Question about SNGs and fluctuation

[Myst]

[ QUOTE ]
6% ROI over 5,000 tournaments at 200+15's is very good.

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Its not. It really is not. The variance alone would make any sane man want to jump out the window.

But then again, people play blackjack with worse edges for a living. Meh. Its all perspective.

[jon462]

[ QUOTE ]
I think:
d) i think that oh, some other randomly chosen metric, like his ROI, is much more likely to tell you his ROI than your randomly chosen one of "pull a number out of a hat"
citanul

[/ QUOTE ]
Im really confused. What does this mean. Are you saying OP made up 6%?

6% may not be "excellent" but it certainly seems good enough to me. earning 64k over 5k tournies should certainly be a comfort to someone who doesnt feel they are good enought to play at that level. Anyway it certainly beats 30% ROI at the 20s..

(good grief thats over 1 mil tourney dollars spent)

[Chaostracize]

He's saying I'm an idiot for proposing that player X should be making 15%. Which is 95% true.

[citanul]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think:
d) i think that oh, some other randomly chosen metric, like his ROI, is much more likely to tell you his ROI than your randomly chosen one of "pull a number out of a hat"
citanul

[/ QUOTE ]
Im really confused. What does this mean. Are you saying OP made up 6%?

6% may not be "excellent" but it certainly seems good enough to me. earning 64k over 5k tournies should certainly be a comfort to someone who doesnt feel they are good enought to play at that level. Anyway it certainly beats 30% ROI at the 20s..

(good grief thats over 1 mil tourney dollars spent)

[/ QUOTE ]

my point was the 6% is way more likely to be his ROI than 15%, since one was his ROI over a large number of tournaments, and one was a number the OP said he thought was more likely his friend's ROI.

i think that players who have never played higher stakes games, even properly bankrolled, hell, even hugely bankrolled, say 100 buyins, underestimate the psychological effects on even a strong willed person that a 20-30 buyin drop will have on a player at high stakes. yes, i understand that when you multiply 5% x 215 x 5k, you get a large number, but you have to realize how that 5% happens. it doesn't happen by someoen hands you x bucks per tournament. it happens by you lose and you win and then it averages out. with a player hitting 5%, there's more a lot of losing in there, and particularly likely large downswings, even of the nice bleed kind that are just slow drips down in money for say, a week or a month at a time. it hurts. a lot.

say you drop 30 buyins in a week and you're a 5% player, what do you say to yourself in the morning of the next week? "it's ok, in only 600 games, i'll get that 30 buyins back"? (and that's pre rake!) i know this sounds really rambly and everything, but you have to think about these things, even when you have a lot RoR, you have to consider things beyond just ROI, like stress level involved per enjoyment.

this doesn't mean that someone who's rate is say 5% or 6% should just give up and quit, it means i think that someone in such a position needs to work on their game more, as while the money is nice in the long run, it'll drive you nuts. as another poster said, it'll make a sane man jump out windows. or, in my more preferred line, it'd make mother theresa homicidal, or yugo like women, or something like that.

citanul

ps: yeah, i was just noticing yesterday how totally insane it is that say, i who am young and never had a job that paid anything, AND didn't play that much so far this month, AND didn't play for huge stakes this month, can have spent >50k in tournament entries this month.

[Chaostracize]

Another very, very good post.

[citanul]

[ QUOTE ]
But then again, people play blackjack with worse edges for a living. Meh. Its all perspective.

[/ QUOTE ]

i haven't read any literature/empirical work on BJ, and am actually looking to do so. have you got any to recommend? i have this feeling in the back of my head that because good blackjack play involves putting more money out when you believe yourself to be at an advantage, the swings aren't that terrible (though they clearly exist).

also wondering if anyone knows the edges for the scenarios:

1) playing perfect blackjack w.r.t. counting without varying your bets

2) playing basic strategy, no counting, with varying your bets on some reasonable spectrum

3) playing perfect counting strategy with varying your bets on some reasonable spectrum

if anyone has any reference to that that'd be great.

haha, i'm wrong forum / hijack man.

citanul

[jon462]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But then again, people play blackjack with worse edges for a living. Meh. Its all perspective.

[/ QUOTE ]

i haven't read any literature/empirical work on BJ, and am actually looking to do so. have you got any to recommend? i have this feeling in the back of my head that because good blackjack play involves putting more money out when you believe yourself to be at an advantage, the swings aren't that terrible (though they clearly exist).

also wondering if anyone knows the edges for the scenarios:

1) playing perfect blackjack w.r.t. counting without varying your bets

2) playing basic strategy, no counting, with varying your bets on some reasonable spectrum

3) playing perfect counting strategy with varying your bets on some reasonable spectrum

if anyone has any reference to that that'd be great.

haha, i'm wrong forum / hijack man.

citanul

[/ QUOTE ]

good sng strategy also involves putting your chips out there when you have an advantage, why do you think there would be less variance with blackjack?

To answer your question, house edge is 2% on #2 (you cant beat BJ w/o counting), and I imagine your edge would be so incredibly small on #1 it wouldnt be worth it.

There's a 2+2 book on blackjack, its designed to be simple enough to be practical to non-rainmen.. but DS does recommend some books with more complicated strategies..

[citanul]

ty.

i own, and have on my desk, sklansky on bj, but hte light is off, and i don't think he answers the exact question i asked.

i didn't mean to compare the variance of bj to that of sngs, just to what some may perceive the variance in bj to be.

/hijack

citanul

[Mr_J]

"To answer your question, house edge is 2% on #2"

No it's not. Basic strategy usually get you down to 0.5% or less (depends on rules).

"you cant beat BJ w/o counting"

There are some games that are beatable with perfect basic strategy, but these games are rare.

"There's a 2+2 book on blackjack, its designed to be simple enough to be practical to non-rainmen.."

Card counting isn't hard at all. Just takes practice. BJ21.com

[jon462]

[ QUOTE ]
"To answer your question, house edge is 2% on #2"

No it's not. Basic strategy usually get you down to 0.5% or less (depends on rules).

"you cant beat BJ w/o counting"

There are some games that are beatable with perfect basic strategy, but these games are rare.

"There's a 2+2 book on blackjack, its designed to be simple enough to be practical to non-rainmen.."

Card counting isn't hard at all. Just takes practice. BJ21.com

[/ QUOTE ]

I was under the impression it was 2% with perfect play, Ill assume you are right though and stand corrected. My point is you arent getting an edge. By "some games" I assume you mean non-blackjack games? There have been table games that are beatable in casinos before, but they dont last very long before some donk posts the game on the internet and people come from all over until the casino figures it out <g>

Card counting is easy for me in a 1-2 deck shoe with grandma dealing.. any faster or more cards involved I get lost <g> Sklansky recommends basic +1 -1 (face cards, cards 6 or under), but he recommends some books with much more complicated strategies that are supposedly more accurate.