Forget playing for the win, thats hmmm not the best way to approach sng"s...
Right a serious post, you don"t give a buy in etc or how often you play sng"s.. So back to sng basics i"ll give you some sound"ish info
which will set you on the way to $$$$ and for anyone else reading the thread.. If you already understand it then heyho its always good to brush up on the fundamentals..
Forget reasoning that you are playing to win, neither are you playing to cash.. Look at sngs as trying to increase your equity, as your equity increases your chances of winning $$$ will come as a consequence...
Focus on equity, even when you fold and there are confrontations between others your equity will generally increase..
Right a simple example of how equity works - Take the situation of a 9 player SNG where one player has aggressively eliminated three other players. The chips stacks are 1500 for all players except one who now has 6000 chips.
The big stack can bully the table by pushing his stack into the middle without risk of being knocked out of the tournament. By using an equity calculator, (based on reverse chip values) the big stack's equity is 33.73% of the prize pool while each other stack represents 13.25% of the prize pool. Although the big stack has 4 times as many chips as his opponents he only has 2.54X the equity. This shows the decreasing value of his additional chips.
What happens if he is involved in a confrontation and loses? His stack drops to 4500 and is worth 28.3% of the prize pool while the 3000 stack jumps to 21.8% equity and all 1500 stacks drop to 12.46% equity. Although he was in a confrontation for a lot of chips the loss only slightly damages his equity in the tournament reducing it by 5%. What about when he wins the confrontation? The eliminated stack loses 1500 chips or 13.25% equity.
The undeniable conclusion is that the short stack is risking significantly more equity with not much payoff upside when they win. The big stack risks 5% equity while the short stack risks 13.25% equity. They are each risking the same amount of chips, but precisely
because the big stack's chips are worth less, they are able to be much more aggressive.holdem resources examples for above -
http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/icmcalculator.html?action=calculate&bb=100&sb=50&ante=0&structure=0.5%2C0.3%2C0.2&s1=1500&s2=1500&s3=1500&s4=1500&s5=1500&s6=6000&s7=&s8=&s9=http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/icmcalculator.html?action=calculate&bb=100&sb=50&ante=0&structure=0.5%2C0.3%2C0.2&s1=1500&s2=1500&s3=1500&s4=1500&s5=3000&s6=4500&s7=&s8=&s9=Using what info i can take from your HH KT -
9 handed -
http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/icmcalculator.html?action=calculate&bb=400&sb=200&ante=0&structure=0.5%2C0.3%2C0.2&s1=6482&s2=2300&s3=3700&s4=506&s5=&s6=&s7=&s8=&s9=6 handed -
http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/icmcalculator.html?action=calculate&bb=400&sb=200&ante=0&structure=0.65%2C0.35&s1=6482&s2=2300&s3=3700&s4=506&s5=&s6=&s7=&s8=&s9=and some free videos to watch on sngs, good sound advice which when combined with patience and a bit of willingness to learn will equal $$$$...
http://www.pokersavvy.com/plus/videos/md261-1http://www.pokersavvy.com/plus/videos/md261-2http://www.pokersavvy.com/plus/videos/md261-3if you cannot see them its free to register to be able to do so...
http://www.parttimepoker.com/video-faarcyde-on-sit-n-go-sng-tournamentsa bit of Faarcyde logic approach to Mid Stakes sng"s...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk_XD1PP0FUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPdRVAwRSeAand some more food for thought...
edit - The above thoughts are aimed at STT"s, anything bigger then you should start to get looking into chip accumulation theory also imho.. [risk/reward, block theory etc]