$75 Sit and Go; How does it play compared to $1.25?

I finally got around to using the $75 satellite pass that I won using player points. I asked support and tried to turn it into $75 of smaller tournament buy ins but they said no, I had to use it as an entry into a single tourney.

So, I played a turbo SnG, figuring 1) the payback likelihood was good, rather than playing for higher prizes with less chance of cashing in MTTs, and 2) I’m still up/current on the structure of playing turbo SnGs from the project that I ran recently.

$75 is a step up from the $1.25 ones that I played during the project. At least, in theory.

The cards, the structure, the rules remain the same. What I expected was less activity since I assume the players know not to waste chips playing garbage early on while the blinds are small, and fewer players donking out before the blinds got high, as well as stronger, more aggressive play both preflop and postflop.

I went on Sharkscope, pulled info on 4 players (if you are not registered you can only do 5 searches so I saved one for later if I made it that far). The average buyin for these 4 was between $20-$59, only two had positive ROIs and results of around $1,000 net profit while the other two were negative $1,000. When we were nearing the bubble I pulled one more search and found another player, average buy in $41, this time negative $7,000 with 1,000 games tracked. His username started with an L, so call him player “L”.

I kept an eye on the four players I had summaries on, as well as trying to pick up info on the other four. One of the losing players (call him M) played way too many hands early; in the first 10 hands his VP$IP was 70% but he had some chips after calling a preflop raise and the flop bet, then shoving the turn over the preflop raiser’s turn bet. Interestingly enough, he settled down quite a bit, only having a VP$IP of 20% from then on even though the table was getting shorter all the time.

First player out was one of the winning players, in the BB against the other winning player. With the blinds 30/60 SB raised, BB shoved ATs, SB called with TT and held up to win.

Next hand I limp 44 UTG, flop is J33, small stack BB bets, I raise, he shoves, I call. He tried to rep a 3 or J as a BB special, I said I didn’t believe him/I had something, he didn’t have a lot of chips left so he shoved his K8o.

“L” limp/shoves over a button raise with 88, button had AK and 88 holds up. Now it’s me with two of the losing players with the chip leads and the blinds just reaching 50/100.

Blinds at 80/160, player ahead of me minraises to 320, I call behind with 88. Flop is 994, he checks, I bet half pot, he shoves his pot sized stack, I call his AT, my 88 holds up. I had let myself get chipped down up till this point, but now I rejoin the two losing players again with chips.

Blinds 100/200, player “M” with 3,600 limps, button with 1,400 shoves, “M” calls with T8s and loses almost half his stack to 99. Next hand UTG player with 1,200 shoves his 66, player “M” in BB with only 2,000 chips himself calls with 98o, catches an 8 on the river.

From here I played very tight. We were on the bubble, I had an aggressive losing player to my left (“L”), a calling station losing player after him (“M”), with an aggressive winning player to my right. I didn’t know where to steal from. Finally at 200/400 I got KK, had my shove called by “L” with 99 and I doubled back up.

I went card dead and let myself get blinded down again when finally the last other player called a shove with AJs but ran up against “L”‘s QQ and we were ITM. 2 hands later with the blinds at 300/600 and 2,500 left I shoved Q5o from the button as a steal but ran into “M”‘s AK.

~

So the end result; me, a player who had yet to buy into a tournament for more than $11, and two net losing players are the ones that ITM. Because they are net losing players I don’t know if I learned as much as I could have learned about the differences between levels, but as is always the case, there are bad players at all levels of play. I did call down a couple aggressive plays, but largely I stayed out of trouble by folding, folding, folding early, had a couple big hands like one AA and one KK that got no action after my raises, stole a few blinds with late position raises when the table got short and had Ax, and had one big hand that got paid off (KK over 99). I also folded AJo in the SB once on the bubble when the button shoved with almost my entire stack, which I think was a correct play. The one criticism I would have is my lack of pressuring the three periods that I had chips, but I had loose players who also had chips to my left which made things difficult.

Next day I looked up the rest of the players; two more losing players and two winning ones, though one of the winning ones is listed as being on tilt lately. Buy in levels all over the map; one player from 2.50 to 41, another from 22 to 110.

One thing to consider when evaluating these other players though; they may also have won tickets from lower buy ins to get to the tourney. In fact, even though Sharkscope shows these players as negative overall, if they played enough high buy in tournaments like this one only when they won tickets from freerolls or lower buy in tournaments Sharkscope would show them as negative if they didn’t ITM, even though the actual cost may have been an $8 tournament originally, or in my case, zero. If I had not ITMed Sharkscope would show a loss of $75 even though in fact it cost me nothing to play.

Anyway, I’m satisfied that I managed to turn some free player points into a $75 ticket, and even happier that I could then turn that into $124 cash in my account.