SNG Bankroll and Expectation

[travisand]

I will start by saying that I am a fairly solid, but by no means great $15-30 player. I also have almost no SNG experience.


I was wondering what bankroll requirements are for Party SNG's, I will probably play in the $200 ones. How many buy-ins should a person have to be safe?

I was also wondering what the earning expectation is for a good SNG player. I know mine won't be very good in the beginning but I was hoping for an idea of how much per hour a good person could make and if $15-30 cash games and $200 SNG's have anywhere near similar earning potential. Everyone has always said 1 BB/hour is a good goal for a cash game but what the heck is it for SNG's.


I know this information is almost certainly on this site already but I have been trying to find it and all I can come up with is scattered bits and pieces.

I appreciate any and all information you can give me. Or if someone can give me a link to a previous post that deals with this.


Oh yeah, is it possible to request a tournament summary from Party after you have logged out of the tournament? If so can somebody tell me how.

[travisand]

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]

I was wondering what bankroll requirements are for Party SNG's, I will probably play in the $200 ones. How many buy-ins should a person have to be safe?


[/ QUOTE ]

I use 20. Some say 15, others say 25. Something in that ballpark. Of course, that is money solely for the SnGs. If you are throwing in multis and ring games, it must be higher.

[Bozeman]

A good player will make about 50% of buy in per tourney, but I do not know if this is possible at the 200 level.

[alekhine8]

I try to keep 15-20 buy-ins in my Party account. That is in the $500-$600 ballpark at the $30+$3 level. If you are fairly new to SNGs and want to start at the $200 level, you may want to consider a little more than that.

I was able to achieve around $3.50-$4.00 return at the $10+$1 level over several months and am getting about $14-$15 back per $30+$3 tournament, although Ive only played in about 40 at that level. I consider myself to be a pretty decent/solid SNG player but not great - 40%+ return is very attainable at these levels.

However, at the $200 level, I dont think 40%+ is that realistic. I think a good player could crank out 15%-20% which is obviously pretty good.. $30-$40 per tournament and you figure an hour or less per SNG. You've got to assume the shark-to-fish ratio is increasing at that level making the gaudy 40%-50% or higher return rates damn hard.

The other thing you will want to consider is how many tables you play. If you only play one cash game at a time, obviously this isnt an issue. But if you are the type that play 3+ cash games at a time and want to carry over that kind of overall hourly rate, you might be in trouble. I find that playing more than two SNGs at a time is a real mess and I dont do that well because I cant keep track of everything. Others may have better luck with this though.

Also - you might want to read previous posts in this forum specifically about the $200 SNGs. People have speculated that there are teams colluding in those games. Thats obviously a risk in all games and Ill leave it to people smarter than me to determine if its a bigger risk in SNGs versus cash games. But people have raised that concern.

Hope some of that helps and good luck. Post some results if you can - I am trying to move up to $50 or $100 tables some day but feel like I would probably just get killed.

[CrisBrown]

Hi travis,

As a general rule, you need 15-25 buy-ins in your bankroll to cover your swings. If you lose three SNGs in a row at a given buy-in, drop down a buy-in until your play stabilizes.

As for starting at $215 SNGs, I think that would be a very serious mistake, depending on where you play. In tourney poker, the good players take turns dividing up the dead money: the buy-ins of bad (or unlucky) players. In a $200 SNG, you're not going to find much dead money, so the only reason to play them is for the ego boost of occasionally beating other experts.

You'll get a much better hourly return at $55 and $109 SNGs, where you'll still find enough dead money to make it worth playing the other sharks. Plus you can play at that level with a bankroll of $1500-$2500 (I keep at least $1500 in my bankroll), whereas for $215 SNGs you'd need a roll of at least $4000-$5000 (because of the larger swings inherent in playing so many experts).

Hope this helps,

Cris

[eMarkM]

I'm with the others, if you're really a newbie to SNGs, I assume you're also relatively new to NL as well (assuming you'll play NL SNGs as most do). Don't dive into the 200 SNGs right away. Warm up and start at the $50. I play this level regularly, there's plenty of fish and you shouldn't get bored playing too low a limit. And at Party this is the level where you start with 1K in chips as opposed to 800 (unless that's changed recently). 40% ROI is acheivable, but I think 25-35% is more realistic. At least when talking about the higher levels, certainly ROI will be even less at the 200 level even for a good player.

[Prickly Pete]

[ QUOTE ]
As a general rule, you need 15-25 buy-ins in your bankroll to cover your swings. If you lose three SNGs in a row at a given buy-in, drop down a buy-in until your play stabilizes.


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you saying as a general rule to drop down after losing 3 SNGs in a row? That seems a little drastic to me. If you are at a level that is beatable, just stay there. Currently, I am profitable at $50 SNGs, but will often have 3 game losing streaks (or longer). If I dropped down every time this happened, I think it would be counterproductive.

On the other hand, if you are suggesting this since he's a SNG newcomer, then I couldn't agree more.

[CrisBrown]

Hiya BF,

I think it's a matter of confidence level. If you feel secure in your game at a given level, then no, you needn't drop a buy-in when you hit a losing skid of 3 SNGS, though if you are playing at a narrow bankroll margin (e.g. 12-15 buy-ins) it might be wise money management until you sort out what's going wrong. But yes, for a newbie, definitely.

Cris

[curtains]

a newbie shouldnt be palying on 12-15 buyins anyway. I don't really think anyone should be. Y
You should have enough of a bankroll so the idea of moving down if you have a completely normal losing streak, is something that would never cross your mind.