If one has started with a $100 bankroll in Pokerstars, is it reasonable to expect to grow that bankroll to something like $300, $500 or even more playing SNGs? Are these games profitable nowadays? Wanna hear your opinions.
Absolutely yes. If you dont want to play cash games, then the SnG lobby is the place to get practice and build that initial bankroll up to around 500$, at which point you might want to move over to MTTs.
On PokerStars specifically you want to focus mainly on the 45-180 man SnGs, because for whatever reason these have lower rake, and especially the 45 man are still fast enough, that you can grind a lot of these. They also go on hourly break, which is nice, if you are going to grind long sessions.
With 100$ you should mainly play the 1$ 45 man, and when you get near 150$, you can start adding in some 1$ 180 man and 1,5$ 90 man bounty, if you have time for a longer session, because these are more like MTTs with 15 min blind intervals. At 250$ or so you can look at the 3,5$ 6-18 mans, even these still have a bit more rake, than I would ideally like, but at least its less than at the 1-1,5$ level.
There are also turbos like a 1,5$ 45 man, a 2,5$ 180 man, a 3,5$ 45 man and a 5$ 90 man PKO, but these are not as ideal for bankroll building in my opinion. The structure is very fast, so its difficult to find a lot of edge and get a high enough ROI to significantly beat the rake.