Question about variance

[Jurollo]

As you all may have known I played oodles upon oodles of lower limit SNGs the last two months of my summer. 700 $10's, and about 600 $20's. I made a decent amount while playing however, since moving back to school my time is slightly more restricted, I don't always have 1 hour at a given time to sit and play. Since then I have started playing 4 - NL $25 & $50 (6 Max) tables and have found decent success. Now to my question(s), a) is it possible that there is significantly less variance at these ring games (with the same poor players as the lower SNGs)? b) how much does the fact that after taking a beat you can reload and play against the same poor player that beat you previously figure into this? c) generally speaking, if you are going to 4-table NL games how much do you generally keep in you BR, in terms on BBs? I am used to have 30x SNG buy-ins but this obviously doesnt work here, maybe 30x table buy in? Thanks all.

[Irieguy]

It depends on how good you are at each. With SNGs, the best way to measure your overlay is ITM%. The higher your ITM%, the lower your variance will be. Eastbay gives a nice graph on this page demonstrating what your variance will look like with an ITM% of 38% I think.

In ring-game play, the way to measure your overlay is in $/hr, or $/hand. The higher your win rate, the lower your variance will be. But the variance in live games is going to be much higher than it is in SNGs as a general rule (particularly in no-limit.)

Here's why: in a SNG, you can only lose 1 buy-in, and you will win 2-5 buy-ins 40% of the time or so (if you are a winning player.) In ring play, you should have a winning session more than 50% of the time, but the amount you can win or lose will vary much more than from -1 to +5 buy-ins. Specifically, you can lose a tremendous amount in one NL session gone awry.

There isn't much (anything?) written about expectation and variance in NLHE. Other than on this forum, there isn't anything written about those subjects for SNGs either, but we've all come to gain an understanding of it from the smart people on this forum. You might want to go to the NL forum and ask about E and V.

Experience tells me you should be able to earn more per hour playing live NLHE than you can playing SNGs at similar stakes. But the variance will probably be along the lines of 10x higher. If I decided to play $50 NLHE ring games for a living, 4 screens at a time, I would want a playing bankroll of 10K (bad news), but I would expect to win around $80/hr (good news).

Irieguy

[dethgrind]

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Experience tells me you should be able to earn more per hour playing live NLHE than you can playing SNGs at similar stakes. But the variance will probably be along the lines of 10x higher. If I decided to play $50 NLHE ring games for a living, 4 screens at a time, I would want a playing bankroll of 10K (bad news), but I would expect to win around $80/hr (good news).


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A more interesting question is this: given equal bankrolls and risk of ruin preferences, which will produce a higher hourly rate, SNGs or ring games?

I'm pretty curious about this actually. I was reading some of the other pages and it's pretty much universally accepted that no-limit cash games will give you a better hourly rate than limit, keeping bankroll and RoR fixed. Where do SNGs fit into this?

[TylerD]

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If I decided to play $50 NLHE ring games for a living, 4 screens at a time, I would want a playing bankroll of 10K (bad news), but I would expect to win around $80/hr (good news).

Irieguy

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This is WAAAY off base. There is significantly lower variance playing cash games, as a good player is constantly getting their money in with the best of it, whereas is SnGs there is far more luck and naturally more variance. I also don't think $80 p/h is even slightly possible playing 4 $50 NLHE tables.

Finally, with a $10K bankroll you could easily play 4 $200 tables with virtually no risk of going bust, providing you can beat the game of course. I would say 30 - 50 buyins is adequate.

[Irieguy]

Well, this is all conjecture, of course. But I don't think it's fair to say I'm "way off base" when the only thing I said is what I would want my bankroll to be.

The statement "there is significantly lower variance playing cash games..." is unfounded and not consistent with what people report for play within those respective formats.

I will say this with some certainty, however: If you take 30 buy-ins ($1500) and play 4 screens of $50 buy-in NLHE at a time, you will go broke before you win enough to build a bankroll that suficiently protects you from ROR... no matter how good yo are.

Irieguy