Winning 2/3 of a game 5 times and still losing

[puggywug]

@1Warlock

If this is a common theme for you, the 1st place I’d look to is your bet sizing related to effective stacks. There shouldn’t be many instances where you leave an opponent with only a few BB. If you are putting someone effectively all in, get them all in. When stacks are very short, you can get them in on the turn and not give your opponent a chance to get away if they brick the river. They will either get it in bad or they will be forced to fold off too much equity. Either way, you are printing EV.

Related to the above, you really want to get your ranges nailed down by effective stack sizes. Since postflop play can be pretty simple at short depths, the decisions you make preflop are the most important. Know which hands realize equity the best by taking flops vs hands that need to be all-in preflop and generate as many folds as possible.

I hope this helps. Review some of your hands where you may have let your opponent slip the noose. See if there was a way to get stacks in at some point during the hand. Chances are, its on the turn if I’m reading the situation correctly. You may be frittering away some BB’s with ill advised c-bets as well. If you find yourself c-betting and then folding to a x/r, this is a big leak. You can’t afford to have this happen when short stacked - different game when deep and you can call a reasonable x/r in position.

It is a somewhat common theme for me. I’m not sure that it’s always for the same reasons. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

I find that against the opponent I play, most are a lot less likely to call if it puts them all in. So I tend to size my bets to a fraction of their stack, and get as much value out of the hand as I feel they’re willing to give me when I have an effective nut hand. Maybe I should be more cutthroat and just put them all in, but usually that ends up netting me less value. Still, in a HU SNG, it’s the KO you’re going for, not winning hands. It’s just that, once I wear my opponent down to where the stack ratios are such that you shouldn’t fear playing any two cards against the small stack, just get them all-in and win a showdown, I can’t seem to do it. The coin flips tails 5-6 times in a row, or I get ridiculously bad cards like 42o, and then I can’t do it. Right up until that point, I’m hitting two pair, straights, top pair, you name it, and just when I should be able to put them away, they start a miracle comeback.

So, I agree with you, maybe it’s my bet sizing, but how do I get opponents to be more willing to go all-in to call against me? I’m generally betting by the size of the pot, should I be sizing bets relative to my opponent’s stack instead?