UB vs.Party vs. ???

[Dominic]

I'm just curious what you guys think about Ultimate Bet SNGs vs. Party and others...I play exclusively on UB and do fairly well, but I keep hearing about all the supposed fish at Party...anyone here play both? On which one would a TAG player like myself expect a better ROI?

[RPatterson]

I myself can't hang with the party blind structure. I play like an absolute rock on UB and start opening up some at 30/60 and playing normally at 50/100. Normally by then I will have had some type of hand and one of the shitty players will have thrown some chips my way so I'm not in an all-in situation.

[Eder]

I cant take the party or UB interface so I close both accounts ...dumb i know

[crabbypatty]

party's blind structure just is not what i like to play against. ub has a better structure for me and the players may be a little better; however, there are plenty of fish at ub and i would stay there if you dont feel like ramming and jamming earlier like you would have to at party.
yes, there are more fish at party, but that does not make the sng's there more attractive.

[vetman81]

I agree with the previous responses. I too had a hard time adjusting to the lower starting stacks and faster blind increases (start with 800 and blinds go up every 10 hands). Even with the fish at Party, I do much better at UB, just because I am so used to their structure and had a hard time adjusting. I find when shorthanded, at UB I will usually have enough chips to do something with, whereas at Party I am usually in all in or fold mold, resulting in a lot of coin flips and a lot of 4th and 5th place finishes. As previously stated, UB is plenty fishy, especially at peak hours. JMO.

[chill888]

For better players the Party structure sucks. In other words the blinds go up so fast and increase the luck element.

UB has pretty good structure and you can fit a lot of hands in. I prefer Stars non turbos where I have had many S&Gs go 200 hands and often have 3 or four left after 130 / 140 hands. At Party or Paradise. Lottery season is in full bloom after 60 handa as next levels starts.

[Phill S]

[ QUOTE ]
For better players the Party structure sucks. In other words the blinds go up so fast and increase the luck element.

UB has pretty good structure and you can fit a lot of hands in. I prefer Stars non turbos where I have had many S&Gs go 200 hands and often have 3 or four left after 130 / 140 hands. At Party or Paradise. Lottery season is in full bloom after 60 handa as next levels starts.

[/ QUOTE ]

your mistaking high luck with the fast blinds with high variance.

Phill

[chill888]

No, I don't think I am confusing the two.

You are right it causes higher variance.

But I think it is also harder for good players - of at least a certain style - to produce as good results. While clearly very beatable, the faster structures smooths reults.

In a similar but opposite fashion, in S&Gs that lasted 10,000 hands, the experts would take a HUGE proportion of the money with the bad players getting shut out.

At the other extreme, a one handed S&G would provide smooth results (everybody would win their fair share).

3 handed S&G's would have a tiny edge fpr good players (not enough to beat the rake) - etc with skilled players taking a larger proportion of the winnings.

Again, I'm not saying the faster structures aren't beatable, I just believe (at least for myy style) they are a touch less beatable than Stars regual S&Gs.



Also (personally) I find the faster structures more frustrating and unsatisfying.

Regards

[chill888]

Separatley, maybe the slightly lower edge for good players is compensated in the shorter S&Gs by the fact that they don't last as long.

e.g. wining 5$ in 30 minutes is the same as winning $10 in an hour (or whatever - you get my point).

[Atropos]

I think Party is like for ring games the best site for sit&go too. The players are really bad, they deal out the hands very fast, not like stars where every all-in takes ages. The structure of course serves for higher variance, but the players are so poor that your edge is still better than on stars. (However if stars could manage to get a pool of that bad players I would play there).

[slogger]

chill, I think you are underestimating the significance of the difference in the amount of time it takes to play a SNG at Party vs. UB or Stars.

The Party structure certainly takes some getting used to, and although I do believe a good player's ROI would be higher using Stars structure (IF the talent pool was equal), the fact is that the ability to play low level ($10-$30) Party SNGs in no more than 45 minutes per game versus well over an hour on Stars more than makes up for whatever that ROI difference would be in the $/hour statistic. When you factor in the much weaker play, it's not even close.

If you are goo player who plays SNGs for the purpose of making money (rather than pure enjoyment), you will make less at Stars than at Party over almost any reasonable number of hours logged. There is just too much dead money to ignore.

[chill888]

You MAY be right. I may have a look. Although I am quite happy at Stars. Interestingly I sometimes wonder if I am better off against OK players - not great but have a clue - than horrible players as a major part of my chip count comes from taking shots at pots post flop hoping both me and opponent missed and giving up when someone comes over the top. Calling stations are occasionally frustrating.

I mainly play $50 SNG at Stars - sometimes $100 - and am in the money 48% of time after about 800 tourneys at those levels. Better results at the $50 though.

Would you stand by your weaker player comments for these levels ( 50 & 100) at Party? - or does play improve?

Beyond structure, the other reason I prefer Stars and UB is the superior software. Party depresses me. I also stopped cold turkey the day they raised rakes on $3 /$6 and $5 / 10 games.

Thanks for your comments.

[eMarkM]

I like the balance of Party structure/bad players/straight forward strategy better. Over UB and Stars. This has been argued many times on this forum.

#1, there is a new game starting every single minute on Party. This is a HUGE consideration towards getting the most money in the least amount of time. At least at the levels ($50+) I like to play. I hardly ever see a $50 SNG going at UB, takes forever to get one started. I don't care how good the structure is, I don't have all day to wait.

#2, the winning strategy for Party SNGs is exceedingly straight forward. It is indeed a dumbed down strategy from what you play at Stars or UB. This has been explored elsewhere on this forum. Just be a super rock in opening rounds, and let the maniacs knock each other out. You just go through the motions, you don't even have to think much to get to final 5 players. You can often get there having not played one hand and now have a 3 in 5 shot at moneying. Simple as that. Yeah, it can be kinda mindless then pushing a T800 stack with blinds 100/50 and you can't "outplay" your opponent, but it is effective nevertheless. You steal some blinds, get back in it incrementally, or double up. Or bust. From there you just play the bubble situation where what cards you have are much less a consideration as who's gonna blind out and who's gonna fold to your raise with survival in mind.

The fact that there is indeed less play in a Party SNG is for me one of the things that make them more attractive from a pure money making point of view. It's a very simple strategy that is very difficult for your opponents to counter. No, you don't get to practice the "art" of NL as much as you can at UB or Stars, but for grinding out the $$$, there's nothing that compares to Party SNGs.

[Ghazban]

I agree with this description 1000%. I haven't been playing long so I'm looking to improve every time I do. I don't improve by playing SNGs on Party due to the structure and poor opposition. At this point in my poker life, I'm much better off playing on UB or stars where there's more play and more to be learned from doing it. From a purely moneymaking aspect, though, I think Party is superior. Oddly, I've made more money at UB than anywhere else but I suspect that's due to not having a large enough sample size at Party.

[Dominic]

thanks to everyone who responded... /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[chill888]

Another thought:

I use pokertracker AND pokerstat religiously. A smaller player base at Stars makes it easier to KNOW the opposition via notes and statistics.

For example, there are a couple of quite good winning players at stars that I am happy to play against as i KNOW their game.

Similarly, I often don't sit in on tables if i see great players.
Especially at the $100 i follow around a few losers and avoid a couple of champs.

this is much harder (impossible?) at Party given the way games start.