I was considering this. I currently cash about 40% of time in SnGs 6max. If i had a friend who did well in SnGs as well, we played them together, and shared winnings.... wouldnt the games become basically guaranteed profit? 50% win rate is basically a guaranteed break even with 2nd place paying just under 1 BI. And over half of my cashes are 1st, which typically pays about 2.5 BI.

*Im not suggesting any kind of collusion or working together at table just sharing winnings.*

Is there something im not taking into account? Are people already doing this? Would i actually be making less by doing this considering my win rate? I havent thought it out completely, just an idea that came to mind recently.

Let me get this straight-- you want you and your friend to play the same SnGs and split the profits between you two?

Even if you don't share hands or work together during the tournaments, this still feels like collusion.

Even if you want to pool your bankroll, wouldn't it be more profitable to play different SnGs? If you're winning players, all you're doing by playing the same ones is ensuring two winning players in your table lineup instead of one.

It sounds like you are treating your 40% cash probability and your friend’s presumably similar cash probability as independent probabilities. They are, but only if you aren’t playing the same SNG. You may also be naively assuming that if you cash 40% and your friend does as well, then one of you will cash 80% of the time. The correct calculation, assuming independence of results, would be that at least one of you would cash 64% of the time. This can be easily seen by the fact that you each have a 60% chance of not cashing, so the chance of both of you failing to cash is 0.6 x 0.6 = 0.36, or 36%.

Obviously your cash probabilities are not independent though if you play the same SNG, assuming no collusion. At least some of the time the chips you win that allow you to cash will be lost by your friend (and vice-versa). The fact that you cash would make it less likely than normal that your friend would cash as well.

To make it simple, asssume you play separate SNGs so results are independent. You each win 2.5 BI with probability 20%, and 1 BI with probability 20% (based on your estimates that you cash 40% and win half of the SNGs that you cash). Then the following probabilities hold

Both win - 5BI, 4%
You win, he’s 2nd - 3.5 BI, 4%
Vice versa - 3.5 BI, 4%
Both 2nd - 2BI, 4%
One win, one no cash - 2.5 BI, 24% (12% chance for each of you winning)
One 2nd, one no cash - 1.5 BI, 24%
Neither cashes - 0BI, 36%

Based on these your expected payout is 1.52 buyins. Since it costs 2 buyins to enter, this would not be profitable. The two of you would average -0.48 buyins (or -0.24 each).

If you play yourself and don’t split your expected loss is -0.3 buyins with the given probability distribution, so you so gain a little by splitting with your friend, but certainly not enough to make it profitable.

EDIT - just realized that I’m treating the payouts as the whole payout and not the profit. That is, if it’s a $10 SNG I’m assuming winner gets $25, 2nd gets $10, which implies a house rake of $25 for a six person SNG. No wonder that’s unprofitable!! To correct this, make the payout for not cashing -1 buyin and just calculate EV. Any +EV is then profit. Reduce payouts by 1 for any case where one fails to cash and both failing would give -2. You get 0.32 buyins for the splitting and 0.1 buyins for playing alone. Since you split, you each get 0.16 buy ins, an increase of 0.06 over the solo case.

Appreciate the input guys.