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SAGE (Sit And Go Endgame System)
Thursday, November 01, 2007

I finished 112 out of 114 in The Mookie last night. Thus I'm the Gigliii instead of Gigli. It was early in the tournament (no shit dumb ass) and I woke up with AA in the BB. There was a raise and re-raise by the time the action was to me. I knew my re-re-raise would be 100% obvious so I decided to take advantage of my little nugget of power in the BB and call the re-raise. I was actually hoping the initial raiser would push there, but I figured it wouldn't happen.

The flop comes a very ugly 8h7h5s putting flush draws, straight draws, connectors and just about anything else you could think of to slay rockets. My read was we all had big pocket pairs, AA QQ JJ, but if not, I knew I was screwed. I don't recall exactly what happened on the flop, but I think it was bet, raise and then I pushed. I got the call with a made set of 7's and I was toast.

I don't really feel like I played the hand terribly, but it bugs me that I didn't give a little more consideration to the texture of the board. Lesson learned...I need to do a better job of adjusting my reads and what I think is transpiring as the hand progresses. I'm glad I lost the hand so I could think about the play a little more. It's not very deep thinking, but occasionally I need these types of plays to occur to make me question my own plays.

Wonka (the hammer player version) posted the hand for prosperity.



Recently I read a post Klopzi, erm, posted that went into detail on SAGE (Sit-And-Go Endgame System). Before you read on, click the previous link and give it a quick gander, but don't forget to come back and finish the post!

I had heard about this system and was wanting to give it a whirl at some point. I've been heads-up recently in a tournament, but had not played any SNG's lately. Being short on patience and having a love for heads-up SNG's, I decided to just get to the point and implement the SAGE system for heads-up play. While handing out candy for Halloween, I spent a little time drafting my own little SAGE guide on my Google docs (if you can't get to it from that link, I posted a picture to the right to give you an idea). This document is really meant for heads-up sng's, so if I start using SAGE in full table SNG's, I'll create another one for that.

If you spent the time to click on Klopzi's link above then you probably have a decent idea of how SAGE works. I didn't like the amount of time I had to spend thinking through each step of coming up with the SAGE action, so that's why I created the document. I won't go into details of my SAGE document now - and it is not even finished - but if anyone is interested in it I'll be glad to clean it up, finish it and dedicate a whole post to it in the future.

I will mention that what I realized is, if you calculate the ratio and it is between 0 and 7, thus in the qualifier of the SAGE system, if you hold J8 offsuit or better, you should Jam (SB) or Jam/Call (BB). This helps quicken some of the work of calculating SAGE in that you don't have to add up the numbers to see if you are okay to jam/call. No matter what, you are good to go. This holds true for all pairs except 22, but even then you will almost always be in a jam/call position. Anything less than J8 offsuit and you will need to finish the calculation before making a decision.

I'm still playing around with the quickest ways to apply SAGE and if it is really a good thing, but it's early in the game so I have to figure that shit out.

After my Mookie Gigliii last night, I was excited to give the SAGE system a whirl. I decided to go with the $11 turbo heads-up SNG's figuring I would get to the SAGE ratio implementation a lot quicker. A funny thing happened along the way. I won 5 straight SNG's and never once made it to where SAGE could be implemented.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with my results, but I'll be at it again tonight hoping to get to the SAGE ratio at least once so I can give it a whirl.



Last night, while ChickJax took the kids around the neighborhood, I stayed on the porch, handing out candy to the kids. My set-up turned out to be rather scary for the little trick-or-treaters. The big ass grim reaper at my front door coupled with my Dracula gear might have been what did the trickin'.

I think this picture pretty much sums Halloween up for kids. Get dressed up and stuff your face with candy until you nearly vomit and go into a coma. No vomit or coma this time, but they hit a high and low rather quickly, especially the dragon.

Hope to see you all at the Riverchasers tonight for the next installment of the BBTwo...

Until next time may the felt be with you.

posted by TripJax @ 5:55 PM,

10 Comments:

At 4:19 PM, Blogger Wwonka said...

unless you rereraise preflop no one is going away.
but then you get no value other than staying in the tourney.


what no love with a Link?
Peace
wwonka
http://www.hammerlover.blogspot.com/

 
At 10:21 AM, Blogger Jordan said...

Yo yo, homey. I made the same challenge to Klopzi that I'll make here. I would love to play some HU games against a SAGE competitor to see if it is truly unexploitable against a feel-based HU style like I have. We could do it on the cheap if you are interested. I'm more curious about what we can learn and write from trying out SAGE, moreso than the money.

 
At 1:22 PM, Blogger TripJax said...

J,
I'll do it, but the only problem is I feel like this system is best utilized against a person who is not fully aware of the system going into it.

I get the feeling someone who knows I'm using that style up front will utilize that knowledge to slow play monsters into me.

I'm not saying that wouldn't eventually happen anyway while playing that style against an unknowing opponent, but it seems a little awkward to do it against someone who can exploit that knowledge up front.

I don't know, I guess that is sort of the point, finding a weakness in the system and exploiting it. I'd definitely like to give it a whirl with you, but I think the power of the system is wielding it when SAGE suddenly applies and then rolling over the unsuspecting opponent. In other words, SAGE sounds like a very promising idea against the constant changing online players at Full Tilt. I almost never play the same player it seems, so I can use it constantly against fresh bait.

Lets try and figure out a time to do it over the next week or so...and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what I wrote above. This might even be post worthy...

 
At 3:12 PM, Blogger Jordan said...

Actually, I think you are right. The effectiveness of SAGE will be significantly weakened by an opponent who knows you are using it. One time, I played an SNG on Noble Poker covering up my hole cards. Bloody P joined me, and halfway through, I realized the HUGE flaw in my experiment: if my subjects, in this case, P, know that I'm playing blind, they'll exploit it.

Maybe we can play some HU SNGs simultaneously against random opponents and see who has the better record after a bunch of games.

 
At 9:25 AM, Blogger joxum said...

kinda cross posting here, but I hope it's okay:

Anyway - makes an interesting read.

It reminds me of a system that I ran into, just when I got started in poker, created by Edward Hutchinson. I have no idea who he is, or if he has any credentials in the pokersphere, and I don't know if it works at all, but it does look like an early version of SAGE.

SAGE is somewhat simpler to employ, but the difference in scoring your hand is pretty small.

Let's have some more on SAGE. I'm curious about the best strategy to
a) identify a SAGE-player
b) take his money

Regarding b) I think slowplaying monsters seem the way to go, like som have already pointed out. I'd be happy to participate in an experiment of sorts.

Could be either on FT, Pokerstars or perhaps even DD Poker, which would let us work more on hand strength and stuff.

/j. (flushdance.blogspot.com)

 
At 9:34 AM, Blogger joxum said...

Darn it! Forgot to add a link to Hutchinsons system, so here it is

Blogger should have edit buttons...

 
At 10:37 AM, Blogger Klopzi said...

Jordan/Trip -

SAGE is unexploitable in a heads-up situation with a stack-to-blind ratio of 7 or less. Even if you know I'm using SAGE, you can't do anything about it.

Actually, if you're playing an Absolute Poker super-user account, then maybe...or if you could deal yourself pocket aces every hand...

 
At 10:38 AM, Blogger Klopzi said...

Tripjax - forgot to thank you for pointing people to my SAGE post.

 
At 3:56 PM, Blogger Astin said...

Well, that killed my afternoon of productivity as I went and built and Excel sheet that provides a chart of what action to take and does all that pesky math for you.

All I have to do is enter the small stack, BB, and my hole cards.

Now to get heads-up.

Oh, and I think you're missing a key component here (or maybe I am). SAGE was developed for heads-up action at the end of a 1-table full-ring SnG, not a heads-up SnG. The 50/30 payout structure is undoubtedly key to the math behind the hand selection. I assume they're basing it on some sort of ICM calculations (although I think ICM is primarly useful on the bubble only). In a heads-up SnG, you're looking at a 100/0 payout.

 
At 5:24 AM, Blogger The Mystic Dragon said...

it wont be long before there are very good sng bots. the game is just too solvable

 

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