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View Full Version : Expert Opinion on Results at Various Levels Party/Stars Please


adam61
05-12-2004, 09:16 PM
Here's some of my results so far at 3 different levels over the past 3 months or so. I'm wondering what the gut reaction of the more seasoned play is on a couple things that have been happening with these numbers and how I should act on it. These results are in the order they happened, I also played a 150 or so NL and Limit SNGs mixed in with my ring play prior to starting these statistics. These stats begin about 3 months ago when I started NL SNG play exclusively.

Party 10+1: 295 Tourneys
-2.21% ROI
34.58% ITM
1st: 8.5%
2nd: 15%
3rd: 11%
4th: 12%
Crap Finishes: 46.5%

I loved the speed of the tourneys but was frustrated by the insane play and sort of a feeling of being trapped by the shortness of the stack. So after 300ish tourneys and still losing money I threw in the towel on party and switched to stars mainly to get more bang for my buck and the lower vig at the $5.50 level while I got BETTER at poker.

Stars $5.50: 200 Tourneys
25% ROI
47% ITM
1st: 15%
2nd: 15%
3rd: 17%
4th: 10%
Crap Finishes: 43%

WOW Finally some positive results, I was honestly ecstatic. And the sample size is large enough to mean something. I started gaining confidence in my ability to outplay opponents, bluff a little, steal a little, get some reads on opponents cause there actually seemed to be method to their mayhem. I was thinking maybe hey I'm getting a little better at poker. Alright let's give $11 a try.

Stars $11: 50 Tourneys
54% ROI
54% ITM
1st: 22%
2nd: 14%
3rd: 18%
4th: 16%
Crap Finishes: 30%

Smaller sample size here but my results have been very good especially heads up. This ROI and ITM couldn't possibly stay this high but I know I'm a bigtime positive player at this level and will remain so although my guess would be after 250 or so I'd be around 40% ROI.

I know you guys aren't psychics but a lot of you went through this same type of progression. And without me playing 400 more tournaments at various levels tell me what your gut reaction is on what my play has been doing.

1) You're lucky kid, the other shoe is going to drop you haven't improved from a -3% ROI player to a 40-55% ROI player in 3 months.

2) You're getting better, you've read all the books, talked to some other players, and got out there and played 500+ tourneys, and got a lot of that much needed experience, isn't this what you were working for?

3) Stars structure is more suited to your game, you are successful on stars because you can get reads better, make 1 mistake without being crippled, and really play your game. If you went back to party now you'd probably be a positive player but your roi would drop from 40-55% to 5%.

I'm sure it's a combo of those 3 but what's my move here folks. I've seen posts on the board as well as from people I've talked to that after $11 stars really tightens up and a big gap starts to form between the 2 sites in skill level. There already is one at $11 but for some silly reason I get better results playing against better players.

So here's my options as I look at them. First I'm playing 50 more at the $11 level on stars just to make sure my results are good and enjoy myself. But then I'm in a bit of a trouble spot. at $22 and above on stars the games both thin out considerably and get tougher. My gut is telling me I have to move back to party eventually. I feel kind of like I'm tempting fate though. I've had NOTHING but failure at party and NOTHING but success at stars. So my real question is do you think the fact I've grown as a player by such a good amount will offset my initial losses on party and I could be a 20%+ ROI player on party now? Also since I seem to have better results overall against players which aren't completely insane, if/when I move to party should I skip $10+1 and go straight to $20+2? I know there's not a massive jump in skill but it may be considerable enough to actually help me.

As a quick aside I've also switched from playing 1 table most of the time to playing 2 all the time. What's the long term effect of this. My ROI at the $5.50 level when 2 tabling is about 10% higher. And obviously my results at the $11 level on stars are great (albeit a small sample) and all of those were 2 tabled. Just want suggestions here.

Phew, another long one you guys must hate me by now. I wanna use the last couple sentences here to thank everyone who's given me input in the past, you can see with all of your help I've improved from a frustrated, bitter losing party player. To a happy, successful, winning, stars player. So you can probably see why I'm a little hesisitant to move back despite the fact I think I will be near forced to in the long run.

Thanks again!

-Adam

Al_Capone_Junior
05-12-2004, 10:22 PM
The negative ROI on party $10 bothers me greatly. I do concede tho that you may have gotten some of your learning curve there.

54% ROI or ITM is unsustainable at any level, but I think you know this.

I suspect you have played enough to have experience, thus given that you are reading, I can't really advise further, other than to just keep plugging within your bankroll, reading, writing on the forums, etc. You can't sustain such a high ROI or ITM, but you can make plenty of $$.

Really, you should consider going back to party SNGs, any decent player should be able to beat them, despite the structure and the morons, and it'll be a skeleton in your closet till you prove you can do it to yourself. Plus, as you can see from my recent post, I think a good player can do better there, a flip-flop from my previous thinking.

al

mackthefork
05-13-2004, 08:06 AM
It's the Party/Stars paradox, I have the same problem, Stars players are better so they are easier to beat. My ROI on Party is much lower than on Pokerstars too, though i can at least beat them for something. There seem to be a large number of occasions when you catch TPTK and it gets beat by 63 offsuit even though you got a quarter of your stack in preflop.

Regards ML

adam61
05-13-2004, 08:19 AM
So let's say after another 50 at the stars $10+1 level I decide to cheese it back to Party to go back into my closet and kill the damn skeleton. Do I start at the $10+1 or $20+2 level?

unfrgvn
05-13-2004, 10:45 AM
Adam, I'm sure I don't qualify as an expert, but I wanted to add my results/thoughts.
As to the question you pose, my guess it's mainly a combo of 2 and 3, with a little bit of 1 thrown in. Here are my results from my last 172 PP 10+1 SNG's:
Party 10+1: 172 Tourneys
39% ROI
44% ITM
1st: 17.4%
2nd: 12.7%
3rd: 14%

What I think is instructive though, is the breakdowns for the first 78 versus the last 94 of these 172 tournies (I didn't pick the split to skew the results, I was keeping records in two places and this is where the records split)
First 78:
64% ROI
48% ITM
1st: 23%
2nd: 14%
3rd: 11.5%

At this point I was thinking I should move up and check out those WSOP qualifiers. /images/graemlins/blush.gif

Now my results for the next 94:
18% ROI
40% ITM
1st: 12.7%
2nd: 11.7%
3rd: 15.9%

Still winning, but not quite ready for prime time. Plus I was probably down for the first 80 or so of these, having a better run lately. Anyway, I guess I was trying to make two points, one as you probably know is that short term results of the 50 tournies at the 10+1 at Stars may not hold up over a larger sample, the 2nd is that the 10+1 at Party is beatable. If a mug like me can do it, I'm sure you can.
Based on your comment of feeling trapped by the short stack at Party, I'm guessing you are the type of player who likes to make "plays". Early in a tournie, it's been my experience that these just don't work, at least for me. There is always one guy who just won't be pushed off that bottom pair. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who want to push you off your hand so that when you do pick up a big hand you can get paid off. So what works for me early is very tight but very aggressive with big pockets. There is almost always one player who will call your 10xBB raise. Get it heads up with him and hope he don't outflop you.
Anyway, my 2 cents. Hope there is something of value in it for you.

BettnTibetn
05-13-2004, 10:54 AM
i think you should stick with stars over party if that is working for you...stars SNGs are very different from party ones. plus stars offers FPP's for more play and if your playing large amounts of tournaments you can get a bunch of fpp's. Stars offers the 500 FPP satellites to the 215 dollar weekly touraments which are very winnable. This allows you to have potential for a possible HUGE score. technically u could get $60,000 just in that tourney