I won my second straight $20+2 last night. Doubled up early with a set vs. TPTK, coasted down to shortstack with six players left. Doubled up to build a stack with AJ vs K9 and worked my way up to 2nd with three left (for a change). Caught the chip leader trying to bully with KJ and doubled up with my AQ to take the lead and never trailed after that. I noticed that I didn’t necessarily win more hands, nor did I get any powerhouse hands (boats over flushes, flushes over straights), I just played my high pairs well, bluffed occasionally, read the other players well, and got out of trap hands. I didn’t get sucked out by any horrid calling hands (83o kind of crap) although I lost some loose calls predictably with A-medium vs A-face, and only got lucky once all-in with A8 vs AT when the flop came AK5 and the turn came up 5 leading to a chopped pot.

My theories of why I fare better in $20 SnG vs. $10 SnG:

1. $10 SnG seems to be the tournament table for beginning online poker players. These people probably have gambled in the past and recognize the 20% juice at the $5 table as too steep. They’ve probably read one or two books, put in $100 because they were beating the local home game with the soccer dads, college students, or retirees (depending on their demographic). They are DYING to push all-in like their patron saint, Chris Moneymaker. Any suited connectors, Ace-rag, and paint are worth playing to the river. Responsible for huge swings and runner-runner suckouts. Table talk is infantile and way too hand-specific. After a flop of 664, some schmuck always says, “Damn, I folded a 6”. Stuff like that pisses me off no end.

I can’t start a tournament with 800 chips with these types of lunatics. I just get chipped away waiting for premium hands to double up and even if disciplined play gets me to the final three or four, I’m usually crippled since I haven’t trebled up with 54s against AQ like the top two chip leaders.

2. I concentrate more because it’s more money at stake. Hey, I ain’t rich and if I’m gonna play one $20 tournament rather than two $10, I’m gonna focus for that one hour on nothing else but that table. Often, at the $10 tables, I would get up for a hand or two and wander around because I was too irritated at the table talk and suckouts.

3. The players are actually paying attention at $20 to your early play. If you check raise someone on the turn and later show a big hand, they’ll actually REMEMBER you did that and respect the raise the next time they run into it. If you fold seven hands in a row preflop and then come in for a moderate raise, you can fold out all of the borderline hands. If you try to isolate one player all-in, the borderline hands will wisely back off and let you pick off the shortstacks.

4. The players seem to pay more attention to chip stacks at $20. At the $10 tables, people will sit across from a player and blindly click 200 (minimum bet) when the player across from them has 280 chips and essentially give them a free pass to hang around an extra card or an extra hand. For god’s sake, if you have the person in a hole and you’re standing over them with a shovel… BURY THEM!