How would a top pro do playing SNG's?

[silversurfer]

if i had the patience to sit there and grind it out....which i often don't(a flaw of mine i'm working on while i build my bankroll). i'll win 3 out of 5 5$ +.50's, then drop half of it back on ring games, or get bored/overly aggressive (and yes, there are plenty of maniacs sucking out on you as well) and blow big leads. the first 30 minutes of a 5$ sng is boring indeed.

anyway, noone asked about my leaks. the point is this: i played about 30 of these yesterday and placed in 15 of them. this is not uncommon and i am not a pro. if you can play an aggressive yet intelligent and very patient game, 100$ a day is a snap.

[Aceshigh7]

I believe the original poster was referring to a true professional poker player giving low limit sng's a try. Not the online grinder wannabe's who love to call themselves pro's.

You will notice he said "top class", I don't think many if any of the online pro wannabe's that I described could fit that definition.

[stupidsucker]

I havent read any of the responses just yet. (I see one of my favorite posters has shown up here though)

First of all this is of course an extreme hypothetical because no pro would waste his time playing the 5 or 10 dollar level.

But...

To be blunt, if a pro did decide to do it then this is how I feel the results would be.

If he trys to play a fancy game he will not do well, and may even be negative, BUT if he is a true good pro then he understands this and will play correctly for the table conditions and do just fine. I dont think his roi will be much better then my own though. There is only so many games he can win, luck is still a factor with quick SnGs like this on party. I think a 50% roi is suststainable by a very good SnG specialist at the $10+1s, but not much more no matter how good you are.

[LinusKS]

I disagree, Irie, on both counts.

I think bad ("crazy, luck-oriented") players will not only increase your variance, but decrease your edge as well.

Consider this. Suppose you're in a game where players will go all-in on all kinds of hands, including hands like AA, 22, Axs, and medium and even low suited connectors. What kind of edge do you need to call all-in?

Is 60% good enough?

Because if you did that twice before the money, your ITM would be only 36%. In other words, barely enough to beat the rake.

And if you pass on everying - including AK, which is a dog to any pair, and only 58% against 78 suited, but good against Axs - you'll be fortunate to make the bubble with less than half the average stack.

Sklansky said something to the effect that poor players can make up for lack of skill by going all-in. I think that's 100% accurate.

Not only is a good player less likely to want to call an all-in (unless he can be very sure of a very large edge), the all-in strips a good player of the things that make him good. You can't bluff, and hand-reading becomes irrelevant (as long as you're against the kind of player who will go in on a lot of different hands - ie, a reckless, luck-oriented player.)

If you can count on a good run of cards, you can do very well at these games. But if you don't want to count on that, you might do better at a game where you can run a bluff once in a while, or you can raise a hand like KQ or AJ without someone putting you all-in.

[Irieguy]

That's not how you analyze zero-sum games. The only way your ITM rate can be below average is if other peoples' are above average. Going all-in frequently will not gain you a positive expectation. If it did, we wouldn't benefit from this forum. Sklansky's "system" is a way to take a player who knows nothing and quickly minimize their underlay against experienced opponents. It does not make you a winner... just less of a loser than you would be if you just sat down at a poker table having never played before.

It's a very straightforward truism: if somebody plays poorly, they will win less often. If many people play poorly, many will win less often. If you are competing against many who win less often, you absolutely must win more often if you know how to play better. At these small limits, playing better is very easy: just have a better hand.

The only way it would be mathematically possible for your ITM to decrease as the level of skill of your opponents decreases would be if you were actually wrong about your opponents' skill level.

Are you saying that the $5 players are actually playing a better game than the $50 players? Because unless they are better, you will win more often against them.

Irieguy

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree, Irie, on both counts.

I think bad ("crazy, luck-oriented") players will not only increase your variance, but decrease your edge as well.

Consider this. Suppose you're in a game where players will go all-in on all kinds of hands, including hands like AA, 22, Axs, and medium and even low suited connectors. What kind of edge do you need to call all-in?

Is 60% good enough?

Because if you did that twice before the money, your ITM would be only 36%.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think so. I think you're ignoring the fact that once you've doubled through, you're much less likely to go broke on the next confrontation.

I posted some simulation results about this very recently.

For 60/40 confrontations chosen at random, you're looking at 42% ITM with 40% ROI, assuming 10% vig and 20/30/50 payout.

I think these numbers would be even higher if we assumed the "expert" getting in on 60/40 played fewer hands than the rest of the maniacs at the table.

eastbay

[Saint_D]

Slansky does say you can use an all-in/fold strategy to neutralize the skill of better players. However, I have yet to see a 5+1 player use this strategy. Not once! Your oponents in that class are fishiest.

They don't understand pot odds, they don't have a gear changing strategy for getting ITM. They basically have no strategy at all.

This means you just have to adapt. Don't whine about the suck outs. Figure out how to play against people who are completely clueless. They are really easy to beat, but you have to use the right approach.

[chill888]

Top pro adapts his game and maybe achieves 40% ROI - maybe higher. 40% x $11 = $4.40 per game. He plays 20 games a day and earns $88 - on average.

As to bad players being harder to beat (in the long term). If this was true then they would be good players. Bad players can be frustrating but OF COURSE they are welcome and great for your bankroll. Once you confirm you are a winning player and play enough games, then bad beats roll off you like water on a duck. QUACK.

It is one the surest signs/tells of a mediocre player, when he starts complaining about bad beats and terrible calls and how unbeatable low limits are.

QUACK QUACK

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]

It's a very straightforward truism: if somebody plays poorly, they will win less often.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly.

There are lots of games (and lots of real-life situations) where sub-optimal strategies - sub-optimal in the sense that they will win less often than other strategies would - that will still strip a better player of a significant part of his edge.

Take guerilla warfare for example. If you are fighting an enemy who is better than you - has more weapons, better technology, better trained troops, etc. - it might be a mistake to try to win on the battlefield. A war of attrition might be a sub-optimal strategy (in a lot of ways), but it takes away a significant part of his advantage.

Another example - if you were playing chess against someone you happened to know was better than you - you might choose to play for a draw, instead of playing for a win, if you thought playing for a draw made it less likely that you would lose.

There are lots of examples of this.

They are strategies that tend to level the playing field, (or at least make it more difficult for the best player to win), even though they're not winning strategies in and of themselves.

"If someone plays poorly, they will win less often" is true in the sense that it's a truism, but it's also an oversimplification, and doesn't really tell you very much.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Going all-in frequently will not gain you a positive expectation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't say it did. I said it reduces the expectation of a player who's better than you.