%, Turn 95%)
SB wins 26.68 BB



P.s Books: Crushing Low Stakes Poker- Mike turner, Winning SNG Poker- Charles Sherwood, Essential Poker Math- Alton Hardin)

How many games have you played in total? If you're still loosing after 1k games you might do sth. Wrong but with 6 games you can't say that you can't beat micros.. that is called variance

Gesendet von meinem SM-G920F mit Tapatalk

As Timoroga mentions, how many games have you played in total? Short term results mean very little, due to the variance factor in poker. You'd need at least 1k games for turbos/non-turbos and even more for hypers. Poker requires determination and a long term view.

As to the hands:

#1: Nothing to say here. Just bad luck.

#2: Depends a bit on stats of other players and game dynamics so far. 8-8 is a good hand but you are shoving into 4 players here. If there are a couple of loose callers behind you this isn’t the greatest spot. Depends a bit on dynamics: if you haven’t gotten any chance to get in the pot previous hands and you’re really looking for a spot, this looks good. Otherwise it’s a close one.

# 3 You’re shoving into the big stack in the big blind here, which isn’t great. Plugged this hand into SNG Wizard and it says to fold here. Wiz says to shove 88+, AQ+, AJs+ in this spot. Obviously this is on average opponent modelling and could be different a bit depending on the stats of the actual players at your table. But in general, A8o is a fold.

#4 Nothing much to say about this hand. With just 4.8 BB left, standard to get it in.

#5 Weird 6x raise from the button. Thing is with 38 BB and when he raises to 6 BB, you know he’s never going to fold when you shove. So the question is what he’s doing that with here and how your hand stacks up to that. Making such a big raise, it’s often going to be a decent hand that villain is not sure how to play post-flop.

Using an equity calculator, I give him a range of JJ-22,A2s+,KTs+,QJs,A2o+,KTo+,QJo. Your A-J is 59% to win against that range. Doing the math, you risk 644 chips to gain 719, so you’d need at least 47% equity. This doesn’t factor in ICM though, meaning you’d need a little more equity, say 50%. Mathematically speaking this would be marginally profitable. If you had some fold equity here (e.g. if he minraised) this would def be a +EV play. But with 0 fold equity it’s only marginally profitable.

#6. No info on opponent, which makes it hard to analyze hand. But readless: I think call pre is standard, could 3-bet if we think he’s opening wide. Flop: what’s your intention here? Check-calling out of position is a bit awkward. Also, your stack is short and there isn’t much room to play post-flop at all.

On flop when villain bets, the pot is 6 BB and you have 17 BB behind. You have to make up your mind here whether you’re going with the hand or not. Only if villain were very tight-passive and you think you can let the hand check down to the river a lot, could you consider a check-call. But in other cases, on this draw-heavy type of board: are you going to just check-call all the way down? Against an aggressive opponent who c-bets with a wide range, check-shoving here is a good play. You also get value from calls with flush and straight draws, worse 9x and 6x.

Turn is weird small bet, depends on reads what you think he has. Check-calling creates a pot of 13.3 BB and you have only 6.67 BB behind. You’re effectively committed. Assuming you’re not folding the river, might as well check-shove here to get value from his draws. If he misses his draw, there’s a good chance he’s not paying you off on the river.

Thanks Mike, I appreciate your insight. A lot of what you say makes sense.


Here is a ~300 out of 640 game sample which is i know is basically all $1.50 and $3.30 9 max SNG
I know being -$76 (-$126 overall, personal worst atm) sense i started studying and playing sngs isnt a lot money but when im playing an average stake of $1.91 its painful for me to look at when I know i should have an advantage over my opponents but my results dont show that.
what do you think?
(It appears the picture isnt working but ive played )

What makes you think you have an advantage over the players after a 600game sample and reading couple books? That's completely false. Never underestimate your opponents.
If you want to be more confident whether you are bad or good or in between. Buy HEM2 or PT4 and look at the EV(Expected value) line to see if you are being lucky or unlucky and how you should be running.
Don't give up if things go bad at the start, everyone starts off being bad. Just improve and keep the stakes low until you can prove you beat that stake.
Right now the reality is you are most likely not good enough to beat the rake or maybe win very marginal, but you gotta find a way to improve and i'm not talking about reading books. Buy an icm calculator and learn how to work with that and things should improve a lot.

Agree with STTranger: what makes you think you have an advantage over your opponents? Just because you've read some books doesn't automatically mean you're better than the other players. Underestimating your opponents (or overestimating your own abilities) is a big trap and can lead to an attitude where you think you're entitled to win or feel there's no need to improve.

Okay, so that's a 300 game sample of SNGs within that graph? That's not a very big sample so you can't draw any real conclusions yet on your profitability in SNGs.

Apart from results, here are some tips to work on your game:

* Review the games you played after a session. See where you've potentially made mistakes and try to find out what the leaks in your game are.
* Study (poker books, training videos).
* Work with programs like SitnGo Wizard and Holdem Manager to review and improve your game, and study ICM.
* Get an outside view on your game by hiring a poker coach.

If you want, you can send me 1 or 2 Hand Histories of SNGs you've played. I could then make a review video of it for my YouTube channel. Might be a cool idea and useful for you to get a review of your game.

Dude, wtf. How can you claim to have read books, watched vids etc. about poker and then post 5 ridic obv jams and one lolbad played HU hand? Every good beginners book will tell you, that playing poker is about making the best decisions under limited information and the results are irrelevant, because you have no influence on how the cards fall. Apart from the last hand you played everything correct.

How do I know when I have beaten the stakes and when to move up?

Your book was actually one of my first and favorites that ive read and i like to think was the cause of that mini upswing (hopefully first of many) where the significant wins are lol!
Thanks for the videos in the back as well. Took notes on all of them.
It was hard to watch one all the way through because all it made me wanna do is play and try out what ive learned!
Im going to go through my sng histories now and see if i can find anything im stumped on.

It's best to have a tool that keeps track of all your games and results, this way it will be way clearer to see you beat it or not especially if you mix with different games. There is no magic number of how many games you need to know your winrate, but the higher your true winrate, the faster you will know you beat it or not. If you true winrate is low, you might be losing for several thousand games, but actually be a slight winner longterm.
But if your true winrate is very high, you gonna see it quickly after like 1000games you beat the stakes or not longterm.
I know you wanna hear a number, so i'll give you one.
I would say play like 3000games and look at the EV line that is available in hem2 and PT4 and if the EV is positive over that sample, you can be fairly sure you are beating the stakes, but it's up to you whether you are happy enough with that winrate or not. Never stop improving, never just play, everyone can always get better. Look at leaderbords in sharkscope to see winrates from other players in your games and compare it with yours to know how much you can at least improve more and know you can even go beyond them, but then it's more than likely time to move up if you can afford to do so.
And pls never post those silly hands again, what you want us to say about calling an allin for 7BB's with QQ ? Wow you are so unlucky but you played it perfect, so you probably winner longterm, but just get unlucky? C'mon...
If you are interested, look at an equity calculator like equilab (free) and you will see how often a hand will win or lose.
It's clear that you are just getting into poker, so you have a long way to go. Gave you some really useful tips that can go a long way. You have to put in the work now, more we can't help unless you post hands that are actually interesting/helpful for you instead of wanting to hear how unlucky you are.
I understand that people want to show hands like that, it's something very inexperienced players do, but now that you know, never do it again unless you are talking with your grandma, but not on a pokerforum as nobody cares and you will just come off as a really big noob, which is fine, we've all been there, just keep it with 1 time.
Good luck on the journey and if you have more questions or helpful hands, feel free to ask. If it's helpful for you, but you fear it's another ridiculous easy hand, maybe just mention that you don't know the answer, because i can understand some hands look ridiculous easy for lot of players, but might not be for you. All I just wanna say is don't post preflop allin hands like AA or flopping the nuts on flop and get it in and lose to runner runner flush or whatever, but really post hands you will learn from.

As pointless as you might think this thread is, to me, it is not.

"what you want us to say about calling an allin for 7BB's with QQ ? Wow you are so unlucky but you played it perfect, so you probably winner longterm, but just get unlucky? C'mon... "

Yes. Basically this is what I want to hear, except for the sarcasm of course. It lets me know that this stuff happens and that i shouldn't worry too much about it.
Sure you hear that this stuff happens, but when you put it in perspective and it happens to you, its nice to hear that it was mostly just bad luck and there isnt anything you can do about that specific hand.

Providing some of these hands might not help me or anyone physically, but it definitely helped me mentally.