Thanks for the response. I realize that this sample size is too small to give me my true ROI, but I've been thinking about this and it seems to me that maximizing profit should be a higher priority than getting my ROI as high as I can at a particular level.
The way I see it, my ROI is going to be a function of my skill level compared to my opponents for each format I play. So even though my ROI would be lower at a higher levels, playing $5.50 with a 10% ROI is better than playing $2.25 with a 20% ROI. Also, presumably I can learn more and become a better player by playing better opponents. Of course, this requires maintaining an adequate bankroll and dropping back if the ROI drops too much at a higher level, but dropping down a level has never been a problem for me.
Yep, you are on the right track. Having a good ROI is nice, but i'd much rather prefer a high $/hour. You can achieve this a few ways, moving up in stakes or by heavily multitabling.
The problem with moving up whilst playing only a few tables is that you are setting yourself up for more variance. You can achieve the same $/hour in some cases playing the smaller limits while multitabling more, which actually limits the amount of variance you will encounter, Which means you can stay at a particular level for longer. The other benefits of doing more tables is that you gain experiance quicker, The more games you play, the more decisoins you face and the more exp you can gain. I understand playing against better competition as a way of training, but the game really doesn't change much from the $1 level to the $100 level, it's just the players change and we have to change our ranges thinking somewhat.
The con of multitabling is that it's a skill in itself, and it doesnt happen overnight, But with good work ethic, you can go from 2 tabling to 4 then 6 and so .
As for the idea of having a format "under control", I guess I was trying to ask when you feel confidant that you're not a losing player at a particular level. If one player has a 25% ROI over 100 games and another has a 5% ROI over 200 games, neither one may be showing their "true" ROI, but I would be more confidant that the first player was a winning player than the second.
So it's basically just asking yourself what you think of your game, based on how other players are doing, and based on how much knowledge you think you have. Be honest with yourself and your leaks or you may be setting yourself up for failure in the higher limits.I wouldn't really put too much emphasis on either of them being "good" players. Even terrible players can go on upswings like this, so to make any predictions on how either will do is kind of a waste of time. Having confidance can also be a killer remember. There are a lot of players who are super confidant in their game after a winning streak, and they either get overconfidant, or they fail to do the things neccesary to improve, they get complacent and thus, their game suffers.
After doing some searching, I think what I may have been looking is either the "confidence interval" or the "credible interval" - something to tell me the expected range for my true ROI. I found one article that gave the following 'confidence intervals' for SNG's:
100 games: ~23%
300 games: ~40%
1000 games: ~66%
2000 games: ~82%
I assume that this could be represented by a bell curve with a larger standard deviation for fewer games, but I didn't take enough statistics to follow the math.
Yeah, it's not only the games you play, but moreso the amount of study and review you do also. How much work you put in away from the tables can significantly affect these numbers.
The point of trying other formats was to learn more and to see where the most profit could be made. I had settled on SNG's because my bankroll was very small and I felt like I had the least variance there. I think I will continue to stick with them for a while and try to build up my bankroll more before trying other things.
