Maximizing Hourly Rate

[sammy_g]

If you play poker only for money, it seems you should be most concerned with hourly rate. Has anyone tried to adjust their SnG strategy to maximize hourly rate, even at the cost of ROI?

I imagine if you took more close gambles early, you would bust out or double up in the first few levels more often. If you bust out, you can always start another SnG. If you amass a lot of chips, you are well positioned to money. You could also play more SnG's in the same amount of time playing this way. So the question is: would the increased number of SnG's you play make up for any hit you might take to your ROI?

Has anyone experimented with this strategy?

[chill888]

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I imagine if you took more close gambles early, you would bust out or double up in the first few levels more often. If you bust out, you can always start another SnG. If you amass a lot of chips, you are well positioned to money. You could also play more SnG's in the same amount of time playing this way. So the question is: would the increased number of SnG's you play make up for any hit you might take to your ROI?

Has anyone experimented with this strategy?

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Yep, a few guys tried it but they are broke now.

Separately, the more classic examples of sacrificing ROI for hourly rate are:

1. Playing a higher limit
2. Multitabling
3. Playing Turbos

gl

[sammy_g]

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Yep, a few guys tried it but they are broke now.

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Why would taking close gambles make you broke? Aren't close gambles, by their definition, close? Early on in a tournament, isn't CEV closely tied to $EV?

I'm assuming here that most people avoid close gambles early because they feel they can outplay their opponents later in the tournament.

[rdu $teve]

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.....they feel they can outplay their opponents later in the tournament.

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Exactly, it's easier to outplay people when the blinds are a higher % of the stack sizes.

- Early in a game, you might raise 4x the BB with blinds of 10/20 or 15/30. For someone to call, this only requires a risk of 8-12% of their 1000 stack.

- Later when blinds are 100/200, raising 4x the BB takes ~25% of their stack of 3000. Major difference.

[AleoMagus]

You are correct when you suggest that taking more gambles early on can have the effect of lowering ROI but at the same time lowering Average time/tourney. In this way hourly rate can actually rise.

I actually used to advocate this but I've since started to think that, while true, it is a much harder tightrope walk than it seems. It is very easy to shift ROI significantly lower to the point of actually lowering hourly rate this way. If a player is good enough though, this is definitely possible.

Maybe the real issue for me has just been a much bigger shift towards 'optimal' kinds of play lately and a move away from $/hr concerns. Yes, I could probably make more playing 4 tables at once, (or calling some all-ins early with probable tiny edges) but I'm not sure I care that much. I want to destroy my competition as much as possible. This makes me an amateur, I realize.

Real pros who do not have a million dollar bankroll tend to focus a lot more on $/hr

Another issue for me is a psychological one. I do not deal well with too many losses that appear unneccessary. More and more I want to give the fish my best game and I don't want to give then a 47% shot against me on the first hand of a tourney just because I know that there are more fish in the next SNG and it will lower my average time/tourney. Again, this makes me an amateur. Pro's tend to measure their level of destroying the opposition by how much money they can make in the shortest period of time.

Regards
Brad S

[sammy_g]

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Exactly, it's easier to outplay people when the blinds are a higher % of the stack sizes.

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I would think larger blinds magnify the effect of luck rather than skill.

[sofere]

One problem with this is that it takes these coinflips into account one at a time. If you go all in on a coinflip twice in a tourney against an equal to larger size stack, your chance of being knocked out goes from 50% to 75%. 3 times in the tourney your chance of getting knocked out goes to 87.5% and so on.

[sammy_g]

Thanks for your response, Aleo. You raise some interesting points.

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I actually used to advocate this but I've since started to think that, while true, it is a much harder tightrope walk than it seems. It is very easy to shift ROI significantly lower to the point of actually lowering hourly rate this way.

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This is certainly true.

I see a lot of players push all-in on the first hand with a holding like 77. They must reason they're a small favorite if called and if they lose they can start a new SnG. On the surface, this seems logical. In reality, they usually either win 25 chips or they get called by someone with AA or KK or QQ and lose their whole stack. These sorts of plays are not really what I had in mind.

So I wonder what adjustments can be made. Playing more hands with high implied odds (pocket pairs, suited connectors) early? Playing draws more aggressively? Bluffing more often? Slowplaying more often? Making more thin value bets?

[sammy_g]

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One problem with this is that it takes these coinflips into account one at a time. If you go all in on a coinflip twice in a tourney against an equal to larger size stack, your chance of being knocked out goes from 50% to 75%. 3 times in the tourney your chance of getting knocked out goes to 87.5% and so on.

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If you double up twice in a single table tournament, you'll have close to half the chips in play, so it's unlikely anyone at the table will have you covered the third time unless you're already heads up. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

OK, so let's say you go in for two coin flips. 75% of the time you bust out. 25% of the time you win 40% of the chips in play. How much prize equity do you have with 40% of the chips? I'm not sure how to calculate this. I imagine you have greater than 40% of the prize equity since the prize structure in SnG's is not flat, but skewed towards first place. Your big chip lead makes you a clear favorite to win.

[Solitare]

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OK, so let's say you go in for two coin flips. 75% of the time you bust out. 25% of the time you win 40% of the chips in play. How much prize equity do you have with 40% of the chips? I'm not sure how to calculate this. I imagine you have greater than 40% of the prize equity since the prize structure in SnG's is not flat, but skewed towards first place. Your big chip lead makes you a clear favorite to win.

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Here's the problem. Let's say you are normally 40% to be ITM. Let's think about 100 SnGs.

- Normal Play -- 40 games in the money
- Two Coin-Flip Play -- 75 games you bust out, so you can only make the money in 25 games. Oops, that's much less than 40 right off the bat!!

So not only will you need to finish ITM for 100% of those 25 remaining games, you might have to finish in first is all of them to break-even ROI-wise.

- Normal Play: Assume 15/15/10 split of those 40 games. In a $10 SnG (ok, I'm a low-rolling amateur) you get back $1400.
- Two Coin-Flip Play: $1400/25 = $56. Can't win $56 in a $10 SnG.

Even with all wins in those 25 games, your ROI will be less than normal play.

I'm not a fan of the Two Coin-Flip strategy.