SnG

We find this article very usefull, easy to understand and solid for the beginners among you!

Read it, learn it and start winning some serious cash with it!

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Team Pokerinfo

The benefits and disadvantages of sng’s

Every game has its benefits and his disadvantages. The variance by sng’s is pretty high. At cashgames you are able to sit with 100BB constantly and by sng’s that is not the case. Because of that you cannot exploit your edge a lot. The result of that is that the variance will get higher. Another disadvantage is that you will need an hour (at minimum) for a sng. Most of the time a STT takes about 50 min, calculate the time which it takes to start too that and you are over an hour. You can play a cashgame for 30 minutes if you want to. Another one is that you can’t grow that much with playing sng’s. The biggest online winners are all cashgamers. Ofcourse sng’s do have their benefits. If you master a solid standard then it is quite easy to beat. You can learn this very quick and in cashgames you won’t. In cashgames you will come across a lot more difficult spots and therefore it takes more time to learn it. Most of the time the players who are good at sng’s are also good in MTT’s and also the end game of it. Sng-players are used to play with stacks who aren’t deep and therefore they are experienced in it. If you can’t decide what to play then just make some decision. Choose for the thing that pulls at you the most.

Bankroll management

A frequently asked question is: “what kind of bankroll management do I need to maintain?” If you are playing cashgames then that’s an easy question. You only have to look at the limit. If you are playing sng’s then it is a different story. You need to keep the ITMER, buy-in, if it is a turbo or not all in mind. You can imagine that you need less buy ins for a deepstack 9-players sng then for a 180 players turbo sng. If you keep yourself to the below scheme you can are able to play pretty safe.

SoortStake# buy-in Turbo# buy-in Non-TurboSTT(6-9 players)0-5.5$6545 6-11$8060 12-27$11580 28$-39$140100 40$-60$180120 61$-119$225150 18-27 players0-5.5$7050 6-11$9065 12-27$12085 28-39$150110 40-60$190140 45 players0-5.5$7550 6-11$10075 12-27$140100 28-39$180130 40-60$250175 180 players0-5.5$10075 6-11$12585 12-27$175100 28-39$250120

Volume

It’s important to play with a lot of volume because the variance is high. If you beat $16 (9 players) sng’s with a ROI (return of investment) of 20% (which is good) then you still only win $3,6 for every sng you play.
Assume that one sng takes about an hour you still only earn $3,6 an hour and that is not an hourly salary which will make you rich. It is important to attempt to reach the maximum from your profit(highest possible hourly salary). Let’s take another example. If you have a 15% ROI at $3,25 while playing 10 tables at the same time that will earn you more money. You, yourself need to figure out what is the highest profitable point. You need to learn to play a lot of volume, it is a process that everyone has to go through. If you are only able to play 2 tables at the same time then that is also a sign of level. You still have to think a lot about situations and that takes time. If it takes time the result is that you aren’t able to play a lot of tables. As you grow in your skill a lot more “standard situations” will occur and that allows you to play more tables.
A commonly used method to play at more tables is to constantly add one table to your amount. For instance you keep yourself to it that you will add one table each week. At PokerStars you are able to choose between tiled and cascade. The benefit of tiled is that you will see a lot of showdowns and it gives you a good overview. The disadvantage of it is that you cannot play that much tables (12+). The benefit of cascade is that you are able to play a lot of tables. The disadvantage is that if you respond too late you will wind up siting out which can lead to a loss in stack and you are completely unaware of it. Also you don’t have a lot reads and it’s not the best option for a nice overviews.
There is also a difference between playing constantly or playing sets. The benefit of playing sets is that you are constantly in the same fase from your sng(early stage, midstage and endgame). The disadvantage is that you are playing a lot less sng’s then if you were playing constantly. The disadvantage from playing constantly is that you are different blind levels all the time. If this doesn’t bother to you then it’s recommended to play constantly. You will play more games an hour which means that your hourly salary is also higher.

The use of Hold’em Manager and PokerTracker in sng’s

HM(Hold’em Manager) or PT(PokerTracker) were actually designed for cashgames. During these days it is also used in a lot in sng’s. An important thing to keep in mind is your HUD(which is aimed at cashgames). You won’t have that much on the 4bet percentage in sng’s because it is rare.

Look at the VPIP and PFR percentages for a guess at the level of your opponent. A BIG disadvantage is that stats are able to deceive you. Your opponent will always play a lot more aggressively in a HU then at the beginning of a 9-max sng. 36/26 looks like a donk to you then maybe but 40 hands could possibly be played in a HU sng.

A common concept in sng-poker is the ICM (Independent Chip Model). With the ICM you are able to calculate how much your stack is worth in dollars.

Imagine that we are playing a sng with 10 players ($10+$1). You’ll get a 1000 stack for that.
The amount of money in the prize pool is $100. If everyone was as skilled as everyone the value of your stack would be $10(your sng equity). In reality that never happens because there will always be players who are better than others. Every move that occurs at the table will influence your sng-equity.

Example:

It’s your first hand and you have a $1000 begin stack (the blinds are 10/20). Everyone folds but the button(hero) opens to 3 times the BB with pocket fours. The SB folds and the BB moves all in. Assume that we know for 100% certain that he has AQo.
Pokerstove:

equity
Hand 0: 46.320% AQo
Hand 1: 53.680% 44

You would think with the percentages given above: snapcall!!! However nothing is what it seems. The amount of chips you’ll make when you double up doesn’t equal to the doubling of your sng-equity(from $10 to $20). You could say that the chips you’ll lose will influence your sng-equity more than if you would win them. The reason is simple. In a cashgame it doesn’t matter if you lose your stack at first or as second or as number 38. In sng’s it does. Whenever players get busted your sng-equity will rise, and it doesn’t matter if you bust him or someone else does.

Example: bubble fase

We are in a $10 sng (10 players). The prize pool is as followed: 50%, 30%, 20% and there are only 4 players left. The blinds are 200/400 with an ante of 50

Player A: 900 stack ( SB )
Player B: 1700 stack ( BB )
Player C: 4500
Player D 2900( button , hero)

We assume in this example that all the players are decent ones.

Example bubblefase:

10$ 10 man sng. price devision 50%,30%,20%. 4 man left. 200/400 ante: 50

Player A is in a hard spot. He is the shortstack and has only 2BB after the SB and he will be called with any two cards when he shoves. He will have to double up in the next orbit. If players C and D fold their hands he must shove with any two here.

Player B is also a shortstack with 4,25BB. He will have to call shoves from players C and D tightly because player A has only 2BB behind. However… if players C and D decide to fold then he will have to call the shove from player A with any two.

Player C is in a nice spot. He will get a lot of “any two spots” one of the reasons is because the blinds are pretty high. Players D and B will call tight even though they have less than 7BB. That is because player A is playing with a small stack. It’s the best for him when the bubble takes as long as possible and the blinds get higher. Lucky player D, he has position on player C. If player C doesn’t use his chiplead in a good way then player D can easily take control of this. If player C uses the bubble in a good way then player D will have a tight calling range against player C. Imagine that the positions of player C and D were the opposite… then player D would be in a hard spot.

Example 2

We are in a $10 sng (10 players). The prize pool is as followed: 50%, 30%, 20% and there are only 4 players left. The blinds are 200/400 with an ante of 50

Player A: 3800( button )
Player B: 3300( SB )( hero )
Player C: 2600( BB )
Player D: 2300

Notes: the shortstack is weaktight and wants to end up ITM badly. The others are playing solid.

What is your gameplan?
In a situation where 4 stacks are pretty close to each other one part of the ICM drops. In this situation almost everyone will stack you of lightly. Let’s try to use that in our advantage. You could even make some –ev pushings here. This has got to do with future EV. Once you have the chiplead it’ll get easier for you to walk over the table. This will make up for those couple of –ev pushings.

What kind of a rol plays ICM on what kind of SNG

For this you will have to look at the ITM/entrants ratio (ITMER). By a 6max sng for instance the ITMER is 2/6 or 1/3 ( 2 players will end up in the money). If we look at a 180 players sng the ITMER is equal to 18/80 or 1/10. If the ITMER is high then you will have to evade a lot of marginal spots(like calling an AI with AQ pre flop or 3betting against a nit). If the ITMER is low(by a 180 players sng) then you will have to take a lot more of marginal spots. So therefore you can conclude that at a 6-9 players sng: tight = right.

You can calculate the ICM precisely. We will talk about that in the next article. However it is way too much work to calculate that for every situation. Therefore you can work with online programs such as SNG-Wizard. One disadvantage of this application is that it doesn’t calculate the playing style of the players along.