Questions for the pro's on improving SNG returns

[GreggyB]

Hey everyone,

I posted this a couple days back but apparently didn't give it an appealing enough topic as it only got 36 views... we'll try again and see what happens.

I'm trying to get a little more serious and consistent in my online play. It seemed that I was doing well in SNGs only to piss away my winnings in ring games. Last week I started a quest to really beef up my game, play with more consistency and with some solid goals in mind.

I started with some $30 in my account, so I'm playing the $5 + .50 SnGs on UB. Since I've been keeping track I am 38/74 placing in the money: 22 firsts, 12 seconds and 4 thirds.

This week I've started playing two at a time. While I enjoy it more, I feel my booking suffers significantly. I actually wrote my own program (ultimatebook.net) to act as a poor man's in-game pokertracker. This seemed to help when I first started... but when I play two tables at a time I feel I'm playing entirely the cards with little regard for the personalities.

I would like to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $100-$200 per month playing in these SnGs. I'm thinking of 2-3 sets of two simultaneous SNGs a night. Here are some of the questions I'd love help in answering:

What's a realistic expectation for win/loss ratio at the $5 level? $10?
What kind of bank roll should I have to play the 10 + 1 tables? What if I want to play two at a time?
Should I even be at UB? Are the games better elsewhere?
What are your thoughts on playing multi-tables?

I'd love to hear your personal experience: what kind of consistent income have you guys made playing SNGs? What strategy for attacking SNGs gives you your best hourly rate?



That's alot of questions for a first time poster... thank you all for your time.

Greg

[byronkincaid]

but as I'm trying to stay awake for tonights game by writing silly posts:

[ QUOTE ]
What's a realistic expectation for win/loss ratio at the $5 level? $10?

[/ QUOTE ]

30-50% ROI

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What kind of bank roll should I have to play the 10 + 1 tables? What if I want to play two at a time?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably $220 upwards depending on how good you are

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Should I even be at UB? Are the games better elsewhere?


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I have never played at UB. Party has the worst players. Stars has goodish players but a much better tourney structure.

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What are your thoughts on playing multi-tables?

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I personaly can't handle multi tableing and I have tryed so I'm just sticking to concentrating on $55s with a $400 roll [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Other people have better results playing multiple $11s or $22s.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

ok. honesty...

your post leads me to believe you are inexperienced, too much so to play two SNGs at one time. It's more fun, but you cannot expect to spead yourself thin at this point in your poker playing career and see premium results.

In addition, $30 playing $5+$0.50 SNGs gets you five shots at winning enough to continue. Even for the top SNG players, that is not enough, not even close. Given your experience level, I'd suggest 20 buy ins as the minimum bankroll. I base that on extensive experience, not some mathematical equation. Still, others will no doubt support me here, 5 buy ins is just not nearly enough. I realize you may have more than that now, but if so, it's lucky for you. I am talking theoreticals here.

UB's SNGs are OK, but the competition there is not the easiest. Party is the easiest, but their SNG structures SUCK IMO. I prefer enough chips to have some play in the game, and at this time stars offers the most chips / slowest escalation of stakes. UB is OK tho.

The win/loss rate should not change much, if at all, from $5 to $10 SNGs. The same bunch of morons play both.

I don't keep track of my wins / losses from online poker, so someone else can probably help you more there. I make enough to do just fine, but in all honesty, I can't wait get back to playing part time pro live, and working in some other capacity than pro card player.

al

[CharlieFox]

Maybe I'm just on a streak with SnGs right now, but $100-200 a month sounds like an easily achievable goal with just playing one $5+1 SnG a night. Like you said, your booking suffers when you play more than one table at a time (as does mine), so maybe you're not ready for that yet. Better to play one table and win than two tables and place in one.

I would recommend PartyPoker for SnGs. The only caveat is the low starting chip count... I feel really constrained starting out with only 800 chips, especially coming from PokerRoom, where you start off with 1500. The strategy of playing conservatively and straightforwardly at the start and then including some trickery as the herd starts to thin and I have a bigger stack has taken me from $50 to about $110 in two or three weeks... it'd be closer to $150+ if I hadn't tried jumping to the $10+1s a little early, and playing a $22-buy-in WPT Super Satellite on a lark.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm just on a streak with SnGs right now, but $100-200 a month sounds like an easily achievable goal with just playing one $5+1 SnG a night

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You are on a streak. And if you do play the $5+1, Party is doing pretty nice money on your streak, too.

[HC5831]

These topics have been covered quite a bit on this forum. Do a seach for threads on this subject to find them. I post my results for my 1st 300 tourneys going from the $10 +1 to the $30+3 tables. Here's the link:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...;o=&fpart=

I'll be posting the results for my next 200 tourneys in the next week or so. I concider myself a good SnG player at the $30+3 level. I play 2 tournies at once, 6-8 a day, 150 a month. I had success at Paradise, but have moved to Party for the last 6 weeks. Mr results are similar, but my earning per hour has increased because of the shorter SnG lengths.

Don't play 2 tables at once until you have a couple hundred tournies under your belt. I didn't play 2 at once until I had played 300 tournies. Even with two, sometimes I miss a hand here or there because I am focused on the other table. I'm sure this hurts my game a little, but the earnings/hr from playing 2 tables at once makes up for it. Some people play 3-5 tables at once. I don't know how they do it. I've been playing poker seriously now for 4 years and I can only handle two.

Hope this helps,
HC

[CharlieFox]

[ QUOTE ]
You are on a streak. And if you do play the $5+1, Party is doing pretty nice money on your streak, too.

[/ QUOTE ] You mean because they take $1 each time? As long as I keep doing pretty nice money, I don't mind if they do the same.

[PrayingMantis]

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You mean because they take $1 each time? As long as I keep doing pretty nice money, I don't mind if they do the same

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If you're doing nice money, you should move up to the 10+1 as soon as you can, which is probably yesterday. You are paying *twice* the rake, on the 5+1. This is a lot, no matter how good you are doing. No reason to stay there, when the level of field is practically the same. If you had to play there a few games, to get a feel and make a start, that's fine, but keeping playing there does not make sense.

BTW, on stars (and UB I think) you can find 5+0.5.

[CharlieFox]

[ QUOTE ]
If you're doing nice money, you should move up to the 10+1 as soon as you can, which is probably yesterday. You are paying *twice* the rake, on the 5+1. This is a lot, no matter how good you are doing. No reason to stay there, when the level of field is practically the same. If you had to play there a few games, to get a feel and make a start, that's fine, but keeping playing there does not make sense.

[/ QUOTE ] Well, I'm still pretty new to playing online, so I think I'm just going to stay at 5+1 for now. Once I build my bankroll up some more, I'm going to feel a lot more comfortable at 10+1. I tried playing my same strategy at the 10+1, but I think because each tourney cost $11 instead of $6, it made me lean a little more towards the tight-weak side. (I know, it's only $5, but my only gambling experience before playing online poker was playing the $1 or $2 blackjack tables... I'm a microstakes player. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

[Profit]

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The win/loss rate should not change much, if at all, from $5 to $10 SNGs. The same bunch of morons play both.

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I completely agree. I agree with the prior poster that you should move to 10+1's as soon as you feel comfortable with the SNG format, especially if you are paying that extra .50 a SNG (5+1 vs 10+1)

BTW, my suggestion is hardly that of a PRO