What Limit to Play and when to move up

[daveymck]

First post so please go easy.

I have been playing since Feb mainly limit 1/2 up to 3/6 and generally up although as I play 4 hours five days a week tend to have a fluctuating bankroll. Also play the odd tournie mainly on VC and Stars with some relative success won some freerolls as well as mtt $40 and $10 more through luck than good play.

Took the decision to concentrate on tournies for a while as getting bored with limit poker and think there is more money in tournie poker long term.

Have had a good read through this forum and others as well as the tournement poker book.

Using the knowledge I am picking up from here I am now finishing in the money on $3 sng 75% of the time. Find that Stars seems to be a tighter harder game than vc where there tends to be all in madness for the first couple of rounds. My thought is to stay at the 0-$5 sng and mtt tournies for now to build up more experience.

Question is, is this a good level to start at and when should I move up, bankroll is roughly $600 spread over three sites.

Any thoughts?

[CrisBrown]

Hi davey,

My general advice is to stick to 5% (1/20th) of your bankroll as your buyin for sit-and-go play. If you have $220 in your bankroll, play $11 sngs. If you get up to $440, you can try your hand at $22 sngs. And so on.

If you hit a cold streak and lose four tourneys in a row, drop down a level. If you lose four more, drop down again. This will limit your losses while your cards are soft (or you're slightly "on tilt") and protect you from losing your entire bankroll (been there, done that).

With the two-table sngs at PokerStars, the payout is good enough that you can play at 1/15th of your bankroll. So you'd need $165 to play $11 sngs, $330 to play $22, etc. If you do this, though, I'd move down a level if you lose three straight (rather than four straight as above).

Basically, if you're a skilled tournament player, you want to play at the highest buy-in you can reasonably afford ... up to the level where you no longer have a skill advantage because the other players at that level are just as good. Then you can move down a level (to protect your bankroll and hone your skills) and move back up (better hourly $$) as you improve.

Cris

[Prickly Pete]

I agree with Cris' bankroll response. I'd only add that you might want to try to grown in limits also based on your skill level. So, if you play $5 SNGs and can beat them, try the $10 SNGs, then the $20 and so on.

Track your ROI (Return on Investment) on each and find the best place for you.

[Guy McSucker]

Play where you are comfortable. Take occasional shots at bigger buyins and see if you are still comfortable!

I used to play $5 and $10 SnGs pretty often. When I took a shot at the $20 and $30 on Stars, I realised that not only were these games just as beatable as the smaller ones, they actually favoured my style a bit better since the all-in madness in the tiny games neutralised any edge I might have playing flops etc. What's more, the payouts were bigger. All good.

I am not sure that ROI is the way to look at it. My view would be, are you making money, and how much? Obviously 50% ROI at $30 tourneys is better than 100% at $10...

Guy.

[Copernicus]

I dont think you will find it much harder at buy ins all the way up to $50, so if youve played enough that 75% in the money is a credible number at the low limits, I would push on with as little as 15 times the higher buy in, but drop back if you're out of the money 3 in a row unless you've just been outdrawn when youve clearly had the best of it all 3 times. Then I would give it another 2 trys before dropping back.

Also be sure to try the 2 table SnGs. Your 75% will drop, but your ROI will go up.

[Prickly Pete]

[ QUOTE ]
I am not sure that ROI is the way to look at it. My view would be, are you making money, and how much? Obviously 50% ROI at $30 tourneys is better than 100% at $10...

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. Guy said what I meant, but should have said. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[CrisBrown]

Hiya Copernicus,

I understand what you and Guy are saying about ROI, and it is a relevant point, although I prefer to look at expected hourly earnings. Here's an example. The conditions and percentages are fictitious, for illustrative purposes only:

* A two-table SNG takes 1.5 hours to complete.
* You'll finish in the money 60% of the time at an $11 buy-in, and 40% of the time at a $22 buy-in.
* Your money finishes are evenly distributed over 1st-4th place, for an average payout of $45 ($34 profit) at an $11 buy-in, and $90 ($68 profit) at a $22 buy-in.

So ...

At an $11 buy-in, your expected hourly earnings are profits (60% of $34) minus losses (40% of $11) per 1.5-hour game, or: ((.6 x $34) - (.4 x $11)) / 1.5 hrs = $10.67/hour

At a $22 buy-in, your expected hourly earnings are profits (40% of $68) minus losses (60% of $22) per 1.5-hour game, or: ((.4 x $68) - (.6 x $22)) / 1.5 hrs = $9.33/hour

If these were your percentages, you get a better hourly return at the lower level. You'd need to finish in the money about 43% of the time at $22 to get the same hourly return as a 60% money finish at $11. Periodically, then, you could step up to the $22 level to see if your skills have improved enough that you can get a better hourly return there.

Cris

[happyjaypee]

...making the 400,000th post on 2+2!!!

Too bad there's no prize money or freeroll tourney to go whit it. /images/graemlins/grin.gif


-Happy /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[Guy McSucker]

[ QUOTE ]
I understand what you and Guy are saying about ROI, and it is a relevant point, although I prefer to look at expected hourly earnings.


[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't that sort of pretty much exactly the point I was making? Here's what I wrote:
[ QUOTE ]

I am not sure that ROI is the way to look at it. My view would be, are you making money, and how much? Obviously 50% ROI at $30 tourneys is better than 100% at $10...


[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I am implying that "return per tourney" is the important thing. Really, hourly rate is the important thing as you point out, but for most cases that's going to be very similar to return per tourney. (Here I mean actual cash return, not % of buyin amount, of course).

I got to wondering why people bring up ROI at all. Then I worked it out. Suppose you have $300, and a 100% ROI at $10 buyins, and 50% at $30.

If you could play as many concurrent tourneys as you wanted, you should go for the $10 ones, because the ROI is better: invest your $300 in 30 of them and make $300. Alternatively you could play 10 $30 ones, and make $150.

Trouble is, you can't do that. It's not the money that limits what you can do in poker: it's your time. So you should play 10 $30 tournaments consecutively and win $150, instead of playing 10 $10 tournaments and winning $100.

I am sure the economists must have a word to describe this situation, where one resource (time) is more limited than another (money) and becomes the appropriate denominator when working out the best investment.

Hey, my wife is an economist. I will ask her and get back to you.

Anyway, isn't it good that we all agree?

Guy.

[CrisBrown]

Guy,

I agree. I look at poker as a second job. If I have only X hours per week to invest in playing poker, I want to get the best return for those X hours.

If I looked at poker as a hobby -- as many players do -- I'd look at things differently. Now I'd be looking for the most enjoyable game that would give me a reasonable chance of winning, yet cost me the least when I lose. I'd look at the money lost as the price of entertainment, and I'd want to get the best entertainment value for my dollar.

There's nothing wrong with playing poker for a hobby, btw. So long as you're honest about why you're playing, you can choose games that best reward those reasons. But if you do look at it as a job, then at least one of those factors has to be hourly return.

Cris

[daveymck]

[ QUOTE ]
Guy,

I agree. I look at poker as a second job. If I have only X hours per week to invest in playing poker, I want to get the best return for those X hours.

If I looked at poker as a hobby -- as many players do -- I'd look at things differently. Now I'd be looking for the most enjoyable game that would give me a reasonable chance of winning, yet cost me the least when I lose. I'd look at the money lost as the price of entertainment, and I'd want to get the best entertainment value for my dollar.

There's nothing wrong with playing poker for a hobby, btw. So long as you're honest about why you're playing, you can choose games that best reward those reasons. But if you do look at it as a job, then at least one of those factors has to be hourly return.

Cris

[/ QUOTE ]

I am in the second job camp, however (and I guess this was the thrust of my question) I am at the stage where I am not concerned about current earnings but future ones.

In my view a good tournament player can do well in sng one and two tables as bread and butter but surely should be looking at doing well in mtt's to get the big bonus. Doing well in these tournements would be my overall aim.

For the moment I am looking to get as many games in to get the experience but still be getting in the money regular so bankroll is not completely blinded out.

I do think I need to move up a level though played $5 2 table on stars last night and walked it got in early lead and after that was never less than in the lead by 25% of chips. That is good from the point of view to learn how to be chip leader and move through the gears but not sure whether that will help when I go up the limits.

[Guy McSucker]

About multi-table tournaments:

I think it is generally agreed that the variance on these is huge, and that if you are winning an amount equal to the buy-in on average, you are doing very well. For that reason I don't think success at multi-table tournaments should be a key goal of a "second job" type player.

The occasional big score offered by these tournaments is very good for a hobbyist player. Well, it's good for anyone, but the long dry patches are sure to hurt if you are playing purely for money.

For more on this, see Sklansky's essay "Is your wallet fat enough for tournaments" in "Getting the best of it."

Guy.

[CrisBrown]

Hi davey,

Once again, Guy and I agree. (Gee, Guy, this is becoming a habit between us!) I think multi-table tourneys are better for "hobby" players than "second-job" players. They get to play for a couple of hours or more at a fixed cost, and if Lady Luck is with them -- a necessity for anyone to place well in big tourneys -- they get a nice payoff and a very real sense of accomplishment and validation. And again, I see NOTHING wrong with playing poker for those reasons and in that way!

For a "second job" player, though, the bankroll swings are too great. Two-table SNGs are reliable money -- with only 18 players it's less likely that someone will have tread marks on his face from being run over by the cards -- and you can still play the occasional multi-table for fun and a chance at a big score.

Cris

[daveymck]

Chris/Guy

Its nice I can bring harmony and agreement to the board /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Was interesting to get your thoughts cos my feeling was that good tourney players would be looking to get the big scores to top up their bankroll, and make withdrawals from, but use the smaller sngs as bread and butter keeping the money ticking over.

Maybe it is greed (ambition I mean /images/graemlins/wink.gif ) on my part seeing the big money you can get by getting in the money on some of the bigger MTT's and thinking I want to get some of that along with the tv coverage in the uk which tends to focus on big money events.

My nightly play at the minute generally involves a small 3$ mtt (50-60 players) that take 1-1.5 then a couple of 2 table $5 sng's with another smallish mtt to finish. The sites I play the mtt's on tend to have a smaller field than the pokerstars marathons which I have played in but avoid now.