ring game compared to $10+1

[housenuts]

lately i've almost strictly being playing (and beating) the $10+1 NL SnG's on stars. what level limit ring game would this skill level be comparable to? i'm thinking probably $1/$2, and maybe 2/4

[durron597]

More like $.50/$1.... maybe. Definitely no higher than that and maybe lower.

[La Brujita]

My best guess would be the best way to look at it is how much hourly earn you have at each. "Skill level" is a very hard thing to discuss in the abstract.

I look at it roughly like this:

Let's say a very good player will make about $2.5-$3/hour playing 1 $10 stars sit and go at a time (give or take).

At a full $1-$2 ring game a very good player would make roughly the same per hour.

I would suspect a good $2-$4 player would make about $5-$6 and hour per table.

I think one can make more than this online at ring games but I am just ballparking 2BB's/100 hands at 60 hands an hour. Also note I am talking about very good players, not the best players at that level.

[durron597]

I think he was talking about NL ring not Limit ring.

[housenuts]

i'm talking about limit ring.

[durron597]

Oh. Whoops. Well in that case, I don't think you can make the comparsion at all between NLHE SnGs and LHE ring games.

[housenuts]

what i'm saying is you have to have some sort of poker knowledge and skills to be a winning $10+1 player. i know that the 2 games can't really compare (limit ring games, to NL tourneys) but in terms of general poker knowledge and wherewithal i think there has to be some crossover.

the reason i'm asking is because i think one needs some sort of break from constant SNG play. after finishing out of the money in 4 or 5 in a row, i tend to get disheartened and need a change of pace.

i'll be the first to admit my limit skills aren't the greatest. the reason i play SNG's is because I have success in them, but not so much in ring games. i just ordered SSH so when that arrives and i get a good grounding in it, then I will start playing limit when i feel like i need a change. i was just wondering what a good game to jump in at would be.

i have around $500 in my bankroll right now, but that being said i don't want to jeopardize too much because i need to keep most of it for sng's. i've tried making the jump to $20+2 a couple times, but keep going back down to the 10's. it's a work in progress.

[RacersEdge]

I'm the opposite - I play 2/4 limit, and the last month I started playing 10/1...they are different games, but I think you can "adapt" from 1 to the other and be about the same ranked player in each

[Solitare]

I used to play a lot of 2/4 limit, now I'm playing a lot of 10-1 SnG. I'm a OK, not great player, so I averaged around $12/hr triple tabling 2/4 limit. I'm averaging around $8/hr triple tabling the 10-1 SnG.

I think the skill level is pretty similar between the two. At least I seem to be doing equally mediocre compared to what I read other doing here on 2+2.

I definately believe that 2/4 limit requires a much bigger bankroll than 10-1 SnG. First I think equivalent play at the two games will yield a higher hourly rate in the 2/4 (as per my own results). But I also think the 2/4 limit ring games had a MUCH higher varience. A losing streak on 2/4 limit could go as high as $500 (triple tabling) and I had one of $800. The biggest losing streak I have on the 10-1 SnGs is only $150 (triple-tabling). So if you move on to 2/4 limit, make sure your bankroll is big enough.

[housenuts]

i'd like to hear some more comments on this. i think i'm gonna jump in at the 1/2 level and see how i fare.

[Allinlife]

there should be nearly no diffrence in skills between .5/1 vs 1/2 jump on it with healthy bankroll and you should fare well

[Jurollo]

it is apple to oranges, all players are equally as bad, I have seen some great players in $10+$1's, and some horrible players, I have seen some of the worst players ever up @ 5/10 LHE so your question is one that can't really be answered solidly. I would start @ 1/2, maybe .50/1 LHE, i mean the lower you start the less your risk, and if you crush a lower level then move up, its like cutting your hair, if you aren't sure if you want just a trim or to shave it all off, dont shave it first to see how it looks, start at smaller stakes. Also, I would suggest $600 in your roll to move to $20's, plus about 1000-1500 $10's and some solid stats, otherwise you might be digging your own grave.
~Justin Rollo

[kleraudio]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, I would suggest $600 in your roll to move to $20's, plus about 1000-1500 $10's and some solid stats, otherwise you might be digging your own grave.
~Justin Rollo

[/ QUOTE ]

really, you think you need that many 10's under your belt before you move up? what are solid stats in your opinion? How does a small bankroll dig your own grave? I am interested in that, is it psychological because you cant sustain a long losing streak?

Thanks

Jim /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[housenuts]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, I would suggest $600 in your roll to move to $20's, plus about 1000-1500 $10's and some solid stats, otherwise you might be digging your own grave.
~Justin Rollo

[/ QUOTE ]


i don't have nearly enough time to grind out 1,000-1,500 $10+1's. i've been successful at 10's in the short run, and now my bankroll can support bigger games so i'm gonna move up. i know i'm not gonna get crushed, or severely outmatched in the 20's so i'm gonna take a stab at them. if i can prove to be profitable in these i will stick with it until i have enough for a higher limit.

the only time i won't move up a level is if say i get $500 and start the 20's and constantly lose money and then have to go back to the 10's to get it back to $500. if i do this 5 or so times, and my account is basically stagnant, then i will stay at the 10's to increase my skills before moving up

[Jurollo]

Statistically you need about 1,000 under your belt to be sure you are a winner at a given level. And 20x buy in is about the least BR you need for the long run as you are GUARANTEED long droughts no matter how good you are. If you are killing the $10's to the tune of maybe a 50% ROI over the period of 300-400 SNGs then maybe you should go up but before then you are definately risking things, as statistically speaking, you aren't definately a long term winner at that level yet. Many people fly through levels, and while some succeed most move up WAY too fast. I am just giving you the mathematical numbers you would need to make sure you are a winner. Even an ROI of between 10%-20% long term in the $10's proves you can beat that level. You dont need gaudy long term ROI numbers, just need enough tournies to prove things mathematically for the long term with a reasonable confidence.

Also, with less than the 20x buy in I mentioned you are looking at an ROR of about 5-7% without moving down I believe. If you are ok with that chance then move forward. I like to get that number down under 1% before I move.
~Justin Rollo

[dethgrind]

[ QUOTE ]
My best guess would be the best way to look at it is how much hourly earn you have at each. "Skill level" is a very hard thing to discuss in the abstract.

I look at it roughly like this:

Let's say a very good player will make about $2.5-$3/hour playing 1 $10 stars sit and go at a time (give or take).

At a full $1-$2 ring game a very good player would make roughly the same per hour.

I would suspect a good $2-$4 player would make about $5-$6 and hour per table.

I think one can make more than this online at ring games but I am just ballparking 2BB's/100 hands at 60 hands an hour. Also note I am talking about very good players, not the best players at that level.

[/ QUOTE ]

You should also take into account risk of ruin/bankroll requirements when making these comparisons.

Here BruceZ explains a good formula (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=207100&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=all&vc=1) to calculate RoR/bankroll for cash games. I'm not sure how well it translates to SNGs. I have a simulator that I use instead.

An example comparison:

Let's assume a $300 bankroll. Also assuming a typical standard deviation of 15BB/100 hands, and win rate of 2BB/100, that formula gives a RoR of .0048, or 0.48%.

2BB/100 hands * 60 hands/hr * $2/BB = $2.40/hr

How long does an SNG last on average? Let's say 40 minutes, ie 1.5 SNG/hr.

A 15% ROI player at 10+1 wins about $1.65 per SNG, and at 1.5 SNG/hr, makes $2.48/hr. Let's say his 1st/2nd/3rd breakdown is .135/.12/.115 which gives an ROI of 15%.

My simulator says this SNG player has a 3.7% chance of going broke in his first 500 games.

[poindexter]

I went from a break even 1.00-2.00 ring game player, to a proven winner at every sng level up to $50. All this took around 4 months. Since playing 1-table limit holdem tournaments my game has gotten more tight and aggressive and I have an easier time putting opponents on hands. Today I am experimenting with $100 and $200's and so far I am happy with the results. I know I am a better sng player then some of the regular 15-30 players that occasionally play an sng, but I would never venture into their arena to try and win. I know I would get destroyed in 15-30 and to my knowledge I would probably lose at 2-4 ring games. I don’t believe you can compare the 2 games because it takes a lot of different skills to excel in each one. tournament poker a different world with different rules. If your good at sng's my advice is to stick with them and eventually you will not care about where you fit into ring games.

[housenuts]

i don't care if i'm a proven long term winner. i don't have the time to dilly dally around at the lower levels. i can tell from the play of my opponents that i am better than them. too many people believe in hard fast rules. i know what i'm thinking but it's hard to explain it, especially when i'm just thinking out loud like right now. let me try to make some sense.

i'm a student. i have time for maybe on average 3 SNG's a day. probably more like 2 actually. i would like to multi-table but can't because i only have a 15" monitor capable of 1024x768 and I hate overlapping. my goal right now is to maximize profit and improve skills.

sticking it out for 1,000 SNG's at $10+1 won't help me in either of these departments. sure at the end of it i may prove to myself that i'm a long term winner, but my bankroll won't be too impressive (considering the time i put in to do 1,000) and my skills won't improve that much because i'm constantly playing against weaker opponents.

i think the way to do it is how i do it. that is constantly moving up. now perhaps i've been getting a little greedy and thinking 20x buy-in is enough. let's assume 30x buy-in from now on so there's no more debate on that issue.

here's the model:

say i have $400. I will play $10+1 until I have either $660 ($22 x 30) or less than $330 ($11 x 30). If I have less than 30x buy-in I drop down to the $5+.50, once I reach enough for the next level, I move up to it. Now I take a stab at 1 SNG at $20+2. If I finish out of the money, well then I'm back down below $660 again, which means I have to stick it out at $10+1 until I break that amount. Eventually I'll breakthrough at this level, and can continue to work my way up to the next level ($30+3 x 30 = $990).

I don't see any problem with doing it this way. This is how I've got my account from $50 up to $600 and there's no way my account would be at $600 right now if I just stuck with the $5+.50 until I reached 1,000 SNG's to prove I'm a winner.

i was kinda just rambling, but this way makes alot of sense to me. you can't really calculate the RoR because your buy-in level depends on how much $$$ you have. it's not like once you break the $660 you're only going to play $20+2 until you either run out of money, or make it to the next level.

the one problem is your account could be stagnant for a while. say i get to $660, try a $20+2 and lose, then I have to get it up there again. if every time I try the $20+2 I lose my account will constantly be floating around that $ amount but I won't be making money like I would be if I just stuck it out at the $10+1. the rebuttal for this though is that when you finally do break through at the $20+2 you will be theoretically making twice as much money, and will make up for lost time.

[Jurollo]

Why ask a question and for advice when you clearly have your mind made up as to what you are going to do? Just curious.

[housenuts]

sorry if i sounded forthcoming (i don't think this is the word i'm looking for /images/graemlins/confused.gif) with my post. my original post was regarding transferring over to limit poker...how it got transformed into a big debacle about moving up limits in SNGs I don't know. i'm sure i could go back through the posts (it was probably me that started it for all know) to find out, but i'm already typing now.

i think i posted my opinion in such a strong tone because i really believe it is the best way (at least for me). one, i'd like to see if anyone agrees, and two i'd like to see if anyone disagrees after i lay out my argument.

do you really think it's feasible for someone who plays 2-3 SNGs a day to play 1,000 SNGs. well yeah it's feasible but it would take a year. i don't want to be stuck at $10+1 for a year. right now i'm planning on being at the $50 level by the end of the school year (April-May). is that really a lofty goal?

[poindexter]

I think your strategy is fine as long as you can stick to it. I am doing the same thing right now I will get my bank roll to a certain point and then I will try a higher limit. If I lose that one game I will drop down and repeat the process. If you don’t have the discipline to step down a level when you lose then don’t try it. Playing 1000-1500 games to prove your winner seems way too conservative if not boring to me imho. I was able to tell I could beat the $10-1 after about 20 games of watching player after player make poor decisions. I knew my decisions were right whether I lost or won and that was all I needed to know I had that level beat. On the other hand, although I knew I could beat the game I still made my self hit 40X the new buy in before I moved up to the next level permanently. This is a must to avoid the chance of ruin. If your thinking of multitabling 10's or 1 tabling 20's with a $400 roll I would say that its is a bad idea. But if your only going to try it periodically when your bank roll hits $500 for example go for it. Just get ready to drop back down when you hit 400 again.
Good luck

[housenuts]

i do it at 20x buy-in but i only single table. the reason for this is simple. at $440 I have 20x the buy-in for $20+2. if I lose that I have roughly $420 which is almost 40x buy-in for $10+1. so at any given time i'll have between 20-40x buy-ins. if i was multi-tabling i'd make sure i had more.

[Jurollo]

ok thats fair, I am just giving you my long run math

[housenuts]

i just figured out how you could calculate your Risk of Ruin with this strategy but don't know how to do the math.

i'll simplify the numbers.

let's say i have $700. I will play $20+2 as long as my bankroll is above $500. Once below $500 I will play $10+1 as long as it is above $200. Anywhere below $200 I'm playing $5+.50.

So the formula would be (Risk of losing $200 @ 20+2) x (Risk of losing $300 @ $10+1) x (Risk of losing $200 @ 5+.50)

Does that make sense? Can someone calculate that?

[dethgrind]

A while ago BruceZ posted a formula (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=207100&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=all&vc=1) in this thread for computing risk of ruin. The discussion is about cash games, though I think it might work for SNGs as well, havent looked into it. Your standard deviation per tournament (for his formula) in a SNG is usually just under twice the buyin I believe, something like 1.8 times the buyin, i.e. $18 for a 10+1 game.

Otherwise, you can run simulations. Eastbay has one that he may have posted a link to. I also have one that I'm considering making user-friendly with a graphical interface and what have you.