SNGs at PS

Hi everyone,

I’m new here and have lots of questions... so I’m trying to limit the number of topics I’m starting... but here’s a question to those of you who play SNGs at PS. (Is this question better here or in the poker rooms section?)

Does the quality of competition change from moving from $3.5 SNGs to $7 ones? I typically play full table, regular speed and vanilla SNGs.

My situation is this: I’ve built up a $170 bankroll after winning my share of freerolls and microstakes MTT. I also grinded (?) a lot of $5.5 SNGs from other poker rooms. I’ve taken out all of my original deposits and some profits so I’m now dealing with house money. I started this about 13 years ago (?) but took a looooooong break after having kids. But now I’m back with money left over at PS and started placing ITM in many of the MTTs that I played.

I want to start playing STT SNGs again, mostly because I don’t want to have to set aside 6 hours to play in larger MTTs unless I have the time to do so. In my experience with micro stake SNGs in the past, there is all kinds of silliness that takes place in early rounds that is just bad poker (like all-in calls on marginal hands). And that also throws me off my game, when one player doubles up their chips on questionable moves, not based on skill.

Personally, I want to play against better (read: smarter) competition and grow as a player, but don’t want to play over my head. So for those of you who have played SNGs at PS, is there a noticeable difference in quality of competition between $1.5 SNGs vs $3.5 vs $7? I don’t have the bankroll to really consider the $15 ones right now.

Mind you, I know that one area of my game that really needs improving is playing HU. I played 10 SNGs prior to my hiatus (almost 5 years ago) and I placed ITM in half of them, but placed 2nd in all of them and couldn’t win HU. Frustrating as hell.

Anyway, comments and questions welcome. Thanks for reading!

nameless1537 said:

Hi everyone,

I’m new here and have lots of questions... so I’m trying to limit the number of topics I’m starting... but here’s a question to those of you who play SNGs at PS. (Is this question better here or in the poker rooms section?)

Does the quality of competition change from moving from $3.5 SNGs to $7 ones? I typically play full table, regular speed and vanilla SNGs.

My situation is this: I’ve built up a $170 bankroll after winning my share of freerolls and microstakes MTT. I also grinded (?) a lot of $5.5 SNGs from other poker rooms. I’ve taken out all of my original deposits and some profits so I’m now dealing with house money. I started this about 13 years ago (?) but took a looooooong break after having kids. But now I’m back with money left over at PS and started placing ITM in many of the MTTs that I played.

I want to start playing STT SNGs again, mostly because I don’t want to have to set aside 6 hours to play in larger MTTs unless I have the time to do so. In my experience with micro stake SNGs in the past, there is all kinds of silliness that takes place in early rounds that is just bad poker (like all-in calls on marginal hands). And that also throws me off my game, when one player doubles up their chips on questionable moves, not based on skill.

Personally, I want to play against better (read: smarter) competition and grow as a player, but don’t want to play over my head. So for those of you who have played SNGs at PS, is there a noticeable difference in quality of competition between $1.5 SNGs vs $3.5 vs $7? I don’t have the bankroll to really consider the $15 ones right now.

Mind you, I know that one area of my game that really needs improving is playing HU. I played 10 SNGs prior to my hiatus (almost 5 years ago) and I placed ITM in half of them, but placed 2nd in all of them and couldn’t win HU. Frustrating as hell.

Anyway, comments and questions welcome. Thanks for reading!

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First of all, welcome to CC I can already tell that you will love this site

Second, yes, this is pretty much the right place to post about SnGs as they are pretty much a variation of a regular tournament.

As for the big question, the skill doesn't improve by much.
For a time, I played only turbo KO 3$ 9-max SNGs and when I got bored, cause I placed regularly ITM but it was a slow progress, I started playing 5$ ones and afterwards 10$ ones. I was surprised to see many same players playing all of those SNGs, so the skill level doesn't improve much. It's more like the field is thinner as your buy in is higher so 7/9 players will be good, as oppose to 3$ buy in where 4/9 players will be good.

So the skill of the players doesn't really increase, only the number of good players at the table does.

As for HU play, I am not a big fan of straight out playing HU SNGs at any poker room cause you never know what is the skill of your opponent. You might be playing for months thinking you are very good, only to end up in some HU in an MTT or other SNG and get destroyed easily.
So I suggest playing some 6max SnGs. They usually pay two spots, so it will help you improve your gameplay overall playing those instead of just HU games.

nameless1537 said:

So for those of you who have played SNGs at PS, is there a noticeable difference in quality of competition between $1.5 SNGs vs $3.5 vs $7?

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I will say, that there is a noticeable difference between $1,5 and $3,5, but not so much between $3,5 and $7. I will also say, that those with bounties (1$, 3$, 5$) tend to be softer than those without. However there is also something else to consider, which is rather important, and that is the tournament fee or rake. For $1,5 it stand at a very high 15%, which then drop to 11% at $3,5 and 9% at $7, after which it does not drop much further. So from that perspective $7 is kind of the sweet spot. However:

nameless1537 said:

I don’t have the bankroll to really consider the $15 ones right now.

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And to be honest with you, you are not even properly bankrolled for 3,5$. The conventional wisdom will say, that you need to have around 70 buyins for single table SnGs, which would be 245$, and even that is fairly aggressive. So from that perspective you should play no higher than 1,5$ at the moment.

However due to the rake structure, I would avoid the single table 1,5$ SnGs and go for the 1$ 45 man instead. In this you only pay 9% tournament fee, so its a much better deal, and you have MTT experience already. Sure it takes a bit more time to complete, but its still rarely more than 2 hours, so its not THAT different from a single table SnG.

With your bankroll the 1$ 45 man would be my main "bread and butter" SnG, and then I would mix in some 1,5$ 90 man bounty, when I had better time (these can take up to 4 hours due to slower blinds) and some 3$ 9-man bounty and 3,5$ 6-man or 9-man, when I was short of time or wanted to play a bit higher. You would then be using, what is sometimes referred to as an average buyin bankroll strategy, which is also completely valid and legit. Best of luck at the tables

Thanks for your replies guys. The main reason I want to move up is that I want a better quality of competition and avoid the guys that like to shove all-in in the opening levels. I know they are around in any level, but hoping there would be fewer of them at the $3.5 tables.

I’ve been doing the $.5 and $1 MTTs and SNG tourneys and have been somewhat successful so far but i really don’t want to have to dedicate more than 3 hours in a given night to a tournament right now - I usually start past 9pm and want to be sleeping well before midnight on most nights. I’m a casual player where I can probably only get in at most 6-7 games in a week and I used to have pretty good success at the $5.5 tables at pokerroom from way back in the day. So I would be fairly comfortable at the $3.5 tables (at 50 buy-Ins) right now... plus I’m fairly disciplined so I’ve always stopped myself before I ever go on tilt (and facing a lot of the all-in pushers would frustrate me to no ends). I’ll be doing plenty of freerolls and low buy-in MTTs on the days I have more time to play. So I guess the average buy-in bankroll strategy would totally work for me. [emoji4]

Curious though. On my return, I’ve noticed that antes start right off the bat at PS - they didn’t do that anywhere when I stopped playing many years ago. Is that the case at other sites too? And how has that affected your play? For me, it hasn’t changed, as I pay most attention to my M/CSI as to what guides my play.

You bring up the bounty games... I’m also noticing a lot of different variants to SNGs. What have you noticed about changes to how people play in the different variants? Part of the reason I don’t want to play bounty is because I anticipate more long ball strategies and do not want the game to comprise mostly of all-in or fold decisions. Plus getting occasionally screwed by crap calls and lucky cards would probably drive me nuts...

Anyway, would love to read more feedback. Thanks so far!

Most sites have introduced antes from level 1 in the majority of their tournaments. Its a way to force people to loosen up their game a little bit and not sit around and wait for aces or kings for the first few blind levels. I think, the 10c 360 man turbo SnG on Stars is still ante free in the first level, and I assume, this is because, at such a level there is still more than enough crazy action early on already.

I think, in bounties you see more crazy action early on, as some (bad) players at all cost try to dubble up. So they open shove their 77 UTG for all 75 blinds, and get called by someone with KJ, after which there is one less idiot at the table. So if you hate this, then maybe stick to the regular ones. Most people playing the 3,5$ SnGs on Stars are at least somewhat reasonable players.

Good to know about the blinds. Yes, I do hate playing with idiots but the combination of stupidity and a big stack makes their presence more annoying. I think I just want to play games with largely reasonable players without having to risk a boatload of money to do so. And I’m not sure I want to look at cash tables either. I’ll prob stick to the $3.5 STT SNGs when time permits.

Thanks for the tips.

If I don't get regularly screwed by bad calls and lucky outs online, then I consider myself having a great day! It is discouraging, but I'm surprised it drives you nuts.
That, but itself is why I stick to very low stakes. I used to do ok, and dodge most of the nutbars, but the last year or so's been really bad.
I find as soon as you go over the 1$ level in SNGs it gets a little better, and it doesn't seem to change much after that. Although, I only play 1-5 and an rare 10-20.
Bad beats happen at every level though, and they hurt (piss me off lol) more at the bigger ones.
I'm going to pay more attention to rake too, thanks to fundiver199
Good luck, thanks for the thread, and welcome back

It looks like you are not rolled for $3.50s, why not just grind until you have a 100 buyins then move up, lather- rinse- repeat.

DizzyDeb717 said:

If I don't get regularly screwed by bad calls and lucky outs online, then I consider myself having a great day! It is discouraging, but I'm surprised it drives you nuts.
That, but itself is why I stick to very low stakes. I used to do ok, and dodge most of the nutbars, but the last year or so's been really bad.
I find as soon as you go over the 1$ level in SNGs it gets a little better, and it doesn't seem to change much after that. Although, I only play 1-5 and an rare 10-20.
Bad beats happen at every level though, and they hurt (piss me off lol) more at the bigger ones.
I'm going to pay more attention to rake too, thanks to fundiver199
Good luck, thanks for the thread, and welcome back

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Thanks for the response. I think the bad beats from idiot players puts me in a direction where I play more stupid aggressive, and it just snowballs from there. I hope I'm in a better place where I can roll with the bad beats a bit better... I guess we'll see.

Fundiver199's point about the rake was something I noticed too in the lowest stakes STT SNGs... and that's another reason I want to steer clear of the $1.5 tables. It is not good on the ROI to pay that much more in rake.

TeUnit said:

It looks like you are not rolled for $3.50s, why not just grind until you have a 100 buyins then move up, lather- rinse- repeat.

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I guess I could do that... but as I stated above, $1.5 SnGs are too expensive to play in terms of rake, and I want to avoid coinflip all-in scenarios in the opening rounds, and then being stuck at a table with an idiot player with a big lead in the chips off the bat. I could do what fundiver199 suggested and make the $1 45-man SnGs my go to... but I have to set aside too much time for that. I think I will try to get into some freerolls along the way, just for fun though and see if I can build a bankroll that way.

Just a side question though... how come the bankroll requirements for SnGs keep going up? At some point in the past, I read that 40-50 buy-ins was the norm (and I think I even read 20 buy-ins as being a distinct possibility) and 75 was already very conservative. But now I'm being told to move up after 100 buy-ins? Any reason for that?

I dont think the bankroll requirements for sngs has gone up. Your variance is a function of your ability. The best way to look at ability is by looking at your roi over a significant sample. I think it would be pretty easy to play 100 games or so and see where you are at.(100 games is too small of a sample to be your long term roi, but it should give you a general idea) And if you want to see what a good roi is just check the sharkscope leaderboard for the game you are playing. Sharkscope also shows their estimate of your required bankroll if you look under stats.

Because realistic winrates / ROI have gotten lower. The lower your winrate / ROI, the bigger a downswing can be, and the longer it can last.

fundiver199 said:

Because realistic winrates / ROI have gotten lower. The lower your winrate / ROI, the bigger a downswing can be, and the longer it can last.

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Makes sense, so the avg required bankroll has probably gone up.

fundiver199 said:

Because realistic winrates / ROI have gotten lower. The lower your winrate / ROI, the bigger a downswing can be, and the longer it can last.

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When I read this, it tells me that there is a wider gap between the good players and the crap players in comparison to when I last played regularly (which was over 10 years ago). Back then, suggested bankroll requirements were around 40x buyin, but now, I’m reading 75x-100x (based on what you guys are saying in this thread). I guess they are playing to the lower range with the requirements.

I’ll probably end up dipping my toes into the $1.5 SNGs to familiarize myself with the blind structure (I have yet to play a STT that has a rake) and once comfortable, try to settle in the $3.5 tables (and get involved in my fare share of freerolls and micro MTTs). I’m really not a fan of the rake at the $1.5 tables, as that will cut significantly into the potential ROI. Again, back when I stopped, all SNG’s rakes were set at 10% no matter what the level.

Gosh, I feel downright ancient, the more I write. [emoji67]*🦳

hello, bank management is very important, I read that at least must have 40 buy ins for each level.

nameless1537 said:

I’m really not a fan of the rake at the $1.5 tables, as that will cut significantly into the potential ROI. Again, back when I stopped, all SNG’s rakes were set at 10% no matter what the level.

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Unfortunately poker sites and especially Stars have tried to compensate for declining volume by increasing their margins. Loyalty programs on Stars have been reduced to nearly nothing, and time scheduled MTTs have seen a 20% increase in their fees. A 5,5$ used to be 5$ for the price pool and 50c fee, but now its 4,9$ for the price pool and 60c fee. And so on and so forth.

I just don’t get you guys. Why didn’t anyone tell the TS that in SnG heads-up is the most important stage? Instead you are discussing rake...
Drop whatever you are doing, focus on playing HU asap. Play 25 cents Spins if you have to, just to make sure that you can do great against one opponent.
Also try not to play regular 9 max SnG and 6 max KO at the same time. There is different math behind every format. Pick one and master it.

Unless you are here just to enjoy the game and money isn’t the only goal
Good luck!

I’ve finally gotten around to playing STT SNGs and the antes have changed the game a bit and I have to make some adjustments. I used to be able to play tight aggressive in the beginning and then loosen up as people drop out... and generally do well, but there just isn’t enough time to wait for good cards. I have also forgotten a bunch of things I used to do to keep myself afloat in the beginning. I think I’ll need to spend a bit more time playing $1.5 tables until more of the strategies come back to me. Until then, I am struggling. I’m still feeling all kinds of rusty.

@crimsonshroud88... i hear you. I just want to consistently make it to being ITM before I want to spend time practicing HU. I’ll try the 25c spins soon though.

Thanks guys!