24 replies to this topic

[Big_Puke]

I have been playing $5.00 + .50 C SitnGo's at Poker Stars and I am finding that I am running into stiff competition! I consider myself a mid range poker player who real enjoys this format and want to continue. However I am only "ITM" 25% of the time and I want to have a better return on investment. My bank roll is 0nly $400 and I am concerned that playing at Stars is going to put a major dent in my bank roll.Any suggestions as to where I may play that may not be as tough?

[rhinoceraces]

Try Paradise Poker, it has a similar format to Stars but a lot more fish. Party Poker probably has more fish than any other site on the internet, but typically that means that you will take your far share of bad beats.

[unioncollege]

I would have to say that Party Poker, while it has its share of bad beats, is definitely an easier site to make money off of than some of the other sites out there.

[tekn0wledg]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you want to be a better player? If that is the case I would stick it out at PokerStars and get some experience while you are playing. This would most likely increase your finishing in the money %. If I did the math correctly you are winning on average $11 per every four S&Gs you enter, which would mean you are losing $9 for every four S&Gs. This would mean your $400 would last you quite a while. I'm willing to bet that within a month or two your play will have improved to the point where you are finishing ITM around 35-40% of the time and then you'll be profiting from your play as well as learning.I'd say stick it out on PS....

[Wilderness]

If you are just looking to keep your bankroll and make a little money consistently, I've found that its easy to make the money at Paradise Poker. I've tripled my bankroll there in the past month or so (that's not very impressive, I only put in 50 bucks to start with). But as the guy mentioned above me, you won't be improving your game that way and you do want to be careful to realize that the way to win there is not the way to win in regular games. The times where I get myself in trouble are actually when I out-think myself. Where I bluff at pots after a scare card comes, or represent the nuts from start to finish but get called down the whole way because some guy falls in love with his A-3 offsuit. So its easy to make money, but you won't improve your thinking or strategy much, if at all.

[pkarcher]

I play SnG's at Party Poker. At the $5 level the rake is terrible ($1), but that's what I play anyway since my bankroll is pretty small too. Even with the big rake I still profit about $1.5-2 for every game I play and I'm only a mid-level player like the original poster. There are definitely fish at Party poker, but once they bust you end up playing against 5 or 6 decent players the rest of the way so the experience is there too. I think its best to play against the worst players possible until you build your bankroll. Once you've mastered beating the pants off of the fish then you can move up and get experience playing higher limits against better players.

[blackwood]

you gotta be kidding me...ps sit and gos are cake....the reason why you struggle with the $5 ones is because those guys dont know how to play...they arent serious games...i normally play $25 turbos with decent success....i played a couple of $5 games and got booted 6th and 8th...by a runner runner flush and a 6 percenter on the river

[nicthestick]

try UB. There is a really good mix of fish and solid players even at the $5 +.50 SNG's.

[Boothy]

nicthestick said:

try UB.  There is a really good mix of fish and solid players even at the $5 +.50 SNG's.

Are the UB cash SNGs plagued with Post & Folders trying to get into the money like the playmoney games? That's the one thing that has stopped me putting any $ into UB.

[nicthestick]

nah... the play is pretty good. Hardly and of the Post/fold crap.

[muckrake]

I personally like Poker Stars the best. I enjoy playing with others who have a reasonable idea of how to play and I seem to find that at Poker Stars. I recently tried playing at Full Tilt and absolutley hated it. So I personally will be steering clear of that one for now. Not many people on there playing heads up first of all. Also when you do play the beats are so bad. Not just bad, but I cant tell you how many times I see a flop with so many possibilities and outs that it is ridiculous to make a serious play because anyone could be on a flush draw or straight draw. Not to mention that in just 2 days of playing there I cant tell you how many times the flop to river ended up being a straight or at least 4 suited cards.Not sure why this is and not making any claims about it being rigged or anything. I just feel like Poker Stars has a more realistic feel for how the cards fall. Based on what I have seen from live play over the last few years.

[Chip_and_a_Chair]

I would characterize myself as a sound player with a slight ability to read other players, but a nasty habit of falling into predictable betting patterns. Even with my numerous faults, I manage to play UltimateBet small-stakes sit-n-gos with enough success to pay for plane tickets back and forth from D.C. to Ithaca.If you're patient enough to not get all your money in too early with marginal hands, several players will have usually whittled their stacks to nothing before the blinds have had time to triple (invariably, you'll run into a couple players betting on aces with lousy kickers, and one gets bumped).I've also found, oddly enough, that I do far better at the $10 and $20 levels than at the $5 level. I think it's less because I adjust my play and more because my style is better suited to playing against players who know what they're doing. At the $5 level, I'll too often end up in pots where I'm certain nobody could have stayed in against my raise with a garbage hand to beat my aces, and I'll find that I've lost to a 3 7. At the higher levels, you can often use players' conservativism against them to eliminate drawing hands. Sometimes, I've found, if you bet small enough to avoid giving your opponent pot odds, you can actually tell from the time he takes that he's trying to calculate the odds, and ultimately you can induce him to fold. This almost never happens at the lower levels, where you'd have raise and then run up against a wall of 2 7s to win a hand before the flop.Anyway, I'd endorse UB or PartyPoker, though, as some have claimed, the bad beats seem to be plentiful. Whether it's just a figment of an overactive imagination, I don't know... but I will warn you that in the 142 instances in which I've gone all-in heads up against overcards with a pocket pair on both PartyPoker and UltimateBet, I have lost 106 times (I started keeping a chart), or 75 percent of the time. So much for a coinflip. I've also had pocket kings 48 times, and lost with them 28 times (including folds to large raises with an ace on board) -- a bit more than I would expect, even with a small sample. Another interesting point is that among those times I've been dealt pocket kings, in 7 of those instances I was up against pocket aces in the very same hand. Not a conspiracy theory; just some food for thought.All in all, though, if the name of the game is making money, I'd switch to UB or PP until I had an acceptable success rate, THEN go to PokerStars to face stiffer competition.

[muckrake]

Nice post Chip_and_a_chair ...I agree with much of what you said. I think that your point about playing higher stakes was the most valid point of all. If you play either single table or Heads up at the $5 or even $10 level you will get beaten by those who will stay on anything. So in order to play with those who have what appears to be a better understanding of the game, higher limit has been the way to go for me.although you can pull some money on heads up play at the $5 level with those with little knowledge of the game.Again why I like Poker stars is because there are many heads up games available at all times.

[jayboogie]

honestly, I don't know what is the deal with FullTilt, the amount of bad beats I had on there in a couple days has been rediculous. I haven't won a hand with AK on there for a while and I'm not exaggerrating, just last nite, I got it slayed by KQ, QJ in tournaments. The beats are even worst in ring games. It also annoys me how little ppl are playing, it's hard to find a game, so you can't even be choosy about where you play at. I signed up for the 100% bonus basically and it has backfired as I've dropped 170 in just 2 days.

[NYSPOKER]

I find it quite possible to make money in low limit SNGs simply by being a rock for the first three levels. Once the BB is approaching $100, most of the fish have succumbed. The only ones left are the lucky ones. You can use your poker prowess to eliminate them.While I agree the suckouts can be tough to swallow at the lower limits, I am more profitable (compared to amount at risk) at lower limits, as I make the money a larger percentage of the time. I use these to rebuild my confidence.Tighten up early and relax a bit as the blinds approach $100. Then show them how to really play. The remaining fish will occasionally catch there miracle river and bust you out. But, they are more likely to miss there hand and have called off a large portion of their ill-deserved stack to you.

[Chip_and_a_Chair]

NYSPOKER said:

I find it quite possible to make money in low limit SNGs simply by being a rock for the first three levels.  Once the BB is approaching $100, most of the fish have succumbed.  The only ones left are the lucky ones.  You can use your poker prowess to eliminate them.While I agree the suckouts can be tough to swallow at the lower limits, I am more profitable (compared to amount at risk) at lower limits, as I make the money a larger percentage of the time.   I use these to rebuild my confidence.Tighten up early and relax a bit as the blinds approach $100.  Then show them how to really play.   The remaining fish will occasionally catch there miracle river and bust you out.  But, they are more likely to miss there hand and have called off a large portion of their ill-deserved stack to you.

Your post is dead-on, provided you are good enough to survive with a stack 10x the big blind or less. I've found that by playing like a rock, I can usually win a couple small pots (good enough for second or third place when the blinds reach $100). However, if the blinds get that high and you haven't managed to increase your stack from the initial 800 or 1000, depending where you play, then you'll ultimately face a tough decision whether your next bet has to be all-in.I like to play primarily as a rock, but with allowances for position. If I'm in late position and the blinds are low enough, I'll try to limp in with my face-10 hands or suited connectors. I figure it's worthwhile to try to hit a monster flop for a small cost while the real fish are still in the game. Too often I've watched one semi-aggressive, semi-loose player quadruple his stack by knocking out all the wahoos, only to use the luxury of his stack to muscle me out. This is why I've been put in the position of going all-in with pairs against overcards so often, and, as I posted earlier, the results have been less than desirable.That said, I'm an admittedly flawed player, and somebody with a keen awareness of position and opponents' strength could easily wait until the blinds are high to make a move. The right balance is probably somewhere in the middle. Don't be butt-puckering tight, but don't commit yourself to any questionable pots when the field is eager to narrow itself for you.

[naugie]

If you can't beat the 5$ ones, you need to adjust to the bad players. They will stay in on lots of hands. This is when you don't even play any hands unless they are awesome. Then by the time the bad players are weeded out, you have a tight image and can bully.

[SexyStudThang]

I'll go ahead and lay out exactly what I've noticed and concluded about certain sites and the structure of their Sit n Go tournaments...Party poker has a very poor structure of you're looking to involed in pots where your playskill is going to matter a lot more than the cards do, you start iwth 800 chips (1000 chips in the $50 and up) and blinds go up every 9 hands, which is too fast and too few chips, as if you reraise someone you're committing your entire stack, and even just raising someone in the later levels will leave you pot committed. That being said there are a lot of horrible players that play in these, and if you just play correctly and dont make too many moves you'll make money in the long run, only problem being you'll need a sleightly bigger bankroll to handle the fluctuations. The Step SnG's are pretty interesting though, so you might try thoseFor the player with the lighter bankroll there's PokerStars. The structure here is much better with almost twice as many chips as Party Poker (1500) with blinds increasing in timed increments, having two 100-200 levels one with antes. This gives you a lot more time to improve your chip position before getting into the heavy attrition levels. The better player will win more consistenly in these sit n gos, and a much smaller bankroll can be used to play than can be used on party, but you'll also run into a lot of stiff competition. If you've been playing for a while and showing a positive result I reccomend playing here. Ultimate bet is the happy medium. The blinds are timed, and you start with 1000 chips which I think would be the best structure of all of the sit n gos except for one major problem: the bet pot button. This might not seem to matter, because most good players know when it's right to bet about the size of the pot so this button just saves them some time, but the problem is a lot of times in a sit n go envrionment you can take advantage of a player that doesnt know how to bet to win pots and get your money in with good odds. The bet pot button takes that element away. It allows horrid players to play well simply because they're being told the correct bet. If not for this I'd say that most players should play on UB, but because if this button I dont really reccomend it. As for Paradise Poker I played on there last year, and found that the sit n gos were actually structured worse that on party. The blinds routinely reach 500-1000 in heads up play and you only start with 1000 chips. Other than that the structure is the same as party, but with less fish running around to pick off. Royal Vegas is a horrible site, and their sit n gos are just as bad, with theblinds that DOUBLE every 9 hands and have no cap they quickly approach the size of your stack (Even heads uP) and you'd rather beating your head against a wal. Keep in mind Empire, Eurobet, etc are all the same site with different names and different multitable tournaments, but at their core they're all Party poker so all have the same structure for SnG's. I can't speak for sites such as Full Tilt or Zero Rake, or any other site that I didnt mention as I havent played on these sites, but I hope this helps anyone in their quest for sit n go glory.

[Metaphysician]

Party Poker's Sit and Go's are structured very poorly for playing a clever game, as per the above post. But they're ok for making money, in my opinion. The key to beating PP sit and go's is to keep in mind the points SexyStudThang mentions. If you get involved in a hand, you'll very likely be committed. Thus, you want only to get heavily involved in maybe 3 or 4 hands before it's down to 4 players. The biggest mistake I see is overplaying hands early. There simply is no reason to put all your chips in with AK or AQ or a pair of nines before the flop with more than 5 players left, unless you've got a small stack. At party sit and go's a small stack is 5 times the big blind or less. Rarely will you have 10 times the big blind after round 4 or 5 unless you got really lucky and doubled up fairly early.Once you get down to 4 players, bully the medium stacks, since they have enough that they'll usually want to sneak into the money. Avoid the big and small stacks. Since the small stacks will probably try to double up with any ace or king or any pair and the big stacks can afford to play back at you.In order to place 1st you typically have to be extremely lucky throughout the tournament. But you can come in 2nd or 3rd just by picking good spots. You should be able to place ITM 60-70% of the time.Playing tournaments this way is really very boring though, so if you're looking for a fun game, try another site.

[Hardrocker]

I have made a reasonable amount of money at the Party SNG's, but I must admit that I do not like starting with 800 chips, or the fact that the blinds increase every 10 hands.Once the blinds hit 150/300 and up, the blinds seem to increase every 2 minutes, and you need to raise pre-flop with less than premium hands.I recently started playing at Full Tilt, and really like having 1500 chips to work with, and blinds that go up based on time. They also have a more gradual increase in the size of the blinds.I have only played 5 SNG's there so far, but have cashed in every one. It is much easier to be a rock early there, and show a few good hands to create the table image that you want, then later when the blinds are getting bigger, it is easier to steal a pot or two.I also play a bit at JetSet and don't mind the SNG's there (1500 chips, blinds based on time, slightly higher blinds than Full Tilt), but they take quite a while to fill up.