The Admiral’s reference guide to SNGs
I’ve tried to remember all the things I’ve looked up over the past year in order to create a useful reference point for all those learning or improving their game.
Who am I?
I’m a keen amateur player, I have a wife and a full time job. In the last year I’ve learned SNGs, built my bankroll, and in the process made as much as my year’s salary after tax ($50,000) by just playing an hour or two in the evening.
I’ve liked poker for a couple of years and never had any real success, until I found SNGs. I started at Partypoker, and learned the basics of the game playing the lowest cash limits I could find. I had no clue what I was doing. K4s was playable. What’s position?
I deposited $400 at FT to get my bankroll started and then began messing around with random stuff. A bit of this, a bit of that and nothing that gave me any indication of how good I was. Thousands of cash game hands (broke even), I wasn’t really sure how to fix the leaks. I decided to get serious with SNGs, I started with the $2+0.2 9 man Turbo SNG games. I made enough to move up levels every 200 games. 1000 tourneys later I'm playing the $55+5 tourneys. Another 1000 and I’m playing the $220+16s.
I used a medium risk BR of 50x the buy-in. Starting from $400, not knowing anything about SNGs in my first 2,500 games I made $10,000, in my next 2,500 (playing higher stakes) I made another $34,000. It makes me feel proud because I don’t know of many other people in the world that have done this.
I am good at SNGs because I play the percentages every time. I don’t tilt. Ever. Feel free to type “F-ing idiot” into the chatbox and if I’m at the start or end of a session I may reply with “don’t be so hard on yourself” or “lessons are extra” – generally though I ignore the chat box. I also take the beats, they hurt but they don’t tilt me.
I’m not superstitious. I don’t have a lucky hand. I’m not looking to “gamble”. I don’t believe I’m owed the next pot because I lost the last one. SNGs are not about brilliant bluffs or hero calls.
How do you get better?
Read Colin Moshman’s book. It’s very good, it’ll have you beating SNGs handily.
Start using this forum. This forum doesn’t give you the answer, it gives you four answers and you have to work out which one is right, but at least you have a starting point.
Then invest in SNG wiz (or similar). This will allow you to do your own ICM calculations. If you don’t know what ICM is – read Colin Moshman’s book.
I remember a pivotal hand in my learning where I was calling with A4o in the BB to a SB push with 4 players left (the bubble). I was thinking
“I’m likely to have the best hand here, I call” – I nearly fell off my chair when I put it into Wiz and it gave the calling range as AKs or JJ+. Wow, not even AKo. Wow. From that moment on I paid attention the thing we call the bubble and the way it drastically changes the game.
I didn’t really understand the flat payout structure at first. Top 33% get paid. 50/30/20. Yup, get it. Play tight at first. Why? Make sure you read the theory behind these things, grasp the fundamental nature of this game.
Observe and adjust. One example of the benefits of observation is that SNGs are, at their core, a giant game of chicken. I drive at you, you drive at me and whoever swerves first loses. If we crash into each other we both die. Don’t play chicken against a guy who has no idea that if he crashes into you he dies. Drive across a field, and through a hedge - straight for a guy with a nervous tick and brittle bone syndrome.
ROI and variance
ROI and variance is a tricky topic, surrounded by incomprehensible maths and myth.
To keep things simple in my experience excellent players can get >15% at the micros, >10% up to the $22 level and >5% thereafter (9 man, Turbo SNG).
Sample size is never black and white, it’s a gradient scale. In order to determine your ROI there is never a sample size big enough to say for certain. All you can do is take a reasonable view and everyone’s reasonable view will differ.
200 games will give you some idea if you’re a winning player or not. It has no statistical significance.
500 games will give you an idea of approximate ROI (50% of the time within 5%).
1000 games lets you feel reasonably confident in your approximate ROI (67% of the time within 5%).
3000 games gives you a very high probability of being close to your ROI (90% of the time within 5%)
5000 games gets you very close to your ROI (a 70% chance of being within 2% of your ROI).
Given that 5% is huge when it comes to ROI you can see that variance is a big big deal. At the $110+9 level I had 1000 games running at 13.6% ROI, after 1500 I was 4.9%. This is a big swing and there is nothing you can do.
Downswings
Downswings happen, they suck. Generally they happen at the worst times. Having the downswing hanging over your head is a very scary thought, especially at the high stakes.
It takes a lot of emotional control to cope with downswings at any stakes, but even more so when it’s big money. This is as much of a poker skill as anything else. The effect of the downswing is threefold – it reduces the amount of money in your account, it reduces your current ROI and it reduces your projected earnings. I lost $3,300 in 70 games, I was halfway through the month, it destroyed my entire month’s profit (500 games). ROI for the month 0%, bankroll 20% less, hope 0%. At the bottom of your downswing you have no idea if it’s going to end or get worse, poker has no memory.
Stay calm, play through it, don’t take it out on anything expensive.
Downswings between 20 and 30 BI are very common, the stats seem to indicate 50BI isn’t all that unusual and 100BI is possible but fairly unlikely for winning players.
Bankroll management
If you’re just starting out:
You’ll probably lose a fair bit before you start winning so play the lowest stakes you can find ($1 games usually have a very high rake, try the $2 games). Give yourself lots of room for error. No amount of bankroll management will help you if you consistently lose but by playing with a $200 bankroll you’ll have hundreds maybe thousands of games to learn before you start hitting the end of it (however bad you are you’ll cash in some).
If you know you’re a winner:
This depends on your poker aims. If you’re a professional and/or your bankroll is crucial to you then take the security of a very low risk of ruin, perhaps 200 BIs at your chosen level.
If you’re an amateur
and going broke/moving down is no big deal you can get away with a much riskier approach, especially at the low stakes where you shouldn’t suffer as badly with downswings. 30 BIs is an absolute minimum and this is cutting it very fine, 50 BIs is a sensible amount for a risk-taking amateur, 100 BIs for the risk averse.
Differences between buy in levels
The differences between any buy-in level and the next are surprisingly small. However there are lots of different buy-in levels and the cumulative effect of these small changes add up. Even at the high stakes you get some total idiots but much fewer than at the low stakes.
At the low stakes - $14 and below just don’t fold AK or QQ pre flop. There’s too much random garbage out there. Sometimes one of them has aces, more often it is AJ vs TT. At the low stakes just don’t get cute, don’t steal much unless you have to, don’t ever re-steal and just play solid hand values. Tend not to steal with 76s, steal with A7. You can often fold into or close to the money. If in doubt, fold, there is usually a good chance someone else will bust out.
At the medium stakes ($15-$50) you need to work out who is smart and who isn’t (see your HUD and showdowns for info). Don’t make smart plays against dumb people. You need to steal and re-steal now, target stealing TAGs, avoid LAGs. Your edge of playing solid card values has been drastically cut from the lower stakes so you need edge from appropriate aggressive moves and an understanding of the bubble.
The high stakes ($50+) you need to know it all. You actually steal and re-steal less because they know what you’re doing, you must know the bubble inside out. You rely now on your observations and estimation of hand ranges. There is some “I know, that you know, that I know…” but mainly it comes down to having solid shove ranges and call ranges, taking into account stack sizes and position and making well timed moves.
When to move up?
There are no rules on this. For me you need to have the following:
1) Know you’re beating the game either through results or observation of play/players
2) Enough bankroll to move to the next level
3) The emotional capacity to cope with the next level and the swings it may bring
I believe, in general, players are too reticent to move up. You don’t need 1000 games at the $2 level to know if you can beat it. I skyrocketed through the levels very quickly and never looked back.
That said I remember my first $330 game, being very excited, 6 players left, getting all my chips into the middle pre-flop with AA vs JJ and the river OFC was a jack. Ouch. I felt totally gutted. Hard to take even though I’d played thousands of games.
Which website to play on
For me this only really comes down to Stars vs Tilt as the volume of traffic is so much higher on them. If you want to play for big stakes eventually these two are your only options.
The maths behind the rakeback vs FPP/VIP is complicated. The cliff notes are for me FT edges it for low and medium volume players – high volume high stakes players should switch to Stars for Supernova Elite.
FT has rakeback (27%), leaderboard bonuses (up to $2,200), rake races (up to $3K), Iron man (approx 4%), academy (?%), SNG madness (every few months several thousand $ in bonuses) and FT points (3%). When you add these up it comes out the same as the better or equal to the Stars equivalent until you hit Supernova Elite with BoP leaderboard etc. Tilt doesn’t require the same volume of play that stars does.
Find the software you like and make sure you get rakeback through an affiliate if signing up to FT. I prefer FT software for tourney registration and note taking (the disadvantage is right now their customer support is awful).
Game selection
Not a big issue at lower stakes and at higher stakes you just can’t game select very much. Consider leaving games that have 3 good regs in them. 2 regs in a game is often unavoidable.
Equipment and software
I tile all my tables. Ignore this if you cascade. When you start just 1 or 2 table and build it to 4 fairly quickly. One normal monitor is sufficient for this. After about a thousand games you’ll find that 4 tables is very easy and you can go to 6 / 8, you’ll probably need a second monitor (the HUD requires a minimum table size). If your graphics card has a second DVI port just plug it in and go, if it doesn’t you can do it via a USB port or just buy a cheap graphics card with 2 DVI ports.
Once 8 become easy then you can either cramp up your tables or you can think about investing in a high resolution monitor. These beasts have a resolution of 2560 x 1600 – you’ll need a graphics card with a dual DVI port (it’s not two DVI ports, it’s one dual DVI port). They cost over $1,000.
I have a back-up internet connection in the form of a pay-as-you-go mobile broadband USB stick. It cost about $40 and has enough credit on it (included) that I’ll never need to refill it. The connection can be made ready to go at the touch of a button if you start the software before you need it. Mine was from Vodafone.
Software – I have pokerstove (free), SNG Wiz (about $80) and Hold’em manager ($90). I don’t run any AHK scripts.
Mess around with the HUD on Hold’em Manager (or pokertacker) to get the stats you want – you’ll need the basics like name, hands, VPIP, PFR and AF but you can add some like steal % or fold BB to steal at your own taste. I tend not to filter hands as it’s better for the non-regs which are the important ones to get info on.
I don’t use Sharkscope HUD; it’s banned at Stars and Tilt.
2+2 Forum
This forum is really useful, and it’s also a giant waste of time. You have to be selective. I usually only read the high stakes posts partly because they are my level games, partly because they tend to be more interesting and partly because you can’t read every post.
I’ve never really understood people who write “FIRST!” or even more pathetically “Second!” into threads. I often have to look up internet abbreviations like TL;DR or LDO - I guess being 30 I’m too old for that stuff. I hate it when people don’t know the difference between your and you’re.
There is solid gold advice on these forums, but you’ll have to sift through a pile of rocks to find it. You’ll find posters you respect and posters you can ignore, no one is right all the time. Some people are always close.
You need to take the ideas put forward and investigate them yourself. You have no way of knowing who is right and who is wrong but you can take view points, ideas and suggestions and investigate them. That’s what this place is, a marketplace of ideas – you need to work out which ones you’ll buy for yourself.
There will always be people who are so far off the mark it’s not worth your time getting them straight, and there will always be people who just want a fight. Listen, because sometimes you are wrong. There will also be kind, patient and intelligent mentors who may take time out to help you.
There is also some comedy genius from time to time.
Apparently he’s tight.
Two Plus Two
. Anything I can do to make more $ is a result - no offence 
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