Sit n go grinders

[leeroy818]

I've been playing micro stakes sit n gos for a few months now - $1.50 and $3 games. I've seen there are a few players who seem to have been playing these games forever.

Moreover, some of them are pretty big winners (relative to the stakes), with nicely upwards trending sharkscope graphs over tens of thousands of games.

My question is, why do you think there are so many winning players who aren't moving up beyond $3 games? When I say so many, I've probably come across about 10 strong winning regs with huge histories who literally never play anything above $3. One or two are just grinding out the $1.50 games exclusively and beating them. Seems strange to me! I've dipped into the $7 games on the odd occasion and there are a lot of the same players, so these regs could be winning way more than they are by beating the same players for more money!

 

[Psyanide14]

A couple of possible reasons. The idea is to play at the level where you have the best edge at the highest stakes so maybe these players have tried higher stakes but felt they didn’t have the same edge so they went back down. They would probably rather win consistently at a lower stake and have a higher ROI. Another possibility is they are using sound bankroll management and the higher stakes may be beyond what they are comfortable playing at. I know you said they have a great shark scope graph so the first possibility is probably more likely.

 

[finaltable1]

At this level game is much easier. Opponents are weaker.

 

[TeUnit]

I do not really see very many players playing sngs on the American facing sites. A lot of players do not move up from the micros because the volume is not there, their ROI is not as high when they are facing better regs, and they may have bankroll limitations.

 

[ToNy70929]

If you play in specific mini-tournaments, you will notice that there are certain tactics, nuances and pace of the game. Players get used to a certain rhythm of the game at the beginning and later stages of the tournament

 

[Luvepoker]

Many may just be happy at the level they play at. There are also people like me who just enjoy the game and dont care about the money as much.

 

[magister1]

Probably just playing for fun and found their comfort zone.

Back in the day on pokerstars I used to play a ton of the $3 45-man SNGs even though I was playing much higher cash games. Just a mode I really enjoyed.

I do wish there were more SNGs played today on the American facing sites. ACR and ignition both seem dead, not sure what else there is.. BetOnline maybe?

 

[fundiver199]

I agree, that it is kind of strange to be stuck at something as low as 1,5$ and 3$ SnGs even after playing 10.000´s of games. And realistically these players are probably not, what I would call really good regs. They will tend to lean more towards the "bad reg" side of the spectrum perhaps playing a bunch of tables at the same time and generally playing in a very robotic way. Some might actually even be real "bots", which manage to fly under the radar by playing so low. This will obviously depend on the site security though.

 

[ObbleeXY]

I've been playing micro stakes sit n gos for a few months now - $1.50 and $3 games. I've seen there are a few players who seem to have been playing these games forever.

Moreover, some of them are pretty big winners (relative to the stakes), with nicely upwards trending sharkscope graphs over tens of thousands of games.

My question is, why do you think there are so many winning players who aren't moving up beyond $3 games? When I say so many, I've probably come across about 10 strong winning regs with huge histories who literally never play anything above $3. One or two are just grinding out the $1.50 games exclusively and beating them. Seems strange to me! I've dipped into the $7 games on the odd occasion and there are a lot of the same players, so these regs could be winning way more than they are by beating the same players for more money!

For me, it was about bankroll.

I wasn't really looking to go up, so when my profits would go above a hundred or two, I'd take money out. As a result, I rarely had sufficient bankroll to play higher stakes games...with a couple exceptions -- a home game, which, until recently, had been very profitable, but otherwise was well beyond my BRM threshold.

I have no illusions of grandeur. I'm not dreaming about playing poker as a pro/full time. So the idea of steadily moving up until I reach the big leagues is not part of my poker plan.

The other thing is that the jump from one level to the next is not easy for most people. The variance can be much larger as you go up, or at least the impact of it on your bottom line is.

Whilst it is good to be ambitious and focussed, one has to be realistic. Why go get your butt kicked at $5/$10 if you're making some money and having fun playing $1/$2? Plus...all that intel....almost useless in the next level up.

Cheers,
ObbleeXY

 

[killing_random]

Probably they're playing in a simple, repetitive, exploitative way that applies to the majority of a local players-field. If they go higher, there's would be respectively more and more players that play stronger ranges in general and pay attention not only to their cards, which means less & less auto-proffit for grinders.

If you choose quantity over quality, micro stakes is better place to be.

 

[Phoenix Wright]

I've been playing micro stakes sit n gos for a few months now - $1.50 and $3 games. I've seen there are a few players who seem to have been playing these games forever.

Moreover, some of them are pretty big winners (relative to the stakes), with nicely upwards trending sharkscope graphs over tens of thousands of games.

My question is, why do you think there are so many winning players who aren't moving up beyond $3 games? When I say so many, I've probably come across about 10 strong winning regs with huge histories who literally never play anything above $3. One or two are just grinding out the $1.50 games exclusively and beating them. Seems strange to me! I've dipped into the $7 games on the odd occasion and there are a lot of the same players, so these regs could be winning way more than they are by beating the same players for more money!

There could be many reasons. Not the bankroll for it; no desire to move up in stakes since they play poker recreationally and for enjoyment anyway. Perhaps, they don't want to play more skilled players or feel it would lessen their profit. There are a myriad of reasons why someone may not choose to move up in stakes.

I'd guess the most likely reason is time. Some people don't want to devote that much time to the studying, learning, grinding (small stakes still mind you) and so on when they could be doing other non-poker things with their time too. Grinding in poker is naturally time-consuming and it can also be mentally stressful; some people simply don't think it is worth it for them in their lives, so they stay where they are comfortable playing (for better or worse).

A couple of possible reasons. The idea is to play at the level where you have the best edge at the highest stakes so maybe these players have tried higher stakes but felt they didn’t have the same edge so they went back down. They would probably rather win consistently at a lower stake and have a higher ROI. Another possibility is they are using sound bankroll management and the higher stakes may be beyond what they are comfortable playing at. I know you said they have a great shark scope graph so the first possibility is probably more likely.

+1 Many reasons are possible.

I do not really see very many players playing sngs on the American facing sites. A lot of players do not move up from the micros because the volume is not there, their ROI is not as high when they are facing better regs, and they may have bankroll limitations.

Yes, this is true; volume is under-realized sometimes. I hear it takes a ton of time and work and this can be too demanding for some and others could, but don't deem it worth it and rather keep having fun with the stakes they are at instead. It isn't always about the money, perhaps they just love playing the game.

Many may just be happy at the level they play at. There are also people like me who just enjoy the game and dont care about the money as much.

Yup; I just finished saying the same thing too. This is the same reason some players stick with only freerolls. Zero risk for them and they enjoy playing; as for myself, I might try the micros soon in addition to my freerolls

 

[fundiver199]

If you choose quantity over quality, micro stakes is better place to be.

Exactly. Maybe some of these guys are playing 10 or even 20 tables at the same time. You cant really monitor that these days on most sites. But until a few years ago, there was a "search player" function on PokerStars, where you could see all the tables, a particular player was on. And it was not uncommon to see someone playing like 17 tables at 2NL cash at the same time. And naturally this leans itself towards a pretty tight style, where maybe you are playing only 15% of hands at full ring and basically waiting for a big hand like a set or an overpair, so you can stack someone, who cant fold top pair.

These days you cant do this with cash games any more, since most poker sites have put a cap on the number of tables, a player is allowed to be one. But they have not put a similar cap on the number of tables for SnGs, and on sites like PokerStars there is surely still some serious multitabling going on in the SnG arena. These games are kind of ideal for it, since stacks tend to get short, and then most decisions can be kept rather simple.

 

[thethe]

I didn't care to make a million dollars