Swings in SNGs - Party $100+$9

[Cael_Sanderson]

There has been alot of talk lately about swings and I couldn't resist sharing my recent upswing and my thoughts on what I am doing well.

Last 58 STT $109 @ Party

1st 14
2nd 8
3rd 5
ITM 46.5%
ROI 64.5%

Out of curiosity I went back and looked at my worst downswing and here it was:

36 @ $109 on Party

1st 1
2nd 4
3rd 2
ITM 19.4%
ROI -46.5%

Besides good luck, the 2 biggest differences have been game selection and aggressiveness on the bubble. I have added to my list of strong players and avoid them at all costs, which is pretty easy considering I only play in the afternoon/night on Party. It's dramatic how much of an effect 2 or even 1 strong player has on your results. The other change in my play has been more aggressively raising and reraising on the bubble. I've been willing to get busted on the bubble as long as I am the one raising and not the one calling. Previously I was playing somewhat scared and getting blinded down to the point where I had no folding equity.

[stillnotking]

I ran some numbers for SNGs on an Excel spreadsheet recently (I'll post it when I can get back to my usual computer). From memory, for a good player who has a 40% chance of finishing in the money, the 99% confidence interval over 100 SNGs is 24 to 56 money finishes. Assuming an even distribution of 1/2/3 place, that means anywhere between a loss of 27 buy-ins to a win of 69 buy-ins for 99% of groups of 100 SNGs. (Of course these numbers change somewhat over the $100 level because the juice goes down.)

Of course the real world is more complicated, mostly because you can't assume an even distribution of 1st/2nd/3rd, but that is a fair estimate. Much less variance in SNGs than live poker.

[Gramps]

[ QUOTE ]
The other change in my play has been more aggressively raising and reraising on the bubble. I've been willing to get busted on the bubble as long as I am the one raising and not the one calling. Previously I was playing somewhat scared and getting blinded down to the point where I had no folding equity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like that general approach. Certainly there's a balance to your level of aggressiveness on the bubble (you don't want to be totally reckless and do want to pick the right spots), but if you're not getting flamed/called a total fish/idiot every now and then on the bubble for the hands you're pushing, IMO you're not playing aggressively enough - at least at the 109s and 215s where people tend to (there are exceptions to be aware of) have pretty tight calling standards in that spot.

[stillnotking]

[ QUOTE ]
I ran some numbers for SNGs on an Excel spreadsheet recently (I'll post it when I can get back to my usual computer). From memory, for a good player who has a 40% chance of finishing in the money, the 99% confidence interval over 100 SNGs is 24 to 56 money finishes. Assuming an even distribution of 1/2/3 place, that means anywhere between a loss of 27 buy-ins to a win of 69 buy-ins for 99% of groups of 100 SNGs. (Of course these numbers change somewhat over the $100 level because the juice goes down.)

Of course the real world is more complicated, mostly because you can't assume an even distribution of 1st/2nd/3rd, but that is a fair estimate. Much less variance in SNGs than live poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually the above figures are for the 99.9% confidence level, other than that the post is correct. I can post more numbers if anyone is interested, but since these are purely theoretical calculations (I haven't been tracking my data long enough for them to be of any use), I don't know how much good they really do...