How can Party SNGs be long-term profitable?

[Lloyd]

This is a serious question. I think I play quite well. I've certainly won my fair share of MTTs, no-limit ring games, and have probably won more than I've lost in 1-table SNGs. But I just can't believe that 1-table SNGs (at least on Party) are anything more than luck. Pretty much every game comes down to 7 or 8 people with huge blinds and everyone shortstacked. So whoever gets lucky and doubles up usually finishes in the money.

I guess there is some skill in selecting what hands to go all-in with. But what else am I missing? I've read a lot here about people earning long-term profits playing 1-table SNGs. Where else does skill come into play? How can they be profitable?

[SmileyEH]

There are a million posts on this subject in this forum. Read them.

-SmileyEH

[Lloyd]

With all due respect, people need to stop posting the answer "there are a million posts on this, read them." I'm not new to 2+2. Do you not think that I've done an extensive search and failed to find the answer I was looking for? Now, perhaps my search skills need improving. But nonetheless, I would of course search for an answer prior to posting a question this general.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
This is a serious question. I think I play quite well. I've certainly won my fair share of MTTs, no-limit ring games, and have probably won more than I've lost in 1-table SNGs. But I just can't believe that 1-table SNGs (at least on Party) are anything more than luck. Pretty much every game comes down to 7 or 8 people with huge blinds and everyone shortstacked.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shallow money poker is not as much luck as many seem to believe. There's substantial theoretical and empirical evidence for this on this forum.

If you're not experienced at it, it may seem like pure luck. It isn't.

eastbay

[Irieguy]

Here's one version of the answer:

A SNG is a zero-sum game (minus the rake). If everybody played the same, you would finish in each position 10% of the time, and lose the rake.

But, if for some reason, somebody were to play in such a way as to finish in 10th place more often than 10% of the time, what would happen to everybody else's results? They would finish in 1st a disproportionate amount of time to the extent (divided by nine) that the one bad player finished 10th a disproportionate amount of time. So, that begs the questions, 1) is it possible to play in such a way as to finish in 10th place more often than average? and 2) does anybody play that way?

The answer to those questions is clearly yes, and you should be able to see that if you've played very many of these. Now, extrapolate those questions to finishing 9th-4th and you've got your answer. Now imagine if more than 1 person played this way, and you were able to play in such a way that you actually did BETTER than average. You could really make some money if that were possible...

Irieguy

[lorinda]

Pretty much every game comes down to 7 or 8 people with huge blinds and everyone shortstacked.

Don't be one of the 2 or 3 and you'll be fine.

Lori

[RcrdBoy]

[ QUOTE ]
With all due respect, people need to stop posting the answer "there are a million posts on this, read them."

[/ QUOTE ]

Most people don't search enough and the same questions get posted over and over. If you read here all the time you've seen that.

In fact, I think responses like this should be posted more often, not less.

[Desdia72]

good answer.

i think there's a reason they call it "Party" poker.

[FishBurger]

[ QUOTE ]
Pretty much every game comes down to 7 or 8 people with huge blinds and everyone shortstacked. So whoever gets lucky and doubles up usually finishes in the money.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is certainly not true at the $22 level on Party. I just played in an SNG where if you knew how to operate the fold button, you made into the money. We were down to three people by level 3.

I'm not a great player. I'm not even sure if I'm a good player, but I've won a few thousand over the course of a year-and-a-half playing mostly $5, $10, and $20 SNGs. The key for me is patience. I generally fold about the first 30 hands and then start playing aggressively after that. By the time I play my first hand, there may only be five or six people left out of the ten that started.

When I first started playing hold 'em, I thought the ring games would be easier to beat than the SNGs. The Party SNG games just seemed like a total crap shoot to me. However, after I lost about $300 in $1/2 limit, I started playing $6 limit SNGs and found that I could beat them. Now I'm playing $10-$20 NL SNGs on PokerStars and Party, and find that as long as I'm patient, I make money.

Although I would have no idea how to prove it mathematically, I believe the SNGs are profitable because several players knock themselves out in the early rounds. Additionally, selecting the right hands to play in the later rounds is also helpful.

[Daliman]

I fail to see how this is a serious question when it shows a complete lack of understanding of how SNG's work and how tournament poker and even poker itself is played. I mean, it's just whoever happens to get the best cards that certain time, right?

[viennagreen]

Okay--- suppose it's a complete crapshoot after 3 people are knocked out. Now suppose that you can consistently be one of the 7 remaining players.

If it is (for simplicity), a $10+1 SNG, 7 people now have an equal chance at the $100 prize pool. $100/7 = $14.29. That is $3.29 profit for each of the 7 players left--- a 30% Return on Investment.

A 30% ROI is decent.

[Lloyd]

Just to clarify, I'm talking about the higher limit SNGs - in particular the $109s. I think I have an understanding of poker and how tournaments work. I've been pretty successful in MTTs but am just starting to play SNGs. I have a degree in Finance, work in mathematics on a daily basis, and play lots of poker.

I guess I made a rather poor assumption that everyone playing at $109 SNGs was at least a decent player. I completely buy-in to theory that at least 1 or 2 people will not be "decent" and therefore not have a chance to place in the money. Hence, the remaining people will all have positive ROIs.

I guess it's just a little difficult for me to transition to a game where my advantage remains for such a short period of time - that after a few rounds I will most likely be shortstacked with the rest of the players. That doesn't, of course, happen all of the time as I try to press things early and see if I can double up. And when it does happen I believe my decisions on when to go all-in, call all-in, slowplay, etc. is better than others so I will have some advantage, just not what I'm typically used to.

So I agree with others in that presuming there is always at least one person who shouldn't be playing at the table, you will have some type of advantage. So how do you exploit that advantage (notice I'm transitioning from questioning the long-term success playing SNGs to assuming that you can be successful so let's talk about how to maximize that success)?

One thing that I've read (and practiced in my short SNG career) is to be very selective with starting hands but try and press every advantage you can. So for example, if someone raises in front of me and I have a big pocket pair I'm probably going to just go all-in and see if I get a call. I might even do this with AK figuring I either double up or I can find another table and start again.

What are other ways people press edges early? Am I wrong in any of my assumptions.

And for the poster who essentially said that this was a stupid post and anyone asking these questions doesn't have a clue about poker or tournament play, I would suggest that you refrain from making such posts in the future. It's counterproductive. If you don't think it's a good post, then don't respond. But if someone asks what they think is a serious question then show them the respect that I believe this forum is accustomed to.

Thank you to everyone who has responded, it's been very helpful.

[wjmooner]

Lloyd,

One way to think of it is that you make money in poker off of other people's mistakes. In a 109 SnG there is going to be a substantial amount of luck involved, as there are many more good players at each table. Thus, while your maximum ROI at a 10$ table may be somewhere around 45% your maximum return at the 109 level may be around 25%. These are just guesstimates, though.

It's the same way with limit. You could crush the 1/2 game for 5bb per 100 hands, or win 1.5bb at 15/30. Obviously there is a much smaller edge, but the edge is still there.

chris

[stlip]

I'm a long-time profitable limit player, but NL was a mystery to me. Don't know if these will help you but they began to set me on the right path.

hands to push all in and hands to call them with (http://rwa.homelinux.net/poker/hand-rankings.html)


There's a good thread in this forum that explains further what that link is about, but I can't figure out how to post to that. I'll try to edit it in later.


A collection of SNG strategy articles (http://teamfu.freeshell.org/tournament.html)

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Pretty much every game comes down to 7 or 8 people with huge blinds and everyone shortstacked. So whoever gets lucky and doubles up usually finishes in the money.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is certainly not true at the $22 level on Party. I just played in an SNG where if you knew how to operate the fold button, you made into the money. We were down to three people by level 3.

I'm not a great player. I'm not even sure if I'm a good player, but I've won a few thousand over the course of a year-and-a-half playing mostly $5, $10, and $20 SNGs. The key for me is patience. I generally fold about the first 30 hands and then start playing aggressively after that. By the time I play my first hand, there may only be five or six people left out of the ten that started.

When I first started playing hold 'em, I thought the ring games would be easier to beat than the SNGs. The Party SNG games just seemed like a total crap shoot to me. However, after I lost about $300 in $1/2 limit, I started playing $6 limit SNGs and found that I could beat them. Now I'm playing $10-$20 NL SNGs on PokerStars and Party, and find that as long as I'm patient, I make money.

Although I would have no idea how to prove it mathematically, I believe the SNGs are profitable because several players knock themselves out in the early rounds. Additionally, selecting the right hands to play in the later rounds is also helpful.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think you hit on it. I can't remember ever being in a SNG where there were still 7 or 8 people still left with "huge blinds and everyone shortstacked". Usually several are out by the time the blinds get bigger and since their chips are in the hands of the survivors, everyone is not shortstacked.

[stlip]

Here is a link to the discussion thread on ranking hands for all-in pushes and calls.

I hope this works (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1088198&page=&view=&s b=5&o=&vc=1)

[KenProspero]

[ QUOTE ]
I guess I made a rather poor assumption that everyone playing at $109 SNGs was at least a decent player. I completely buy-in to theory that at least 1 or 2 people will not be "decent" and therefore not have a chance to place in the money. Hence, the remaining people will all have positive ROIs.

...

So I agree with others in that presuming there is always at least one person who shouldn't be playing at the table, you will have some type of advantage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lloyd --

In reading your post, I had the following thought:

I guess the question I'd ask is how what you're asking about in an SNG differs from Poker in general. Poker is always a zero-sum game (disregarding tokes and rakes).

If we all played exactly the same, over the long run, no one would make any money. The only way to make money is to consistently make fewer mistakes than the others you play with.

[J.A.Sucker]

The good news is that there are tons of mistakes to exploit.

[Qhorin]

I personally have very little success/luck in the huge MTTs but make a nice ROI on the SNGs. The variance is certainly lower.

One unique thing about them the need to switch from super-tight MTT style, to loose short-handed style within 30 minutes. Few players make the adjustment well, thankfully.