Intrigued by the "Steps"

[ericlambi]

I play on Empire Poker, which doesn't have these Step SNGs. I have a dormant PP account and was thinking about putting some money in there just to play the steps. I'm wondering, is this a waste of money for someone who is profitable at the $30-50 SNGs?

It seems like a good challenge, with a small risk/big reward. But I wonder if the chances of me cashing are so incredibly low that I could try all year straight and maybe do it once or twice.

Is anyone doing these Steps (starting at Step 1), just for fun, and to potentially put their skills to the test against the big guys for cheap?

[shaundeeb]

last few days I've made my 12$ buyin last pretty far. Going from 1 to 2 to 3 to 2 to 3 to 3 to 4 bad beat back to 2 and still have my freeroll. A smart tourny player can get far in them and its such a low buyin.

I've been thinking of spending 1 week just playing steps 2-3 tabling them prob is the freerolls aren't cumulative so I need to be careful and not have one get wasted.

[Marcotte]

I don't play on Party so I've only listened to the Steps discusion half-heartedly, but it seemed to me that they were a bad bet unless you could beat the step 5 directly (since that's the only way to cash out).

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prob[lem] is the freerolls aren't cumulative so I need to be careful and not have one get wasted.

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Are you saying that if you have a freeroll to Step 2 and you enter another step 1 and win, you don't get a second step 2 entry? If that's true, it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I think I'd be more inclined to enter a Super Sattelite draw into the WSOP or some other big B&M MTT.

[midnight24]

of course the freerolls are cumulative

[ethan]

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prob is the freerolls aren't cumulative

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This is incorrect, fwiw. You can have multiple freerolls at the same time (for the same step and/or for different ones.)

[dtbog]

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I've been thinking of spending 1 week just playing steps 2-3 tabling them prob is the freerolls aren't cumulative so I need to be careful and not have one get wasted.

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What gave you that impression?

[EddieMoney22]

I am a normal 20 + 2 player and decided to give this a shot, I took my first step 1 entry all the way to a first place finish at step 5. Thought that might be beginners luck, but I started again at step one lost at step three. Then I started one more time and finished 3rd at step 5. I now have two going on and I am in step 2 and 3 right now. Not a bad ROI $6300 for $60 investment so far and still in two of them.

[Scuba Chuck]

If possible, I would enjoy hearing more from those players who play on the $33-$55 tables.

Are you finding success in cashing in on STEP 5 of these tourneys? I'd like to believe EddieMoney's experience on the ROI, it's just my feeling that all the $215ers are just buying into the STEP 5 tourneys, and gobbling up all the money.

[WarDekar]

I haven't been playing these, but it would be my opinion the "best" players are doing a combination of buying into levels 4 and 5. Levels 1-3 I would have to believe are all pretty fishy, probably around the level of $10+1s. I think it becomes a matter of can you stay in the loop? If you can continually stay in the system I think it's worth it, because even a winning $30-$50 player will be able to get 10/10/10 on Step 5 I would think, and while that won't beat the "vig" of buying directly into step 5s, it's worth the payoff to occassionally get lucky.

[daboze]

I don't really understand the attraction to the steps. If you like the challenge then why not just do your own "STEP" challenge starting with the 10+1 SNGs on empire or party?

this gives you far more chances to cash out before you get to the shark tank which is certainly -EV for most of us.

Step 1
--------
1st = 2 level 2 (20+2) buyins, + $6
2nd = 1 lvl 2, + $8
3rd = 1 lvl 1, - $1

step 2
------
1st = 3 lvl 3, + $1
2nd = 2 lvl 3, - $3
3rd = 1 lvl 3, + $7
etc


it means you have to keep your own track of your "freerolls" and extra $$, but is that really a problem?

In my opinion it is for gamblers only, which is fine, but to think of it as a long-term game with +EV is wrong unless you are one of the top players in which case you should not be wasting your time below level 3 or 4.

Also the argument that there are more fish in the STEPs does not seem valid because you can not cash out until you get to the last STEP, where some of the top SNG players live.

Just my opinion. Would like to hear any countering thoughts.

[Che]

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In my opinion it is for gamblers only, which is fine, but to think of it as a long-term game with +EV is wrong unless you are one of the top players in which case you should not be wasting your time below level 3 or 4.

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If you are +EV at levels 1-3 and breakeven at Step 4 (and anyone who understands satellite basics should be very close to or above breakeven at Step 4), you could be +EV overall even if you are -EV at Step 5. Of course, $/hour may be so low that the +EV is not enough to be worth the time.

The test is to estimate how much it will cost you on average per Step 5 seat won. If you can start at Step 1 and make Step 5 once every 40 tries, you clearly don't have to be very good at Step 5 to be profitable, but your $/hour would probably be microscopic.

FWIW I buy in anywhere from Step 3 to Step 5. Which I register for at any given moment is determined by how well I'm playing, how many sharks are signed up for the Step 5, how many fish are registered for the Step 5, etc.

I think Step 4 is the highest $EV buyin point for me, while Step 5 is probably the highest $/hour buyin point and Step 3 is the lowest variance (while still having very good $EV and reasonable $/hour). I say *think* because I have nowhere near enough data to know for sure (only 9 Step 5's played so far, for example).

Later,
Che