Through a combination of bad play and bad luck I’ve finished my last three SNG’s in 7th, 6th and 9th respectively.

On more than one occasion I have crippled myself early by taking my good preflop hands too far post flop, it seems continuation bets don’t really get much respect at these lower buy in tables and out of position they can be especially costly. You have to pick your moments to make these sorts of moves and lately I’ve only been picking bad moments!

It hasn’t all been bad play on my part, however, take the following two hands where I was short stacked and had to make my move. When I’m the short stack at the table and the blinds are about to eat me up I like to try and get heads up with some decent cards (two royal cards or a medium to high pocket pair). In both of the following I was the slight favourite preflop but got out drawn through the streets:

Hand #1:

I’m dealt:

:8c::8s:

I push all-in for my stack of around 2.5BBs and am called by the big blind with:

:Kh::4h:

He hits his first two hearts on the flop and a third on the river to beat me with a flush.

Hand #2:

Went out in a very disappointing 9th place with this hand, action is folded around to me on the button where I have been dealt:

:7h::7c:

With just the blinds left to play I raise it up 3 x BB (my entire stack) with the idea that I’ll be happy to take the blinds on this occasion. SB calls, BB folds and the SB shows:

:Ks::5s:

We see the flop:

:Jc::Kh::Kd:

He hits trips on the flop and only a 7 can save me now, the turn is:

followed by the river:

Full house for the small blind!

So after being a little over a 67% preflop favourite to win both of the above hands I instead exited the tournament on both occasions, not to worry though because my aim is always to get my money in while I’m ahead, which I did on both of those hands.

All I need to do now is reduce the times when I’m getting my money in behind and I should be playing a solid SNG game…