Starting a bankroll with SnGs: Where?

[Hoffma]

I’m a US player looking to start a bankroll playing one table tournaments, and I’m curious if anyone can recommend a site to start playing at.

My only previous experience playing real money online was at crazypoker.com (prima), at the recommendation of ultimatepokerbankroll.com. They offer $10 free for new accounts, though I was only credited $5. I wrote their support team about it several times, and they never got back to me. I may have had to clear a bonus in order to receive the additional $5, but I’m not positive. Regardless, I was able to build this $5 up to $20 playing 10- and 6-seat $1 SnGs, but eventually lost it all due to tilt and variance.

I’m looking for a new site where I can play these same types of tournaments, but I have certain criteria/preferences. Crazypoker’s slowest tournament tables will double blinds every 10 hands. I think this is too fast for me right now, given my current skill level. I’m looking for a US-friendly site with smaller and/or slower blinds raises in STTs, preferably one where I wouldn’t squander an opportunity to clear a good bonus further down the road. I’m looking to start with a deposit of $50 or less.

Also, I understand that the hourly win rate of a tournament player is far less than that of a cash table player. I personally don’t believe I’m ready to play cash tables quite yet, so I’d like to start where I’m comfortable until I’m ready to change gears. I’d like to start one-tabling STTs, and make plans to develop my skills based on my success there. If profit is slow but steady, I'll try to do more simultaneous tables and/or move up stakes. Once profit speeds up, I'd work on making the switch to cash tables.

If I didn’t care about future bonus whoring, I would simply sign up at ultimatebet. I love their software, and their tournament blind raises are much slower/smaller. They seem to have a good bonus offer though, and that’s enough for me to seek alternatives. Can anyone offer any suggestions, comments, or coaching?

[ChrisV]

I know little about deposit bonuses, but the best site to play low limit SNGs is PokerStars. Games run often enough that you can play at any hour of the day and night, and play within reason as many tables as you like. Plus, they have the slower structured SNGs that you're looking for.

Second choice would probably be Absolute Poker. They have a 100% max $600 deposit bonus, but I'm not sure whether SNGs count for working it off, or how much they'd earn towards it.

Finally, some advice, since I played SNGs almost exclusively for two years, professionally for some of that time. SNGs are quite low variance in terms of the gap between top and bottom of a swing not being that large, but they're high variance in that you can have long stretches of abnormal results. Most SNG players will (if they play long enough) experience a losing stretch of more than 100 SNGs. You quite likely won't be able to be sure you're a winning player until you've played several hundred SNGs, and getting an accurate ROI measurement takes thousands. So check into the STT forum with difficult hands to get a sense for how you're doing.

[Reid L]

There is no better place to build a bankroll than bodog. The beginner tourneys at $4 and $8 that pay out 5 places make it easy and profitable to learn the game.

[ThePeanutFlush]

Hey ChrisV, i'm a SNG player, is there anyway to see your overall SNG stats besides Pokertracker or the like??

[Rook]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey ChrisV, i'm a SNG player, is there anyway to see your overall SNG stats besides Pokertracker or the like??

[/ QUOTE ]

Sharkscope will give you your average ROI, Average Buy-in, total tourney's played, and total profit. Non-subscribers get a max of 5 searches a day.

[metsandfinsfan]

you get 100% rakeback on tourny fees with the bodog bonus

as far as absolute goes, you get 1 pt for each 1 dollar in fees paid, and 75 pts equals 10 dollars under the new rules. So for 75 dollars in fees, you get 10 bux, which is about 14% rakeback ---- if you are getting 28% rakeback on top of that it is not horrible i suppose

[Nsight7]

People may think I am nuts, but if you want to start out very easy, play at Doyle's Room. It isn't the best at anything as far as poker sites go but the SnG buy-ins start at like .10 cents so it isn't costly to learn the skills that will allow you to beat other sites at the $1-$5 level or better. The blinds raise like every 8 minutes (depending upon which ones you play at $1.00 the blinds go every 12 minutes) at the lower-level and you get 2,000 chips to start. It is a good place to begin before you move up and out to bigger and better sites.

[tsearcher]

Bodog also has a perpetual 10% deposit bonus. So you'll be playing those $4 8$ SNG's virtually rake free. As stated before they pay off the top 50%. So even if you're horrible you should be able to play quite a few games before you lose your bank role, even if its just $50.

[Rook]

I strongly suggest starting with a bankroll of no less than ~300 if you want to start with primarily SnG's. While there are micro-limit SNG's ($3 +$.4), the rake is horrendous. Especially for a turbo. I wouldn't want to start any lower than $5+.5 or even better, $6+.5 turbo sng's. The usual suggested bankroll for any buy-in is between 30-50 buy-ins. For a 5.50, that would be between 165-275. I'd suggest sticking with the higher number if you are newer to SnG play.

If $50 is the max you can start with, I'd suggest starting with nanolimit fixed limit poker on pokerstars. This excellent post walks you through how to build your bankroll starting with only $50. Be advised that if you are in the US, you will not be able to take advantage of the Party Poker part of that post (Holy alliteration Batman).

To be brutally honest, $50 is just not enough to safely build a SnG bank roll with unless you want to just roll the dice and hope you get lucky.

[Nsight7]

[ QUOTE ]
I strongly suggest starting with a bankroll of no less than ~300 if you want to start with primarily SnG's. While there are micro-limit SNG's ($3 +$.4), the rake is horrendous. Especially for a turbo. I wouldn't want to start any lower than $5+.5 or even better, $6+.5 turbo sng's. The usual suggested bankroll for any buy-in is between 30-50 buy-ins. For a 5.50, that would be between 165-275. I'd suggest sticking with the higher number if you are newer to SnG play.

If $50 is the max you can start with, I'd suggest starting with nanolimit fixed limit poker on pokerstars. This excellent post walks you through how to build your bankroll starting with only $50. Be advised that if you are in the US, you will not be able to take advantage of the Party Poker part of that post (Holy alliteration Batman).

To be brutally honest, $50 is just not enough to safely build a SnG bank roll with unless you want to just roll the dice and hope you get lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

One think I want to point out (in response to the above) is that you can play effective bankroll management with $50 on Doyle's Room since their SnGs are ultra-micro and start at merely .10 + .01 and going up increments to .25 + .02, .50 + .05, 1.00 + .10, and so on. On Doyle's a $50 bankroll is completely do-able!
In fact, since my wife is very experience-lite, she is playing Doyle's right now at the .25 and .50 level on the SnGs with a $32.00 bankroll (though she started at $25.00 playing .10 and occasional .25).

Also, I believe it wouldn't be so great to play on Bodog in those top 50% SnGs. First of all, they don't reflect the standard SnG across all the other major poker sites. If you are wanting to improve your SnG game, it would likely be better to play games that more closely emulate the structure of a standard SnG. I think you will become better more quickly playing a more standardized SnG. Plus the ease-in you would get on Doyle's would likely make the transition to higher-stake games easier, particularly since the Doyle's SnGs rise in buy-in pretty slowly.

Just my opinion though.