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View Full Version : Sustainable long term ROI??


pshreck
10-30-2004, 01:02 AM
I have been keeping personal records on all my SNG 20+2s for the past few weeks. I have felt for a while I can easily beat these, and maybe make some money doing so. Anyways, 4 tabling, my ROI for 400 of them is 44%. When I play Im making over 45 bucks per hour.

I can say this was way over my expectations. My goal was 25%, expecting to be in the 15-25% range. I have seen threads in the past claiming the highest long term possible is around 50%... but which is very unlikely.

How likely is it that I will stay in the 44% range? Is 400 tournaments enough? Ive made so much money doing this, and I feel like Im getting in over my head at what this could mean for me if I can sustain anywhere near this.

My job offers for accounting out of college will be in the 45k range, thats working 60+ hours a week. I could blow that amount out of the water right now if I played these SNG's full time, and Im seriously considering it. Any advice would be appreciated, especially from anyone who is full timing SNG's now.

Irieguy
10-30-2004, 02:49 AM
There have been a million threads on this topic, so you might want to search for them. But here is a summary, heavily tainted with my biases. If people who have played 1000 or more SNGs disagree, it won't be a big disagreement:

1. You can't play $20 SNGs for a living.

2. The limit of sustainability at the $33 level is an ITM of 44% and an ROI of around 35%

3. The limit of sustainability at the higer limits will drop about 5-8% ROI each time you move up.

4. Keep in mind that if you are planning on playing at the limit of sustainability, you are planning on being one of the best SNG players in the world.

5. I work >60 hours a week at my "real" job and still find time to play a few hundred SNGs a month... you might want to consider a nice accounting job... on the side.

Irieguy

eastbay
10-30-2004, 02:53 AM
pshrek,

Your results are very good and I'm confident you're a winning player. However, I wouldn't expect 44% to last forever, even if you've maintained it for 400 games. It's possible, but it's definitely not the kind of figure you want to make a career choice on.

If you have a degree in accounting, I would strongly advise you to start your career as you planned, and not skip it entirely to pursue poker fulltime. Pursue poker part time. Give yourself at a bare, bare minimum a full year of experience before considering any career changing moves.

I know it's tempting and it seems like a free way to live, but all the accumulated experience I've seen on these boards for the past year make me very wary of this as a full-time career choice. As they say, it's a tough way to make an easy living.

But, I know from experience that it's a fantastic way to provide yourself with lots of extra spending money and extras every month once your day job has paid off your nominal living expenses.

Not to mention that as an accountant, it's not hard to move up from your starting salary. Over the longer haul, it may be quite a bit easier than moving up in the poker world into six-figure plus incomes.

I took a different career path in science, but believe me, what I do each day is a heck of a lot easier than grinding the $109s or $215s for five or six hours a day, which is what I would have to do to match my income. And, barring disaster, it's guaranteed. No variance is a great thing when it comes to income. For example, you want to buy a house some day? You expect to get a mortgage listing professional gambler as your profession? When they want to see your last three pay stubs (and they will), what are you going to show? You gonna put down the party support 1-800 number as your reference? Just something to think about.

eastbay

Gramps
10-30-2004, 03:15 AM
[ QUOTE ]
No variance is a great thing when it comes to income

[/ QUOTE ]

I like that quote. Hard to appreciate the value of paycheck stability until you start experiencing income variance like that in poker.

pshreck
10-30-2004, 03:24 AM
1. You can't play $20 SNGs for a living.

... Just a little confused by this. Starting out with 4 tabling and moving up to 8 tabling... I dont see why this cant make 60k a year if someone is in fact a long term succesful player.

Both responses were very helpful. A big factor is that I HATE accounting. Ive done it for about 2 years now, and am getting prepared to take an offer at Price Waterhouse. It is something I simply don't want to pursue... it is an awful job... and for the most part not much room for great money, unless you go down the management path (and abandon most accounting anyways).

My fiancee will be working as an actuary starting in the summer, her job offers range from 55-65, with 10K signing bonuses. We are both 21, young and looking to be happy and start a life. Considering my hate of my current profession path, and my success in poker (paying for our rent, furniture, and luxuries) we are discussing me doing it full time. It is easier having the discussion knowing she will have a very solid 'real' job.

Im preparing to make the decision by next June, which will be about 1 full year of me testing out these SNG's. If through 3k SNG's I am showing a 30%+ ROI, I may very well do it full time. Thanks for all input.

Irieguy
10-30-2004, 04:04 AM
One more piece of advice I offer to aspiring pros is this:

Ask yourself the following question...

"Why am I so much better than everybody else at this game?"

Some possible answers could be:

1. You've been playing professional poker for years.

2. You have an advanced degree in game theory, and tend to be able to figure out correct strategy better than others because you have studied applicable methodology extensively.

3. You've read everything in print on poker, and understand why most of it is really bad.

4. You are a world class competitor at another game of strategy like bridge, chess, or backgammon.

I'm not saying that this resume is necessary to beat small limit SNGs... just that if you can't think of a very sound reason why you are better than everybody else, you are not likely to be much better for much longer.

I've never known any successful poker player for whom it wasn't clearly obvious why they were winning. The reasons can be as diverse as those listed above, but the reasons are always there, and always clear.

This is meant as a sincere suggestion to consider in your decision to play poker as your exclusive form of income... I hope it doesn't seem otherwise.

Irieguy

PS- the main reason why you can't make a living playing $20 SNGs is because if you were good enough to make a living at the 20's, you'd be playing a higher limit.

pshreck
10-30-2004, 04:33 AM
Irie, you seem to have a lot of very highly intelligent stuff to say. Thanks for the responses.

Further inquiry on playing the 20+2's (as opposed to higher). I have indeed tested the waters at all levels. I find that 20+2's are significantly softer than 30+3's. I believe my strengths reside in my ability to recognize what has worked for me repeadetly in these 20+2's, and go with it. Meaning.... sometimes I know that pushing with cards XX in situation X is great tournament $ EV. As you move up in limits, poker becomes less about this, and more about who your opponent is, and other factors. A large % of my opponents in the 20+2's dont account for their stack size, my stack size, the blinds, or how close they are to the money. This is all + for me, because I take advantage of it at the correct times.

I think the key thing in being succesful at multi tabling SNGS is how to play what I call 'The Average Opponent'. Simply, how to be profitable with minimal reads, due to the nature of playing 36+ opponents at once and the fast paced nature of an SNG. If you are a poker player who relies on reads and instinct... indeed, play higher limits, one table at a time, and make your money that way.

The best question you posed to me Irie is ... what makes me better than anyone else? It is an absolutely great question and indeed I have an inkling at some answers to it, but I will always keep it in the back of my mind, and see if in fact I really can be set a part from the average player.

A key thing I have to worry about now is over confidence... and you are helping to keep me in perspective. Please keep posting.

lorinda
10-30-2004, 04:43 AM
I almost always give the same, simple piece of advice.

If you have to ask whether you should go pro, the answer is no.

The reason for this is that if you are even slightly unsure about it, it's not the life for you.
There is a certain personality requirement that is very difficult to explain, but the asking of that question tends to (and this is in no way an insult, in fact it's generally a compliment) imply that you don't have it.
It's basically about not giving a crap.

Being a pro gambler involves more than just doing the same thing over and over again.
You are in an environment where time and again things come and bite you on the behind.

There are uncertainties such as American Law suddenly changing, personal illness,your favorite games becoming unpopular , the list is endless.

I've been a reasonably happy low limit pro gambler for many years, and the only thing that has kept me afloat is not my amazing poker skill but my versatility and my general ability to 'see what happens' and not panic about it.

Also I live in favorable tax conditions in England, so I get a 20-40% head start over you.

I'd recommend staying at work until you really believe that you want to do this.

FWIW 60 hours a week, every week, is unmanageable for most people.
The grind of doing it every day takes it's toll, which is why although you'll see such posts as $100k in 100 days and other such challenges, you never see the $500k in one year variation, as people who end such labors always, almost without exception, need a long recovery period afterwards.

Lori

fujowpai
10-30-2004, 05:05 AM
You will not be employable in two years without a work resume, and your degree won't be worth squat to employers. You won't even be able to state on your resume (should you need one) what you've been doing with your time.

The recent surge is poker is a fad. They all come and go. How much do you hear about "day traders" nowadays??? Zilch. The bubble burst and that was the end of that. You were in high school, so you probably don't remember how similar that phase was to this one. This poker craze has some life left in it, but if my 71 year old mother has noticed it, it won't be long before it vanishes.

Two years hence, all the "donators" will be gone onto to something else, and our culture onto some other form of mass gambling, and you will be left competing against other full-timers who made the same fateful decision. Go spend a day at the track if you want a glimpse of your "edge" under those conditions, not to mention what municipal involvement will mean to your bottom line when politicians wise up to the money flow.

Software "advancements" will probably wipe out any edge you may now hold.

I imagine your "sustainable long-term ROI" may be a whole lot worse than you think, even before you consider health insurance, taxes, and such.

Use it as a profitable hobby, buy something nice for your parents, and get a stable day job that will look great on your resume.

Eric

hhboy77
10-30-2004, 05:44 AM
there's a lot of great info in this thread. fyi, i'm a sng player at the 100 level w/a roi of about 25%.

from what i've read, it seems like my numbers are pretty good, and like pshreck i've thought about how much money i could make playing full-time.

what keeps me from doing it is that i've gone from someone who hadn't played a single hand of poker 18 months ago to this point.

part of me - okay all of me - wants to think that i'm just an amazing mind that other people can't come close to matching. but that's not the reality. the reality is that sng's are soft and it won't take much for them not to be soft.

i don't know if the poker bubble will burst; i suspect it won't keep growing forever, but it will hit a peak and then come down a bit and maintain. however, even if it kept growing, it would take so little to make sng's really hard to beat for good money that i wouldn't want to take a chance on my career by doing the pro thing based such as sng's.

fujowpai
10-30-2004, 06:27 AM
[ QUOTE ]
i don't know if the poker bubble will burst; i suspect it won't keep growing forever, but it will hit a peak and then come down a bit and maintain.

[/ QUOTE ]

You might have a look at Volume One of Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds By Charles MacKay. It was written in 1841, but some things never change.

Devil Take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor fills in any gaps left by MacKay.

However, it IS worthwhile to note that the former chair of the Republican National Committee is now the head of the American Gaming Association (the "gambling lobby"), and municipalities all over are figuring out how to milk our national addiction (well, there's also high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar convenience foods), so there's no question that it has some life left in it.

There used to be an entire division of the FBI for stamping out the numbers racket (ie. the lottery) and now there is a mesmerizing variety of Lotto tickets at every convenient store across the US of A.

And of course, we don't want to pay our enormous national debt through personal, investment, sales, property, or business taxes, so there has to be some method of wealth transfer to all the other countries holding US Treasuries .

So yeah, I guess you're right. It will be maintained ... at least until it is no longer sustainable.

Eric

gergery
10-30-2004, 11:12 AM
Playing them for fun on weekends for ~15 hours week is very different than doing them fulltime.

Try playing them fulltime for a month. treat them as a job. only spend money that week if you made money playing them. at the end of the month, ask yourself "do i really enjoy this,"

and for god sakes get into a different career. you are way too young to embark on a career you hate. trust me on this.

ilya
10-30-2004, 11:45 AM
[ QUOTE ]
The recent surge is poker is a fad. They all come and go. How much do you hear about "day traders" nowadays??? Zilch.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's true but...there're still tons of day traders out there making tons of money. They do just fine without the publicity.

ilya
10-30-2004, 12:15 PM
All these sensible naysayers are ticking me off. You are certainly a winning player; your thought process seems fairly sound; you are clearly capable of improving as you go; even if you decide not to move up in limits, it is very possible to make a good living off the $20s. Yes, playing full time feels like a grind sometimes. But 1, you don't need to play more than 40hrs/week (vs. the suck-you-dry overtime hours at any big corp) and 2, come on, can it really be worse than doing ACCOUNTING all day?!
Yes, if you go pro but decide later you can't do it, you'll probably have a very hard time getting a job in accounting. But...that's a good thing! Think about it. Even an aborted poker career will help you avoid the soul-draining living hell of ACCOUNTING! Irieguy, lorinda, east, do you realize you are advising this guy to get a FULL-TIME JOB helping some other [censored] keep his money and evade taxes?! Why are you trying to sentence him to this miserable existence?!
Dude, go pro. Your girlfriend's job can secure the mortgage. Your relationship will be healthier because you'll have more time to spend with her, and if you ever have kids with her or with someone else, you'll be around to get to know them and help take care of them.
Say the worst happens. You go pro and things are going swimmingly for about a year. But the poker gods turn against you, the horrible downswing puts you on desperation tilt, and you lose your whole bankroll. Shaken to the very core, you neglect personal hygiene and wander meaninglessly around the house. This frightens your girlfriend, who leaves you for Wilford, the sporty senior accountant from the 6th floor. Since the mortgage is in her name, out of the house you go! No options left, you crawl to the back stoop of PWC and beg them to hire you as an accountant/janitor. They point accusingly at the gaping hole in your resume. You lower your eyes in shame and crawl away on your knees. Disgraced, broke, alone...you might as well end it all...

But don't you see?...even in this nightmare scenario....you never have to work as an ACCOUNTANT!

AleoMagus
10-30-2004, 05:30 PM
I am of the opinion that a 44% ROI in the 20+2's while playing 4 at once is...

IMPOSSIBLE

Still, you have been doing it, and 400 SNGs is a lot. That is a actually pretty good counter-evidence to my opinion but I still have it.

It's funny though. If you had made this post saying that you had a ROI of 18%/tourney multi-tabling 4 games in the 20+2 for an hourly rate of about $16, then I'd actually be more inclined to say the pro thing is worth trying.

The reason that I say this is because then I would be reasonably certain that you are not going to experience a huge turnaround from your usual expectation overnight. You would probably not be running extremely well, and could expect to continue.

As it is though, you probably are running extremely well, and over a big sample too. 44% with 1 tourney/time might be possible, but with 4 simultaneous, I just can't beleive that it will continue forever. Hopefully I am wrong, and as I said, 400 is actually a fairly big sample, so if I am right, hopefully not by too much.

The problem with making decisions (like the one you are pondering) when running this well is that it will seem like a huge dark twist of fate if your results start to slide when it's all you have to get by. And this is a recipe for disaster.

400 SNGs when multi-tabling like you have been is less than 100 hours of poker. If you run games continuously after busting, it might be only a bit more than 50 hours of poker.

I know estimates of expectation have more to do with quantity than they do actual time, but the time is a human element we need to consider. You simply cannot expect to get the same results doing this in two weeks to a month if it took you three times that long to get this far. When you start to play full-time, your results will slip and you will find that boredom becomes a factor in tour earnings.

As far as all the resume gap comments, and the horrible damage you do to your future by not working now, I don't really buy any of that. I have have huge career gaps all over my resume thanks to 9-Ball and Poker and it has never been a real problem at all. You just need to make sure that you do a few things on the side that you can use to explain your lack of work. Write even one article/month for a poker magazine or even start a blog or a webpage or something. It doesn't need to occupy much of your time, and it doesn't need to earn a profit at all. It just needs to be something that you can put on a resume later. Writing a book is an even better idea, because if everything dries up in a year, or you decide that you just aren't making as much as you thought you would, you can say "I was writing a book".

I'd also recommend getting involved in outside activities. Join a gym. Take Karate or Judo. Do a class on pottery or photography or something. This is very important for online professionals. It is just too easy to realize that you haven't left the house in days. Simple matters like hygiene and exercise are often things we take for granted, but when you suddenly are not required to do them, its amazing how our ordinarily rigid standards can bend.

I would also seriously recommend getting into a live game as part of your poker routine. Even just a few hours a week at first is a very good idea. I'd also set aside maybe 1K on a separate site and use it to start playing other games, specifically limit ring games. It doesn't matter if you aren't making anything there at first.

...

I don't think trying it is a horrible idea like some do. Just getting back to my earlier comments though, I'd probably either wait a little longer or go into it with reduced expectations.

Regards
Brad S

PrayingMantis
10-30-2004, 06:08 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I have have huge career gaps all over my resume thanks to 9-Ball

[/ QUOTE ]

I know what you're talking about... /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif

fujowpai
10-30-2004, 06:15 PM
[ QUOTE ]
As far as all the resume gap comments, and the horrible damage you do to your future by not working now, I don't really buy any of that. I have have huge career gaps all over my resume thanks to 9-Ball and Poker and it has never been a real problem at all. You just need to make sure that you do a few things on the side that you can use to explain your lack of work. Write even one article/month for a poker magazine or even start a blog or a webpage or something. It doesn't need to occupy much of your time, and it doesn't need to earn a profit at all. It just needs to be something that you can put on a resume later. Writing a book is an even better idea, because if everything dries up in a year, or you decide that you just aren't making as much as you thought you would, you can say "I was writing a book".

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't really believe that this is an acceptable resume item for an accounting firm; at least not for a job AS an accountant.

eastbay
10-30-2004, 08:03 PM
[ QUOTE ]

As far as all the resume gap comments, and the horrible damage you do to your future by not working now, I don't really buy any of that. I have have huge career gaps all over my resume thanks to 9-Ball and Poker and it has never been a real problem at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a strong function of what you want to do. For me, it would be absolute suicide.

eastbay

Desdia72
10-30-2004, 10:57 PM
there's nothing to say you can't sustain your current ROI. as a matter of fact, i'm a firm believer that if you're really good you can attain both a higher ITM% and ROI. there are plenty of guys around these forums that are making quite a bit of money playing SNGs almost exclusively.
don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it either. don't concern yourself with any player pool drying up or whether you're that much better than the next player (or vice versa). focus on the play that has achieved you your current ROI and focus on getting even better. i think you and any good player is capable of making a living playing $20 SNGs.

pshreck
10-30-2004, 11:53 PM
I think a shockwave that I may have given off is that I intend to give up everything I have going and to just play poker. My interest in possibly playing full time does not mean abandon any other professional future. It very well may mean abandoning accounting... but Im willing to let that go. I have interest in writing (not poker writing). I also have interest in pursuing a career in psychology.... I feel investing my time in poker now, will enable me to make money while possibly pursuing other things that are MUCH tougher to find money in than business (specifically things like writing and other things within the liberal arts that are much tougher to start out in. Accounting is follow the steps and get a job...)

I couldn't agree more with the people who say you really can't base your whole professional life on poker (unless you intend to be world class). I am in no way even looking down that road. I dont want to be a road gambler, and dont want to have to adapt with the game for my whole life.

I want to do it for maybe the next five years... while pursuing other professional interests on my winnings... and simply trying to enjoy life more while I'm young.

lorinda
10-31-2004, 12:08 AM
I want to do it for maybe the next five years... while pursuing other professional interests on my winnings... and simply trying to enjoy life more while I'm young.


This all seems a lot better.

One final word of caution is that the weeks turn to months turn to years so damned quick that I would recommend writing up a five year plan before you start.

Write down all the things you must do each 3 months or so and DO THEM.

I'm certainly not a spoilsport, in fact I'd like to encourage everyone to do this... I just know that it's not for most people.

It seems to me like you genuinely understand what is being said here, and that's a big plus.

If you do proceed, make a little time each day to do your professional building for the future and try to NEVER lose sight of your ultimate goals.

It was easier for me, I never had any goals /images/graemlins/blush.gif

Lori

Eder
10-31-2004, 01:05 AM
Be careful...your early years are the most fun...dont waste em playing poker or accounting...do something you like even if its min wage...lots of time to make $$ and waste time playing poker when you're older. (borrow $$ to buy a Harley and go on extended road trip )

hhboy77
10-31-2004, 01:16 AM
if you're doing other things in addition, i wholly support your effort. it's actually not very different from what i'm doing now.

even though i complain a lot about poker, it has allowed me to go back to school and study, travel abroad a bit and live a winter in lake tahoe teaching snowboarding, all while i too pursue my dream of writing.

so good luck.

fujowpai
10-31-2004, 03:10 AM
I see now I misinterpreted getting a degree in accounting as preparation for a career choice. If you had said philosophy major, and that you were thinking of becoming a bar tender, I probably would've said "do what makes you happy". So, my mistake.

Although I still think the similarities between the poker fad and similar mass cultural phenomenona hold. Exploiting it on the upswing is one thing, but you certainly don't want to be the one who got exploited. American history is a chronicle of easy money schemes. The ones who make a killing are generally the people who facilitate participating in these schemes. In the brokerage where I used to work, we jokingly referred to our work as "selling shovels to the miners".