Ive started doing this tilt thing thats half a horse sound and half the shuddering sound Mr. Burns makes. You ever do that?

Why High Stakes SNG's Suck (Bitter Ramblings from One who couldn't Cut it!)

So I actually started off as a 9-man SNG player. Due to some absurdly good luck, I actually had one of the highest ROI's in 9-mans prior to Black Friday and fancied myself a professional SNG player (I sucked).

Over the years, I've dabbled in all forms of SNG's and have beaten every form of them at mid to high stakes ($30-200 with a $60 ABI). I am a small to medimum winner at 6-mans, 9-mans, Fifty50's, 18-mans, and 45-mans. I dabbled in all formats because I like the idea of the SNG.

SNG's are very attractive to smart poker players. Because they are very math-heavy and solvable, he who puts in the most hard work will reap the benefits and make a very good living. However, the smartest and best will set up a safety net in the form of Supernova Elite and stick to one or two games. Players who are established winners at a game can "ride out the variance" and collect their 6-figure paycheck at the end of the year. Unfortunately I don't have those luxuries. I'm not sure if I can make SNE and I'm not certain that I am +ev at the SNG's I play.

One of the things I don't understand about many SNG regulars is why they continue to willfully be so mediocre. I have the greatest respect for those who work hard at the game. I'm pretty much constantly e-fellating the best, or shouting them out in my videos. But for every regular who studies every spot cold, there are 2-3 willfully mediocre regulars that have a stagnant game. And to my frustration, I can't beat games full of them because they are good enough to hurt my expected ROI.

I've put a lot of hard work into every format of SNG. I'm not just sitting down cold and trying to poker brute force my way through everything. I don't think I'm anywhere near the best at any game, but I think I'm a solid 3%+ ROI player in most of them especially since I game select everything. Also, in general, I am better at poker than most of my SNG opponents. Based on my database review, I think I adjust better than 90% of SNG regulars I play with and study more than most of them. Yet here I am on a 4k downswing or something and I'm starting to feel like the variance in SNG's is worse than in MTT's.

In the SNG feedback threads, everyone talks about how high stakes are dead. I think I am living proof of that. Every day I sit in games with 2-3 weak players (fish), 3 marginal regulars, 2 top regulars, and me. Basically everyone who is ensured of hitting SNE can comfortably sit at that table and not worry too much about the result. In the long run, the rakeback will smooth it out. It always does.

Again, I don't have that luxury. I'm about to quit the SNE hunt and I'm certainly not ensured of it. So now when we talk about the rake being "unbeatable," it comes down to a lot of marginal regulars and me fighting it out with 10bb stacks. Yes, I can raise/fold better than some of them. Yes, I have my push ranges down cold. But when it comes down to it, when even the worst regular knows not to stack off at t20, it turns out there's not much edge to 7bb poker between experienced veterans.

So I become a slave to variance. Due to my mediocre abilities spread too thin, I am caged in the expectation nightmare of a 3% ROI High Stakes SNGer. If you run a variance simulation on even a 3% ROI player, the outcomes are very, very scary. Even worse, you can't really hit 5%+ ROI in a 9-man SNG filled with 7 good to mediocre to bad regulars splitting 2 fish. It's not possible.

On the other hand my expected MTT ROI is probably 40%+ even after mixing in turbos and big buy-ins. Having a much higher ROI in MTT's let's me ride out the variance much easier and downswing far less. That's just not possible in SNG's. To escape the SNG downswing oppression, I have to hit SNE 100%. I have no choice. Meanwhile every day I am punched in the stomach by results like this:



or this (2013 stats <$69 BI and >$70 BI)



People are going to see this and just tell me to stop crying. It's standard for SNGers plus they're not even my main game plus I probably don't study as much as regs plus plus plus. And it's probably all true. But I'm not really crying. I'm just explaining why being a high stakes SNG professional without SNE sucks and why high stakes SNG's are dead.

It's funny. I'm not competitive at all but I just don't like losing large sums of money. I tend to multiply the losses by weeks and then realize I am bankrupt. I.e I am down $8,000 in the past 2 days. Multiple that by a week and suddenly I'm busto. Which sucks.

Cliffs: Unless you are guaranteed to hit SNE, high stakes SNG's suck. I am strongly considering giving up the SNE hunt and just getting back to loving poker again. I can watch a lot of training videos, practice cash theory for my deepstack tournament play, and even learn a new game.

SNE is not worth it obv then man, just do what you wrote in cliffs, it will do you good long term, when you love what you do its the best thing in the world, why would you take that from yourself? And its not even like give up sne because you will love game more, so you give up some profits, even that is not true, you could still earn much more than you would maybe going for sne, so i really think there is no big decission to be made about this

Yeah that was me. Think we both had half a milly stacks when you moved.

On your SNE chase, i think you should do what makes you happy. Nothing worse than turning something you love in to something that becomes monotonous and frustrating.

Whatever decision you make on the games and limits you play, i think the path you take that comes from the heart will be the most rewarding.

got an epic triple crown sweat. 2/9 in the 11 turbo on Stars and 3/10 in the Party 20R SIMULTANEOUSLY zomg

Gogogo

Also quit playing SNGs imo (actual serious advice) except maybe outside a few games when you're starting up a session if you're short on tables

Gl on sundayfunday if you're grinding a big sched too

also today made a rare but fantastic misclick accidentally jammed q9s for 24bb or something in the 5R vs a 13/8 UTG open. he had KK and I lost.

pretty lucky I had q9s in that spot though and didn't hit all in or something at a FT (hit ESC one too many times which is my all in key)

thanks jdawg. advice from people like you, quad, BBZ means a lot to me since you guys have done what i'm trying to do.

GL on Sunday if you are playing MTT's!

Nah not mtts for me outside of TCOOP, gotta hit that yearly goal! (no mtts online outside of _COOPs).

WRT SNGs, you pretty much know why you shouldn't play them....without the SNE RB the HS STT's just aren't even worth it for you, even if you are game selecting fairly carefully.

I think without studying, your natural instincts are probably right on queue with the bad regs in the $60-100 6m hypers (this is meant as a compliment btw, dont read into it wrong ) and 9m regs are worse than the 6m regs on avg, so I'm sure you're +EV, but the variance will suck and if you can't ensure SNE + adding unhappiness/tilt to your grind, just not even worth it IMO.

You'd be much better off adding like 45s/180s if you needed tables imo, or sticking to just playing 18s if you're adding in games

4th in the 11R. omega drooler m/r my BB and I shove like 6-7bb with a7s. He actually tanks with Q3o so I think sometimes he folds! River 3 and I'm done.

QQ into AA for 15bb to get 7th in the Party. Should probably mention sweats after, not during :P

jdawg again appreciate the advice but i would be dumb as rocks not to study and play hypers vs regs with just natural instincts.

I actually grinded my way up from $15's (I have a student who is beating the games comfortably). I get a lot of advice from BBZ as well and think I can be one of the better regs in the format. Point is pretty moot though I guess because the main games I play are fifty50's and 9's. Much less 6m hypers than the rest of them and they're usually offpeak with huge droolers.

waddup yugiohhh

gl tomorrow

thanks yearly TLB champion. GL on Sunday.

I am on a rampage today. At the FT of the $8 Turbo/8k guaranteed. Here is the hand of the day (ew river )

PokerStars Hand #92651137838: Tournament #703011016, $8.00+$0.80 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXXV (15000/30000) - 2013/01/20 0:01:50 ET
Table '703011016 19' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: LouMinaccia (315280 in chips)
Seat 3: jf1971 (115231 in chips)
Seat 4: Max Klaas (314863 in chips)
Seat 5: mgc0809 (269066 in chips)
Seat 6: bonchea (202820 in chips)
Seat 7: YugiohPro (540389 in chips)
Seat 9: Prometheus32 (758351 in chips)
LouMinaccia: posts the ante 3750
jf1971: posts the ante 3750
Max Klaas: posts the ante 3750
mgc0809: posts the ante 3750
bonchea: posts the ante 3750
YugiohPro: posts the ante 3750
Prometheus32: posts the ante 3750
jf1971: posts small blind 15000
Max Klaas: posts big blind 30000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to YugiohPro [Qc Qd]
mgc0809: raises 235316 to 265316 and is all-in
bonchea: folds
YugiohPro: raises 271323 to 536639 and is all-in
Prometheus32: folds
LouMinaccia: calls 311530 and is all-in
jf1971: folds
Max Klaas: folds
Uncalled bet (225109) returned to YugiohPro
*** FLOP *** [Td 6d Qs]
*** TURN *** [Td 6d Qs] [7s]
*** RIVER *** [Td 6d Qs 7s] [Js]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
YugiohPro: shows [Qc Qd] (three of a kind, Queens)
LouMinaccia: shows [Ad Kc] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
LouMinaccia collected 92428 from side pot
mgc0809: shows [8s As] (a flush, Ace high)
mgc0809 collected 867198 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 959626 Main pot 867198. Side pot 92428. | Rake 0
Board [Td 6d Qs 7s Js]
Seat 2: LouMinaccia (button) showed [Ad Kc] and won (92428) with a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 3: jf1971 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: Max Klaas (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: mgc0809 showed [8s As] and won (867198) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 6: bonchea folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: YugiohPro showed [Qc Qd] and lost with three of a kind, Queens
Seat 9: Prometheus32 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

lost HU in the $8 Turbo for 2 legs . These Triple Crowns sure are serious business yo

A little late to the party on sngs but, I think you would be making a smart choice by giving them up for the most part or SNE at least. It seems like you love mtts and are very very good at them. So why not keep putting in lots of volume in them and enjoy something you do. As opposed to hating life (for the most part) and grinding mid to high stakes sngs while sweating your vpp count throughout the year. Sometimes I never really understand the allure of SNE because it seems like for most regs it just crushes their winrate and makes them put in an absurd amount of hours.

And don't let this come off as I'm sayin you aren't good enough because clearly you are and it seems like you have one of the best support groups around. I guess it just comes down to the question is SNE really worth it when its all said and done. gl man

It is actually possible to crush SNG, even HS one, and make it profitable to play them even w/ being SNE or chasing it.

I don't know much about 9man cause i'm just starting playing it at 100s+ stake. But from what I've seen, they're reg-infested, sure. But most of the regs are crushable. So NO, you won't make 15% ROI cause they're not awfull, but YES, you can make 2 or 3 times their ROI.

In 18man, when avg profit of the TLB top 20 is around 1.5$/game, you can actually make 4 or 5$/game. The only thing to do is to be smarter then every single reg you play against.

By being smarter, it means working spots they don't work. It means that every single decision you take should be vilain/stack size/game flow/... -depedent. It means studying a spot deeply (on $eVCardRunner for instante), etc. Moreover, I think that playing SNG's in this way will improve your global skill to poker and eventually help to switch to mtt.

I don't have time to play mtt and that's the only reason why i'm not playing them, so I do my best to crush sng's and to always be "a level above", thinking process speaking.

I do think it's profitable to play SNG's besides your mtt, or at least when you don't have many mtt opened.

Anyway, Best of luck Yug'

dont give up bro, msg me on skype

Hey I answered but the dough no show! Didn't go through?

Not that it's important but you were so angry

Dibs on money!

haha everything in the parentheses was a joke, parodying my actual cursing at the tables.

i have gotten all of your names, will send the money out sometime but i've been kind of lazy.

i read the Tendler book. Didn't think it was that great, was actually very close to what i was expecting. But keep in mind I have kind of a different culture (Koreans hate going to the doctor and medicating etc and my mom was even worse).

I do have two tips from the Tendler book though. One is I need to stop reviewing hands mid-session (multitasking). Two I need to stop marking regulars for death and trying to get revenge on them.

Thanks for the book recommendation, it was great.

Still stuck on one leg of the triple crown. Got 2nd in a Stars Turbo, 3rd in a Stars Hyper with the chip lead, 7th or something in in the Lock 109, and 7th in the Party 22R. So close but no cigar!

gl gl gl

LOL poker players.

lol what I meant was the recommendation was really heartfelt so I appreciated all of you going out of your way to help me out.


so i am starting to lose respect for the value of money. i am late registering $109 MTT's and generally having some sloppy habits setting in (i.e playing mid to high stakes 6m hypers while cracked out at the end of mtt sessions). i need to get back to being hungry like i was at the start of 2012 or i will be bleeding money.

today, i had a very productive SNG session and was up $1900 (running like God). I decided to shoot a video for DC, dropped about $400 in 18 mans, then dropped another $1000 in 6m Hyper Turbos in like 20 minutes. 6m Hypers are all that run at the end of my session (around 11AM Japan Time).

again i am confident i am +ev in 6m hypers but not confident enough. for all i know i could be bleeding money at them. i am going to drop stakes in my less successful games and try to build samples in them.

I am currently doing very well in 6m, 9m, and Fifty50's. I am losing a lot of money in 18's and 6m Hypers. Incidentally I am running above EV in the first 3 and under EV in the latter two.

i have quest

Many Koreans are wondering

you korean or american ??

Watched most of your vids on DC. I also played ygo a long time ago (Back in flipflop days)

If you do make some 18man vids iam sure there is a huge market for them, do look forward to watching them..

GLGL