cash vs sng

hi guys, i am a winning sng player 25% roi 4 tabling over 1000 tournaments and have recently made the switch to 25nl 6max cash games. i have played about 10 000 hands and am break even. i just want some opinions on what you think is the more profitable game, at low and mid stakes, thanks heaps!

Seems like you can find winners and losers at both. I personally show a profit at SnG's and am not much better than break even at the same cash game youre talking about.

Seems like more solid players at the cash games IMO.

Bye the way, what SnG's are you playing?

Cash is more profitable, especially at higher stakes.

Are you keeping within our bankroll? You may need to downgrade stakes or number of tables to eliminate downswing.

im playing 10 buck sng's non turbo full ring. what about you?

yehh ive got a 2k bank so im pretty sure im rolled for 25nl? mot too sure about roll management for cash tho.

ok cool. would you say thats fact or more your opinion? what stakes do you play?

all depends on the competition... but in general.. your going to win the most money in MTT... but it also has the biggest swings... then cash... then single table... the benifit of single table sng is that the swings are a lot lower than the other two

Fact. The top winners at cash make more per hour than the top winners playing SnG's. Check out poker table ratings, then go check the biggest winners on shark scope.

However, SnG's are much easier to learn, and they're still very soft at lower levels. You can make a truckload of cash playing them. I'm not trying to say cash is better. SnG's take a different set of skills, and you might have the better brain for SnG's.

Play what you're good at, that's the most important thing.

do you make much money playing cash games?

Profitability depends on the player. NL ring games can punish you severely if you make a mistake for your stack. SNG aren't as punishing for mistakes because depending on relative stack sizes you can make an error and still be able to cash because your stack was bigger than the other player's stack.

I have much more success at cash than SNG. I tried the double or nothing SNGs and I am in the red. I lost count but I’ve failed to cash in 4 of my last 5 so I am probably something like 8-12 and negatively impacted my winnings. Very bad. I find that if I don’t win a decent pot early on, the blinds climb so fast that it comes down to surviving a shove, and if I don’t make it, I lose. Luck plays a much larger role in these.

The last three losses. I shoved with AJ in BB vs. a limper. It turned out he limped with AK. Then I had AK vs. 78 and AQ vs. K9, lost both.

I have yet to have a suckout at these SNGs. I’ve had 3 or 4 bad ones against me.

I must make myself not play these SNGs again. It’s hard cuz I don’t accept losing.

Define "much money".

I made ~6K playing cash games last year, but my win rate was never amazing.

This is pretty standard stuff for SnGs, particularly fast paced ones. As blinds increase steals and resteals become very important and playing tight (as you might in a cash game) will not work. If you get shortstacked people will tend to call you down lightly with any high card and you have to be lucky to get past several coinflips.

Have you tried seeking out standard (non-turbo) games with slower blind levels? Pokerstars has particularly slow levels.

If you want to play SnG, I would really recommend reading the book by Colin Moshman. It really opened my eyes to the difference between early (super tight) and late (very aggressive, especially in position) play.

i am definately better at the sitn gos i play a bunch of those two dollar 6 man turbo and i dont lose consentration like i do in cash. The problem for me in the cash game is if i lose one buy in it hurts my play and it dents my bankrole about 5X more then one sitn go. So in my opinion it is more profitable to play sit n gos because im not the best at handling tilt

if you want to make money in sng's i suggest you buy some icm software such as sng wiz, just to get familiar with profitable spots to shove your stack in the late game and i think double or nothing sng's are a joke and they are terrible for the game!!!! i dont even count them as real poker!!!!!!
but yeh its pretty much impossible to crush sng's for a big roi without solid understanding of icm and good situational awareness.

what stakes do you play? do you play 6max or fr?

I've read experts saying that beginners often have trouble w/ cash games until they get better. I've been doing well in low stake SnGs (2.25 and 6.50) but I'm leaking money playing the cash games. What makes cash games so challenging vs. SnGs?


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shortstack nlhe (sngs) is a solved game. there's only some flexibility in first few rounds, then it's all about who exploits non-optimal play better.

I was under the impression that increasing the number of tables reduced the effect of variance when you multi-table, although presumably if you play more tables your winrate will drop slightly.

I played mixed games, mostly the stud games, at stakes anywhere from 1/2 to 15/30. And there is no "6-max" or anything like that with mixed games on a small site. A lot of my action was short handed, or starting tables.

Nope. Increasing the number of tables will increase the variance you experience per hand. But because you play more hands, you'll get to the long run faster.

More decisions. SnG's, your stack is smaller, so your decisions are often preflop or on the flop. And that's mostly the kind of poker people see on TV.

Cash games will tax your logic & deductive thinking more, because your stack is deeper, and you can make many decisions in the hand. In a SnG, your average decision tree looks like this:

Average SnG decisions in a hand
#1) I haz good enough hand given my position, raise.
Maybe #2, if you have chips left) I got called, SPR is less than 4 and I haz a pair, lets put all the money in.


Average Cash game decisions in a hand
#1) I haz good enough hand given my position, raise.
#2) Flop comes, SPR is like (number between 5-15). Flop texture is like (dry, wet, whuteva). To c-bet or not to c-bet?
#3) Turn comes (good/bad). 2nd barrel? V-bet?
#4) Somewhere along the hand I got raised, but I'm not committed like I would be in a SnG. So I still have a choice to call/fold/shoveit.
#5) K, we made it to the river, given all the actions on all the previous streets, what can I reduce his holdings down to? Given his range, do we V-bet? Induce? Bluff? Give up?

ect.

SnG's on the other hand will teach you to exploit sub-optimal play a little better, and you'll have to integrate the math of the game into your thinking more. You can get pretty far in cash games just by v-betting your good hands, giving up on your mediocre ones, and bluffing your worst trash. SnG's force you to think about who you can steal from, and ICM considerations. So it takes a different set of skills.

Yes, I just posted three times in a row.

Whatever you make more profit at is the more profitable game for you.

If you want to make money, and that is your sole focus, play what you do well at.

If you want to improve, expanding your game range, increasing your limits, you will be dealing with a learning curve that could severely impact your bankroll. So bankroll management becomes crucial.

It's up to you what you play. Ring games can be more productive than SNGs, as your profits are capped on SNGs. On the other hand, you can lose a lot more in the same time frame at ring tables -- and some hands will be a lot more costly than you may be comfortable with. If you lose a SNG, you lose the buyin. If you lose a big hand on a ring table, you lose your stack. I would suggest, therefore, playing ring games at a level where the stack size is equivalent to your standard SNG buyin, to reduce the emotional and financial shock. (If that's not a problem for you, OK. It is a problem for me. It takes adjustment.)