Ultimate Bet SNGs (rant)

[mack23]

OK I'm steaming and need to get a few things off the chest and hopefully hear about your experiences as well! When the UB SNG promo started 7/1 I figured "Wow I'll clear 2k in bonus $$ easy!" I had never played UB SNGs before this promo only PP. I quickly found out that wouldn't be easy at all and likely it would be $500 in bonus at most. Reasons:

1) PP SNG= 40-70 mins, UB SNG= 60-100 mins
2) Play more than 2 SNGs at the same time= insanity
3) Level of play= rocks so dense they should be called "lead"

Anyone else pulling their hair out over these things??? I made the fatal mistake of playing 3 SNGs at once like I do regularly on PP. Oh my god it popped up windows so often my head started spinning around like in Poltergeist (or was that the Exorcist?) Every time I even tried to hit call or fold it would pop up another screen before I could do it. I went on tilt not from the action but from the SITE! That and the fact it can take nearly 2 freaking hours to finish one is just hideous. Once I hit these issues with the 10 player SNGs, I moved to the 6 players to see if that would help any. Here's a normal 6 player SNG: The 2 maniacs are gone within 10 minutes. Within another 10 minutes it's down to 3 players. The remaining 3 players act like they're at the final table of the WSOP and it takes another 40 minutes to get into the $$. The blinds are still so low when you reach 2 players it gets so boring that I fall asleep. It gets so old that it kills my play, I think I'm around 10% ROI for the month on there. What is up with these things? And more pressing... will anyone continue playing them after July is over? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-Mack

[Roman]

you should adjust to the play instead of complaining.... I personally love playing vs predictable rocks.

[BrettK]

It's funny to hear that from the other side of the fence. I recently moved to Party and I miss UB terribly, if only because my LAG plays were huge money makers against the rocks and because the slow pace allowed for much better reads. It certainly is much different. I'll give you that.

Brett

[mack23]

That is funny, Brett! Aren't you playing UB this month in order to rake in bonus $$? So what are your thoughts/rants about PP SNGs... I'd like to hear them /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-Mack

[BrettK]

Mack,
I *was* playing at UB for the bonus dollars, but I was only a marginally winning player there, and I thought I'd easily be a player with a 30-40% ROI at the Party $10+$1s because of the huge difference in skill that I'm always hearing about. After the switch, I didn't make any adjustments whatsoever with regard to my play, and after having played on UB for awhile, the Party system seemed like the system from hell. The quickly increasing blinds (in both time and amount) and the lower starting chips threw me into a tailspin. As you've probably figured out, I lost like crazy initially (-50% ROI), but things seem to be turning around a bit now that I've played about sixty SNGs. The ROI is still negative and it has only been a week and a half, but I think I may have finally adjusted enough to be a break-even player. (Ugh Lee)

Good luck on UB,
Brett

[MicroBob]

i started off kind of dreading that UB was going to do this.
'dammit....they're going to sucker me in to playing SNG's the whole freaking month'
i didn't consider myself to be a very good SNG player but thought i'd give it a try and see how i liked it. if i backed out after 2 or 3 days because i hated it or was getting killed then so be it.

now - i'm thrilled to death that they did this promotion. my ROI is around 15% now....which isn't great...but this is after a lousy losing streak near the start when i was still pushing all-in and calling all-in way too frequently.

the volume of SNG's i have played have turned me into a half-way decent SNG player since then....or at least i like to think so.

the 6-maxes were really good for me....and now i'm fooling around with the full-table SNG's. i have finished 1st in 2 out of 3 of the 30+3's today....so naturally i'm in a good mood.


the amount of money i'm making on this isn't much...but at least i'm not losing.
the bonus-dollars i'm collecting will take about a decade to clear...but at least i'm collecting bonus-dollars.

most importantly though....is that i truly believe that the opportunity to play in these SNG's a bit more cheaply (because of the bonus-dollars i'm getting back) has given me the opportunity to improve my SNG game from break-even (or even slight-loser) to a bit more on the positive side.

i also feel that it has helped me improve my short-table play immensely...on the 6-maxes, you can get down to 4-players pretty quick....it's great practice that i think translates (somewhat) to short-table limit and NL.


get back to me later this week after i've dropped 7 or 8 SNG's in a row and i will likely have changed my tune by then. but for now...i'm still very much enjoying this promotion...which is impressive because i really didn't think i was going to keep at it for longer than a week.

i will be very interested to see how screwed up i am and how long it takes for me to re-adjust when i try to play a party SNG.

[Cosimo]

Three at a time doesn't bother me. It's a bit slow. The trick is to not start them all at the same time, or at least not be on three tables with less than four players. UB doesn't allow 4-tabling, so 3 is the max.

The rocks take time getting used to. I was getting beat down on the 10+1, so I dropped to the 5+.5 and I'm doing better there; about 30% ROI. It's a cheap way to learn tourney, NL, and shorthanded experience--and I expect to have about $1500 in bonus by the end of the month. The fact that these things take an hour is a pain in the ass, I agree. It should, theoretically, give me a chance to exercise skill, but I don't have that much yet. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Beck]

I haven't played SNG at PP, but the way I see it, the longer the game, the more a good player should benefit, leaving less to luck. Or am I missing something?

Whats the difference between multitabling at UB and PP? At least UB has the mini-view.

Finally if you think people ar e too tight at 6-persons when it gets down to the bubble, shouldn't you just be more agressive, knowing when to steal the blinds?

So basically what you are complaining about is, that everybody isn't playing like total retards?

[mack23]

Hi Beck,

<font color="blue">I haven't played SNG at PP, but the way I see it, the longer the game, the more a good player should benefit, leaving less to luck. Or am I missing something?</font>

-You're not missing anything here, I suppose when you get used to a SNG taking 40-60 minutes, having to play 80-100 minutes for the same stakes can get old. But you are right it should help the more experienced player.

<font color="blue">Whats the difference between multitabling at UB and PP? At least UB has the mini-view.</font>

-If you are able to adjust to the mini-view than congrats! So far I can't do it. The difference is that UB will automatically pop-up the window where it is your action. This gets extremely annoying if you are trying to make a decision on another table and it keeps popping others up in your face. On PP, you must click on the table in order to act, no interupting occurs. I like the PP system much better as it allows you to control the tempo.

<font color="blue">Finally if you think people ar e too tight at 6-persons when it gets down to the bubble, shouldn't you just be more agressive, knowing when to steal the blinds?</font>

-Absolutely. I tried this a few times as strategy suggests and got burned when opponents on a short stack re-raised with big hands and I tried to eliminate them (as you should) and they kept doubling up and the game took forever. Just ranting about those experiences.

<font color="red">So basically what you are complaining about is, that everybody isn't playing like total retards?</font>

-I'll have to admit you have a great point here! (haven't you ever steamed about losing to poor players though?) Thanks for making me think... now I realize how many idiots there are on PP that makes it "fun" to play there as you can pummell opponents when you hit a big flop. Now that my rant is over UB would probably be a good place to improve the overall game. Thanks for the reply.

-Mack.

[blendedsuit]

"so I dropped to the 5+.5 and I'm doing better there; ....--and I expect to have about $1500 in bonus by the end of the month."

At $5 sitngo's with a bonus of $2.50 each, you are planning to play 600 sitngos in July? At about an hour each on average, factoring early bustouts, and longer marathon tourneys, thats 25 days straight of sitngo's playing one at a time. So lets say you use the miniview, and play 2 at a time, thats still 12.5 full days. You need to log more than 10 hours a day for 30 days, with no weekend breaks to get that bouns. Good luck

[Beck]

HI Mack

I can see how almost doubling the amount of time it takes to complete a SNG can be annoying, but I guess that's the price you have to pay, in order to increase your chances of success.

Concerning the UB miniview, in the beginning, I found it to be very confusing, but it only takes a little while to get to now it. Actually, I now find it easier using the miniview to get a complete picture of the game ( how many left, small/big stack and so on) in comparison to the normal view.

What I found funny was, that you were actually complaining about people playing tight when on the bubble, almost making it sound like it wasn't fair, that the opponents weren't just donating their chips to a worthy cause (the buy-Mack-a-Caddy Foundation /images/graemlins/laugh.gif )
One thing, however,a frien of mine just switched from PP to UB and he thinks that the UB SNG's are WAAAAAAYYYYY easier to beat. So I guess it's matter of, whether the different blinds structure at UB makes up for the fact that PP has more fish.

i myself am quite new to the game and I'm still only playing 5+0,5 at UB. But even though I'm no expert player AT ALL, I find it quite easy to win consistent. Mainly because only a few of those I've encountered so far have managed to adjust their play, from being 10-handed to 3-4 handed. It's like they still think "slow blind increase = take your time, pick your hand).

I hate loosing, to an obviously worse player than me. But I'm pretty sure a lot of people have had that exact same feeling, when they have been loosing to me /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Cosimo]

[ QUOTE ]
"so I dropped to the 5+.5 and I'm doing better there; ....--and I expect to have about $1500 in bonus by the end of the month."

[/ QUOTE ]

That was me, not mack.

[ QUOTE ]
At $5 sitngo's with a bonus of $2.50 each, you are planning to play 600 sitngos in July? At about an hour each on average, factoring early bustouts, and longer marathon tourneys, thats 25 days straight of sitngo's playing one at a time. So lets say you use the miniview, and play 2 at a time, thats still 12.5 full days. You need to log more than 10 hours a day for 30 days, with no weekend breaks to get that bouns. Good luck

[/ QUOTE ]

I play 3 at a time and just over 30 hours a week. I also played about 100 $10+1. Early bustouts can tremendously decrease average time. I think the longest matches I get into are firsts, and those are on the order of 80 minutes. Third is about 60 minutes. With an ITM of about 50%, that means half my tourneys are under an hour. Some of my games have been $10+1 and/or 6-handed, which also increases bonus$/hr.

Judging by my current bonus balance and past play, $1500 might be a bit optimistic, but I should easily hit $1200. Not playing any at all on Sunday turned into a big hit, because I can play a lot more on Sunday (Damn their servers!).

[mack23]

Hi Beck,

Thanks for the reply. I think I'll give the mini-view another chance to see if that makes multi tabling easier.

I loved your comment about "buy Mack a Caddy" seeing that I just picked one up a few weeks ago!! (ok I'll admit it is an old Caddy and only cost $2k, but it still kicks ass!)

Best of luck on the tables,

Mack

[UncleDuke]

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't played SNG at PP, but the way I see it, the longer the game, the more a good player should benefit, leaving less to luck. Or am I missing something?


[/ QUOTE ]

This is true, but there are a couple of points that counterbalance it. 1) At UB, there are a higher percentage of good (or at least not so bad) players, so it's likely that your competition will be tougher than it would someplace like Party. 2.) Since the sngs at UB take longer, you won't be able to play as many of them. This will reduce your hourly win rate compared to playing at a site with quicker sngs.

[spacemonkey57]

Is anybody finding the 10s a lot harder than the fives? I'm about 35% ROI over 100 or so 5s and I've gone something like 5,6,6,4,4,5 in the 10s. It's a really small sample, but I'd like to think I should have moneyed in at least one of the 10s.

[BradleyT]

You can start 6 tabling. 3 UB mini-view tables in the upper left corner of your screen and 3 party tables in each of the other corners of your screen.

[SumZero]

I had 250 $5 SNG with a ROI of around 26%. I now have just over 100 $10 SNG with an ROI of around 5%; however, my first 25 $10 SNG were really rough, and my last 25 SNG have been really good. I think I'll probably be around 15% ROI on the $10 when I hit 250 of the $10. There is definitely an adjustment, and there are definitely both fewer horrible players and more good players at the $10 than at the $5.

[tdiddy]

[ QUOTE ]
The difference is that UB will automatically pop-up the window where it is your action. This gets extremely annoying if you are trying to make a decision on another table and it keeps popping others up in your face.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mack, change your screen resolution to much bigger than 800X600 so you tile your screen with the tables. Playing more than one table on small resolution is suicide. Get a 21" monitor then you can tile four tables perfectly on your screen.