Joined: Sep '13
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1564
haha gz, gl with your vegas ticket sponoserd by ur poker money
most people can 'optimally' play a few tables at a time before going into semi zombie mode. the only difference is some people, in their zombie mode, are still much better players than i am once you get used to higher amount of tables, you just use autopilot and make decisions on the fly.
It will never be as good as playing just 2-3 tables at once but just sheer amount of tourneys played makes it for some lost money because they arent playing at their optimal level
Joined: Feb '13
Location: Canada
Age: 46 (M)
Posts: 1204
Yeah the Highest I've invested is 3.50$ on the sng's & MTT on PS. I realised early on the importance of Bankroll management as i have been up a couple of hundred canadian a few times and seen the "Pouff" Effect and having nothing left to show for it other than some FPP's.
Yeah just need to keep my head on straight while i play and get rid of all the distracions around me.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Posted by TheIrish77: I realised early on the importance of Bankroll management as i have been up a couple of hundred canadian a few times and seen the "Pouff" Effect and having nothing left to show for it other than some FPP's.
Yeah that's the thing about MTSNGs, the samplesize matters, not single results, so better just keep playing instead of worrying about single wins/single beats you might take. The best regs at the $1.50 45s make about 30 cents/game, the best regs at the $3.50 18s make about $0.40/game, and could easily play higher skillwise (would beat $7s and probably breakeven $15s or slightly profitable). You always have to take it to the longterm, at least 1000 SNGs, preferably more, at a specific format, because you can get daviations of a few hundreds of $'s (both up and down), the best regs among the stakes get that as well, but at the end of the daviation there's that $0.40/game in profit added up. My winrate is about $0.30/game while 25 tabling at the $3.50s, so in terms of winrate I'm at the upper end among the regs playing these games, and I also get downers of $300 sometimes, if winrate is smaller the swings can get even bigger. I've seen as bad as a downswing of $1.1K at the $3.50 45 mans by a reg who's barely beating the game with like 4% ROI (he's mostly 40 tabling though so his hourly rate might even be decent). Obviously that's extreme and shouldn't happen to anyone who's a profitable player, but it shows how bad variance can get you in MTSNGs, a normally very simple game if not the easiest of all, that can yet get so frustrating.
Posted by BeMyATMplz: Obviously that's extreme and shouldn't happen to anyone who's a profitable player, but it shows how bad variance can get you in MTSNGs, a normally very simple game if not the easiest of all, that can yet get so frustrating.
Yeah, I agree - but this is where I would like to ask this question: what is the long goal? The long goal is to manage to be semi-pro or a pro who could totally sustain him/herself from the earnings? I mean I get it, but pretty sure no one wants to be grinding SNGs year in/year out when they reach their 50s. So after you build a decent BR with it what is the next step? Start going for high BI toureys and such and try to be profitable there?
I'm honestly interested in the end game. (Not what you would spend your money on, rather than what your poker goal would look like if you arrived at that level where you could choose your destiny and wouldn't be bothered if thats doesn't work out after all).
So, I'm really just curious - like a recreational player could be...
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Posted by bowie1984:
Posted by BeMyATMplz: Obviously that's extreme and shouldn't happen to anyone who's a profitable player, but it shows how bad variance can get you in MTSNGs, a normally very simple game if not the easiest of all, that can yet get so frustrating.
Yeah, I agree - but this is where I would like to ask this question: what is the long goal? The long goal is to manage to be semi-pro or a pro who could totally sustain him/herself from the earnings? I mean I get it, but pretty sure no one wants to be grinding SNGs year in/year out when they reach their 50s. So after you build a decent BR with it what is the next step? Start going for high BI toureys and such and try to be profitable there?
I'm honestly interested in the end game. (Not what you would spend your money on, rather than what your poker goal would look like if you arrived at that level where you could choose your destiny and wouldn't be bothered if thats doesn't work out after all).
So, I'm really just curious - like a recreational player could be...
That's not really a question I can asnwer, because every individual has different goals playing poker. Some play for fun, some want to make a side income and some want to become fulltime-players. I don't really think it's worth it anymore to start from the ground now and trying to build up the ressources to become professional sometime, the games are getting tougher and tougher and the laws about poker make it tougher and tougher (see france/italy/spain), especially in SNGs you see the games always get tougher, ROIs are shrinking every year from now on.
For me personally my goal is to have the best hourly rate I can get, because I want to make as much money I can off the game, however just as side income. I was playing fulltime for a year and it was really not fun, to make it worse, at the end I had been putting in even less volume than I do now because I was just sick sitting infront of that screen daily clicking buttons.
Right now for anyone who wants to go for a big career playing poker, starting from the ground, I'd advise the following (I have been starting similary): 1. Look for a ressource where you can learn to beat the game for good ROI/winrate (depends if you play SNGs/MTTs or cashgame). Free advise is often not good advise online, coaching sites are recommendable even if it's not for free, it will pay off multiple times longterm. Without the necessary content you can't beat the games anymore at a specific level, simple as that.
2. Build your roll, sounds more simple than it is. For me personally what's important is to be able to play many tables, otherwise it'll just take too long to climb up levels. For onlinepoker it's more important than great play IMO. MTSNGs are already beatable if you have basic knowledge (shoving/calling ranges/ICM is often enough), obviously there are also advanced techniques that will of course boost your ROI.
However seeing I can beat them at decent ROI, and I wouldn't consider myself as better than "decent" at poker overall, it shows how simple they are. Sadly, because they are so simple the edge isn't as big as in other games, as the more regs are in the games the lower the edge gets, because a lot of stuff you do in MTSNGs is standard and every reg does the standard stuff.
Afterwards it depends. Obviously many people want to climb up in the stakes, but for me I have found my place ($3.50/$7 SNGs) where I can get a good enough profit for "my own peace". When climbing up in levels I'd always recommend mixing in the higher buy in into normal sessions of your old level. e.g. if you play 12 tables continously play 8 table of your old stake and 4 of your new one. Having your ABI doubled at once can make you sick psychological if you run bad at the start. It's also better to build an at least small sample before moving to a game/stake completely. Chances are you were beating the old stake well, but you're not beating the higher one (for example, in 2011 I have beaten $7 18s over 7K games at 12% ROI, but at $15s I had -2% over 2K games (surely there was some variance in the latter because I was beating the game at 4% afterwards, but it shows how big of a difference it can get).
So yeah to answer your question, I can't give you a direct answer, if you want to climb to the top of the world you have to play MTTs or grind highstakes SNGs for SNE. In MTSNGs your income is (at least compared to MTTs) pretty steady, but you can't earn millions playing them. Most profitable player at 18 man SNGs has 18K profit this year right now, however in 18 mans there's still a lot of rakeback involved because volume is higher ('sooo tilted' (18s reg) has achieved SNE playing solely 18 mans). Most profitable in 180s has 30K profit this year, however as I said, rakeback doesn't come into effect as much there and I'd say a high volume 18s grinder can earn more than a 180s grinder.
Thanks for the long reply, I was interested in how does it look an end game for a grinder like yourself, however you also answered questions I didn't even ask so kudos to you sir!
Yeah I'm really not a 'climb the ladder' type (though I have to acknowledge, you are very inspiring) - I like having a good time at the tables and make my hobby break even or a bit profitable (contrary to sports.betting where I can be really anal but that one I take way more seriously - that is the side income for me).
If you want to make some profit, you should multitable at least 9 (but more is better) tables, the decisions are very simple, especially in these MTT SNG´s where you play most of the time on a full table (so you get less hands).
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 2688
Congratulations mate, hope you continues on this run and make a lot of money, also when you running good exploit it and make the maximum out of your run, but the problem is to know if you are running hot or not lol. yeah sngs roi is decreasing and agree with the post and read it elsewhere that poker is becoming hard that is why i m just playing for fun in SNGs, so it is better to start playing heads up game or even zoom as it is more profitable from what I saw.
