Future of sng's online?

[K䲰䮥n]

braminc, take your e-ego to some other forum. discuss, dont act like you own the place.

[suzzer99]

Possibly the confusion here is we're comparing apples to oranges. Comparing variance per hand in cash to per sng. In that case yes, cash is higher.

But I think it's meaningless to compare the two unless you pick some common metric like per hour or per session. In both cases, by all accounts I've ever heard, cash has less variance.

[braminc]

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braminc, take your e-ego to some other forum. discuss, dont act like you own the place.

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fair enough. i usually dont act this way, but i am just being honest. thast how i feel. and i know that he's wrong and its just a huge pet peeve of mine. so what can i do.

[blackize]

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Possibly the confusion here is we're comparing apples to oranges. Comparing variance per hand in cash to per sng. In that case yes, cash is higher.

But I think it's meaningless to compare the two unless you pick some common metric like per hour or per session. In both cases, by all accounts I've ever heard, cash has less variance.

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Well I was trying to get around this by comparing variance per sng to variance per 100 hands in cash.

I edited my post above to compare my hourly rates sorted by session but I'm not sure how valid all that is. They do appear to support my assertation though.

Perhaps someone else who has a decent sample for both games could chime in.

[PujolsOfPokr]

To the OP,

I would say that if you already are familiar with how STGs work, the switch from limit to NL shouldn't be too tough. The main issue I have encountered playing SNGs is that there just aren't that many games available at the higher stakes, even on the major sites like PokerStars.

As a SNG player, for example, I started off with $200 in mid-August. Now, the main thing about my playing is that I refuse to multi-table. I am often watching TV or on the phone or doing something else that would prevent me from properly 8-tabling it. So single-tabling it, starting with a $200 bankroll and $30 SNGs, I was able to make almost $700 in the month of August over my first two weeks playing. Then I switched to $50's, again no multi-tabling, and was able to pick up an ROI of around 30%. This was lower than my ROI at the $30's, but the hourly rate was higher.

Now, after good success at the $30's & $50's and recent MTT success, I have gotten my bankroll over $5000 and am finding it tough to continue down the STG path. I have upped it to $100 SNGs now, and notice that it is often a pain to get a simple 9-handed table started. I have waited 15+ minutes before to get a table started. Additionally, the couple of times I have sat down at a $215 table, the table never filled up within a reasonable time.

So I would say that if you plan on eventually playing $100+ SNGs and multi-tabling it, you might have a hard time getting enough games going at once. Now, the way I see it, its better to have full concentration on a $100/$200 table anyway because you should be paying attention to your opponents' tendencies the entire way in ways not needed @ the $10-20 level. By not multi-tabling it, I think an ROI of ~15-20% is attainable even at the $100 level, though most people on this forum would likely disagree.

-- PujolsOfPokr

[Tantalus747]

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[ QUOTE ]
Possibly the confusion here is we're comparing apples to oranges. Comparing variance per hand in cash to per sng. In that case yes, cash is higher.

But I think it's meaningless to compare the two unless you pick some common metric like per hour or per session. In both cases, by all accounts I've ever heard, cash has less variance.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well I was trying to get around this by comparing variance per sng to variance per 100 hands in cash.

I edited my post above to compare my hourly rates sorted by session but I'm not sure how valid all that is. They do appear to support my assertation though.

Perhaps someone else who has a decent sample for both games could chime in.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure how to convert bb/100 to ROI. However, it seems to me that with the sheer number of tables SNG pros play, they are putting far more money into play than an equivalent cash player. This causes greater $ amount SWINGS resulting in a perception of higher variance. (Note the difference between swing and variance.)

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the math here, but it seems to me we're trying to compare a super high volume, low earn (per $ put in play), medium variance game (SNG) to a lower volume, high earn, high variance game (cash).

I just don't buy the idea someone 12+ tabling 60's is like someone two or four tabling NL 300-400. The SNGer is putting far more money into play. Maybe some here just don't like the idea cash gamers are getting such a better return/$ in play.

[zipppy]

[ QUOTE ]
Possibly the confusion here is we're comparing apples to oranges. Comparing variance per hand in cash to per sng. In that case yes, cash is higher.

But I think it's meaningless to compare the two unless you pick some common metric like per hour or per session. In both cases, by all accounts I've ever heard, cash has less variance.

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whoa whoa whoa...I just started reading this thread, and I have to say that I've always read that cash has higher variance. In my experience, I've found that to be true, but though i've played countless hands and countless tourneys, there are others with more experience than I.

There have been multiple (winning) cash game players over the years post downswings that have lasted for more than 100,000 hands in cash. Can we all take a moment to appreciate how long 100,000 hands is?

If one table plays 100 hands per hour, that's 1000 hours of a solid poker player losing. 1000 hours. If an SNG player lost money over the course of 1000 SNGs, I doubt many on this forum would believe them to be winners.

zip

[suzzer99]

I lost about about $10k at average buyin $75 or so. I am a solid player. The games got a lot tougher with UIGEA/Neteller, I ran bad, and I was NOT playing optimally. A winning player on a 100k hand losing streak due nothing but variance is very unlikely IMO. Generally there are going to be other factors like games changing and player starting to suck once the wheels come off.

Also more SNG tables should decrease variance, not increase it, assumning winrate per table remains constant. Imagine if you could play a thousand tables at once optimally. Your winrate should be very very close to actual.

We really need some of the heavy hitters who have switched to cash to come in here. All I've ever heard is that cash is way less variance.

My expectation in 5 sets of SNGs should be about 10% at avg. buyin $90-ish. Let's just say $100 to keep it simple. So I should make about $80/set or $400 in a 5 set session. Probably take about 4 hours. So I expect to make about $100/hr.

Now - in those 4 hours. I can lose $1k fairly frequently and $1.5k maybe 1 in 50 trials. I can also win $1k a lot and win over $2.5k maybe one in 50 trials (more upside to SNGs if you have a monster set).

So tell me for a cash guy, who expects to make $100/hr - what's his variance over 4 hours? Let's say a big winner at lower stakes and a modest winner at higher stakes. Also we could say 4-tabling vs. 8tabling if we want to try to isolate that.

What I'm getting at is that ultimately, from everything I've heard, a SNG player will walk away with a really good or really bad session more often than a cash guy.

[blackize]

Doesn't seem like anyone really saw my edit so I'll post it again. These results are from a 12% ROI at 12s and 5ptbb/100hands for 50nl.


Using Tourney Manager and Hold'em Manager to sort my results by session I'm looking at my hourly playing SNGs over the last 3k games and playing cash over the last 40k hands.

Now for a session in SNGs my hourly fluctuates between +/- 5x my actual(and for this purpose, true) hourly.

For a session in cash my hourly fluctuates between +/- 20x my actual(and for this purpose, true) hourly.

[DevinLake]

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Also more SNG tables should not decrease variance, or increase it, assumning winrate per table remains constant

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fyp