5 person S&Gs: First 250 checkup

[WebGuySteve]

I play the 5 person $215 sit and gos on pacific all the time. These are my bread and butter. Lately however, I have decided to try the $215ers on party.

At any rate, I am curious if 270 is a large enough sample size to get any indication of long term performance? I know that 500 is the target mark, but for this structure, varience is much smaller, therefore a smaller sample size should be requires, correct? So here are the stats!

ROI 14.7%

ITM 69.6%

Total Tourneys 270

Finish Distribution:

1st 27.0%
2nd 26.3%
3rd 16.3%
4th 18.9%
5th 11.5%

I feel like maybe I am taking too many chances (coin flips) early on, but, I'm not so sure the statistics reflect that. I think that the ROI is pretty good considering the payouts for these. The payouts are as follows: $500 for 1st, $300 for 2nd, $200 for 3rd.

[Peter Chabot]

wow. i never thought that my first post after two years of rabid lurking would be in regards to 5man SnGs on pacific... but c'est la vie.

i, too, play these because of the relatively weak level of play on pacific (even at the high limit), and the low variance involved.

i think that the qualitatively correct answer to your question on the sample size of 270 sngs is 'youve basically proven that youre a winner, but we're not sure exactly how much of one you are yet'. once your ROI begins to stabilize, then youll have a decent idea of where it is. i think we're pretty confident that you're a long-term winning player, though, if youre up 15% after 270 tourneys.

i personally find the play on party clearly superior to that of pacific. but the shadiness on pacific may outweigh that edge.

i wonder why more people here on this forum dont play the 5man game?

[WebGuySteve]

I agree with you that the play on party is far superior. The only thing that I think is drawing me away from pacific is the fact that I can't play more than 1 table at a time! If I can play 2 or 3 tables with even half the return, I'm ahead of the game. And I think dropping off 50% would be an enormous difference in skill.

I agree with you though, it is amazing that more people don't take advantage of these, I guess we should keep our mouths shut. If too many decent players play these, I think that it would kill any winnings because of the extremely flat payouts.

[cha59]

I just played 3 sng's at Pacific tonight at the $11 level and the players at that level are really bad (158% ROI, I know, small sample).
The connection there sucks though. I have cable high speed internet and lost my connection four times.
Does anyone else have this problem at Pacific?

On the subject of playing only one table at a time there, why not play one at Pacific at the same time you play other tables at other sites?

[wAzZu24]

[ QUOTE ]
the play on party is far superior

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, pacific poker must really [censored] suck.

[WebGuySteve]

[ QUOTE ]

The connection there sucks though. I have cable high speed internet and lost my connection four times.
Does anyone else have this problem at Pacific?

On the subject of playing only one table at a time there, why not play one at Pacific at the same time you play other tables at other sites?

[/ QUOTE ]

Their connection problems are notorious. I will D/C probably once a day, at least. It's terrible. But I think it's a small price to pay for the fishiness.

As far as your other question. That is what I'm going to start doing. Play 1 table on pacific, and 1 on party, then add more party tables as I get accustomed to playing a short handed S&G as well as a full 10 person one at the same time. You need to play differently, obviously, so sometimes it's hard to keep the 2 straight, lol.

[WebGuySteve]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the play on party is far superior

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, pacific poker must really [censored] suck.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have no idea....

[Peter Chabot]

dude, i can't even put it into words...

[theredpill5]

I've played those too on Pacific. Yeah, the majority of the time, you will get terrible players but I played the 5-man games $30 buy-ins everyday for a week and about wednesday or so , I noticed that some really good players were hitting those tables and I decided to go elsewhere. It's luck of the draw. The first few days, I saw absolutely horrible players but watch out if you see decent players in those games because the downswing can be bad.

[Peter Chabot]

[ QUOTE ]
the downswing can be bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

i'm curious of why you say this. i've found the variance at the 5man SnG's to be about as favorable as one can find anywhere.

[theredpill5]

I guess it depends on your bankroll. I had a $400 bankroll (on the site) and was playing the $30 SNG's. I took that to about $700 then I had one day were I lost 5 buy-ins and I considered that to be disaster. I guess I overreact a little. The opponents I faced that day seemed tougher to me. After that , I won a little more and then went elsewhere as it seemed some sharks moved in.

[WebGuySteve]

I think that you are correct in a few ways. First, the presence of 1 or 2 sharks will impact the game tremendously because it's only 5 people instead of 10.

Also, if you consider a 5 buyin downswing disasterous, then yes! Look out for the downswings! I have had a few 5 buyin downswings, but I always bounce back.

I actually just ran the results in sets of 50, and had 1 set at an ROI of 1.8%. So while the variance is much smaller, downswings are still present, just a fact of poker.