5 replies to this topic

[UncleHoot]

History:
My brother opened an account a couple years ago, and he discovered that he was profitable at the $1.75 18 player turbo tournaments. For whatever reason, I had never done well in the 18p's. But I quickly discovered that the turbo's were actually a lot of fun. You start out at a full table, then end up short handed pretty quickly, then back to a full table, etc. If your short-handed game is good, you can often do pretty well on the way to the final table.

So, anyway, I cashed-out most of my money (all but $80), and started multi-table grinding these. I discovered that I was profitable, but geez, the fee is huge on these (16.7%), so once I got my roll up high enough, I moved up to the $3.40's (13.3% fee) then the $6.50's (8.3%). Yeah! 8.3%, now we're talking. So I stayed there for awhile, but eventually got bored with poker (again).

For the past couple weeks, I've been playing quite a bit again, and doing well, and now I've moved up to a mix of the $6.50's and $16's (6.7% rake). Ohh yeah! Ok, so I made a couple hundred bucks, and using my bankroll management rules, I was now allowed to play up to the $27 level. Then it hit me.

The $27 level is 8% fee. The next level, $38, is 8.5% fee. Huh? What's my incentive to ever move above $16? That's not normally how it works.

It seems like the $35 + 3 should be $35 + 2. Perhaps folks that are bad at math play those levels, so therefore I should use that to my advantage? LOL


EDIT: When I said "rake", I guess I really meant "tournament fee", so I fixed it where I could.

[outsider13]

I've taken a look at that before. Yeah, it def adds up and makes a difference long term. The $16s are by far the best to play long term. You will even see a lot of guys grind those full time (like glitlr) because those 2 or 3% makes a huge difference over 20-25k games. They are by far the busiest level of all stts. Some levels just don't make sense to grind......especially the micros. The $3.40s are stupid.

[UncleHoot]

I've taken a look at that before. Yeah, it def adds up and makes a difference long term. The $16s are by far the best to play long term. You will even see a lot of guys grind those full time (like glitlr) because those 2 or 3% makes a huge difference over 20-25k games. They are by far the busiest level of all stts. Some levels just don't make sense to grind......especially the micros. The $3.40s are stupid.

I've done a couple of personal challenges where I cash-out most of my money, then start grinding my way back up from the bottom. It keeps poker fun for me, plus sometimes that $500 (or whatever) in my account starts to look like real money. It's certainly possible to make money in the $1.75's and $3.40's, but my results (as a percentage ROI) are better in the $6.50's, most likely due entirely to the rake difference. The $16 18p's are very new to me, so it remains to be seen how profitable I can be at these stakes until I've got a few hundred games at that level. But so far, so good! :-)

[lurbz]

ya the difference in 45s is LOL

$6.50s: 8.3%
$12s: 9.1%
$27s: 8.0%
$38s: 8.6%
$60s: 9.1%

just like wtf

[FARGOpokerND]

To make it a nice even number for everyone all around they'd have to do 10%, would you guys rather have that?

Its just not good to advertise some SNG with random values...so they just stick to this.

[UncleHoot]

To make it a nice even number for everyone all around they'd have to do 10%, would you guys rather have that?

Its just not good to advertise some SNG with random values...so they just stick to this.

It's not that I hate it. The fees in the $15+1's are extremely cheap (compared to anything else, anywhere), though, and then it's a disincentive to ever move beyond that, and worse yet, the fees get worse the higher you go.

$25 + 1.50
$35 + 2
etc.

That would be nice, imho. But whatever. It's their business, so they probably know how to run it best. And yeah, I don't want them to up the fees in the $16's and $6.50's.

I used to play on Party (in the old days), where everything was measured in dollars. $5 tournaments had $1 fees. $10 tournaments had $1 fees. $1 tournaments had no fees, but the smallest SnG's were $5. That was really screwed up, but I was dumb and used to play the $5's anyway. LOL