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Most of my experience comes from millions of hands of online poker but I am finally getting quite a bit of live poker experience.  I travel to Atlantic City to play poker a couple times a month now and have been crushing the 1/2 NL games there.  Averaging in the neighborhood of $30/hr per or 15bb/hr over the last 500 hours or so.  (Yes I keep records of my live stats too.) 

I am with my brother in law for the Thanksgiving holidays and he has a regular 'club' game that he attends every week and he graciously invited me to come along.   When he described the game, I was disappointed in the format but figured it would be fun at worst and a great chance to practice my reads live in a different setting than a  'normal' casino poker table.  My brother in law's club plays SNGs with up to ten players involved.   Each player receives 50 chips and the blinds start at 1/2.  Every ten minutes they double to 2/4, 3/6, 4/8, 5/10 and 10/20 if necessary.   The structure sounds equivalent to the super turbos on UB which I hate because luck is a much bigger determinant than skill in them.   Regardless I resolved to adjust my usual game to one more suited to the 'club' structure.    I resolved to be VERY aggressive and push any edge I saw to the max in most circurmstances.

I sat down to see 7 players that I knew nothing about as well as my bro in law and one other strong player I had met on a previous trip a year ago. I was fortunate from the very first hand.  I started in the big blind with T9o.  2 limpers came in including the SB and I checked.  Flop was QTT rainbow!!   I don't normally abdicate slow playing, but in this structure I had to maximize a fortunate flop like this so I checked.  Which is something I would not do in this circumstance in a regular SNG unless I knew that I would be raised.  The button bet 4, the SB folded and I called.  Turn card was a blank and I checked again, my opponent bet 8 and I once again smooth called.  I was pretty certain by now that he had a piece of the flop, probably a Q and I resolved to get all my chips in on the river which was another blank.   I checked with a fairly certain knowledge that the button would bet again.  Sure enough, the button bet all in at the river so I called and said 'How good is your kicker?'  'An Ace', he replied and my face fell and then rose as he flipped over AQ.  I laughed and said " I am sorry...I thought you had a ten.'  and flipped over my T9 to scoop the pot and bust out the first man. 

Next hand I have ATo in the SB.   Two or three limpers came in and I called as well.  Flop was K89 and I checked.  An early position player bet 4, the others folded and I called since I had a few chips and figured I had quite a few outs.   The weak 4 chip bet indicated to me he had only an 8 or 9 or weak K.   The turn brought a J with no flush possible and I checked hoping for a free card.  My opponent didn't cooperate though and bet 8 more chips.  This gave me implied odds to call 8 chips with a possibility of over 50 chips with a 4 to 1 draw.  The river was a Q giving me a dilemma on how to maximize my chips in this fortunate circumstance!  I decided to go all in figuring that my opponent would strongly suspect me of bullying since I had the far larger stack.  My opponent thought for about a minute before finally saying 'I call'.  He flips over KT for the straight saying, ' Only one card beats me here and thats only if you have a ten as well.'   To his dismay I turned over AT knocking out my second opponent in two hands.

Third hand I hit top pair and kicker.  My opponent also hit top pr with a weak kicker and we ended up all in by the river.  Thus sending my third opponent to the rail to cries of, 'Who invited this guy!'  Using my now huge stack I proceeded to bully the table with 3-5x raises preflop with position and reasonably good cards especially if I saw no strength in any preflop limpers or raisers.    Suited connectors, any Ax and only limpers ahead equalled big raises to take down pots preflop and big continuation bets post any flop quickly confirmed my strong image.

I parlayed this early chip lead into a 2nd place finish when I got sucked out on in a big hand with the 2nd place player at the time and then lost several hands in which I was the favorite heads up. 

My strong image carried over into the following 3 SNGs that we played and I garnered a 3rd, two 2nds and a 1st place finish to have a great showing overall at the club game.  Most of my success came from quickly identifying the strong players at the table and focusing on getting heads up via strong raises or reraises preflop to get heads up with the weaker players.   I also refused to be bullied by the strong players and was willing to get all in with them if I hit top pair.  

Because of the fast structure of the SNG most of the players strongly preferred to limp cheaply preflop and hope to hit their hands.  If I entered a hand, I usually raised to foil this strategy and frustrate the weaker players into making bad calls which they did repeatedly.  One of the best things you can do at a table is the opposite of accepted wisdom which was limping in this case.  It may seem wrong to bet 20% of your stack preflop on the button with Ax to get the 3 limpers ahead of you to fold but it is the correct play.  It is also correct to bet out half your remaining chips to take down the pot when one stubborn limper does call you.  Even if the flop misses you, you must show strength in these types of games to succeed. 

Happy turkey day to everyone as I am going to feast and enjoy my recent club ‘winnings'. 

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