Are there pro STT players?

jacQues

On the way back from the team event this popped up.

Are there people out there who make their money with STTs online?
Or is it always cash and maybe a few STTs for variance?

If so, what levels are needed to play? $100 STTs? Do you multi-table or focus on one at a time?

jacQues

pokypoky

Why not? I think the cut the house takes is higher in stts than in cash although i could be wrong, makes it a bit more difficult to win consistently

Ollieboy

pokypoky wrote:

Why not? I think the cut the house takes is higher in stts than in cash although i could be wrong, makes it a bit more difficult to win consistently

This would be correct, you have to beat a 10% rake on STT before you can be profitable, so I doubt many pro's play it full-time and also due to the boredem. I remember HeckerJelly posting a tread about profit he made on STT's last year, playing something like 4 at a time for 6 months etc. This is an area you would need a rakeback deal for.

califano

jacQues wrote:

Are there people out there who make their money with STTs online?
Or is it always cash and maybe a few STTs for variance?

Heaps i reckon. I do believe HJ trialled $25 stt's only for a long spell. Then i came along to those tables and he moved off to cash games. Nuff said!.

Linford

jacQues wrote:

On the way back from the team event this popped up.

Are there people out there who make their money with STTs online?
Or is it always cash and maybe a few STTs for variance?

If so, what levels are needed to play? $100 STTs? Do you multi-table or focus on one at a time?

jacQues

It is very easy to make decent steady money playing just SnGs. It just depends on how much you need to earn. You won't get the same pay day you will from a big MTT win but at the same time I have found you don't have the big swings (more downward for me) that you get from playing cash games.

At reasonably low level SnGs ($20-$50) there are a huge amount of very loose players and more often than not half the field is gone by the 3rd or 4th level. I used to play about 12 SnGs a night, 2 or 3 at a time all 10 seater (or 9 seater on stars) I used to make the money a little over 50% of the time, evenly spread over 1st 2nd and 3rd. This made me on average $200 a night, not very much but spread over 18 months along with a few MTT wins it was good. I don't get to dedicate as much time now as I have a new baby.

I avoid the SnGs on Party poker as it was a bit of a crap shoot with only 800 starting chips. My favourite SnG tourneys are the 10 seater (20 level blinds) on Ladbrokes, Stars is pretty good too. I attempted to move up to the $100 SnGs but found at that level the standard was different and my way of playing did not work. I also avoid playing the 5 seater SnGs as really only firsts gets paid and when it gets to HU the blinds are usually too big in comparison to the chip stacks.

I used to play a lot of cash games but found it very hard to make it pay, one night I would win $400/$500 next night I would lose double that.

AllIn

I play mostly STTs and find they can be consistently beaten. Trialled it for Jan & Feb and was about 50% ITM. Haven't had time since.
I prefer the lesser variance then playing cash online.

Some great articles and threads for STT & SnGs on www.twoplustwo.com

Hadn't considered the Rakeback issue. Must look into that, thx Ollieboy.

Betfair Pro Buzzer supposedly specialises in STTs, look him up on sharkscope, profit at 100k. Has a few STT articles on Betfair I think.

Norwich Fan Rob

course its possible, buzzer (thomas bihl) is a prime example.
Ive been making a decent wage playing 6 handed stts primarily this year so far.
Others play heads up tourneys too which im working on at present.

Yes theres a 10% charge, but any sort of decent 30% RB deal and its effectively a 7% charge, and its not that hard to have a bigger than 7% edge on your average STT player.

I dont think u NEED to be a cash player to make it pay at all.

Norwich Fan Rob

what is this sharkscope?........can u post a link please

MrPillowTalk

http://www.sharkscope.com/

surprised you arent using this allready Rob, very useful tool

FullOf..IT

Ollieboy wrote:

I remember HeckerJelly posting a tread about profit he made on STT's last year, playing something like 4 at a time for 6 months etc.

can anyone direct me to this tread? I cant seem to find it...

opr

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

what is this sharkscope?........can u post a link please

Its a poker tournament results database site

http://www.sharkscope.com/

Opr

ditpoker

i'm planning on TRYING to keep myself fed and watered from online poker during the summer (i stress TRYING!!) and cant decide the best way, was considering the cash games on vegas baby as they are VERY soft but i dont like swings, so at the moment i was thinking of playing $20 STT's either on PPP or ladbrokes. i've played on PPP before but never on ladbrokes, and i like the set number of hands per level that someone mentioned to me... what would the required bankroll be to have a stab at $10 to $20 stt's.. bearing in mind i'm hoping to make a few quid, not buy a house with my winnings!

cardshark202

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

what is this sharkscope?........can u post a link please

sharkscope

and the other one i can think of:

thepokerdb

Norwich Fan Rob

lol lol lol i just checked me out and i got a sharks fin symbol on both my ids.
22% ROI on one Id (robbie30), and 27% on my main one (NCFC rob), beats buzzers 13% out of site..........

25% average ROI on just over 800 games at £90/120 level.

hehe thats cheered me up.

http://www.sharkscope.com/#

MrPillowTalk

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

lol lol lol i just checked me out and i got a sharks fin symbol
22% ROI, beats buzzers 13% out of site..........

hehe thats cheered me up.

Check out kp's results, quite impressive.

clint_silver

Im sure one of the lads on here said he was playing 40 x 109$ speed stts a day on party professionally. 4 tabling for 5-6 hours a days 5 days a week. thats 4k+ a day outlay, 500$ first prize so do the math. I think I averaged money 40% of the time playing any level STT (1-109) on there so I about broke even, and Im shíte. but it shows youd have to get in the money at least 60%+ to make money.
I found the 10 seat speed STTs last no more then 30-35 minutes so you can time how long youre going to be on for as well. It might suit some players that way.

Ollieboy

FullOf..IT wrote:

can anyone direct me to this tread? I cant seem to find it...

I think it might be on his old blog.

califano

Ladbrokes are crap for stt's Jeff. Your waiting all day for them to fill up. That said its been a while since i last checked but i dont think its an stt popular site.
Min $600 bankroll i'd recommend.

Norwich Fan Rob

betfair is far and away the best site for STTs.

fill almost instantly, huge choice of any buy in for £1 to £500.
plenty of fish
rakeback deals

its your only man.

Norwich Fan Rob

damn i used up my 5 free searches for the day !!!!
KP was next on my list of people to check out, whats his ROI Eoin.

This shark thing is so cool, im gonna have lots of fun with this.

Jees im gonna get no work done now.
According to that i make on average £30 per £120 6pac entered.

I could play 15 of them in a day, thats £450 (or €680)
Thats €4760 per week, €247k per year, tax free.

I really gotta give up cash games, omaha and MTTs.
(and the job)

I guess 800 odd tourneys is too small a sample size.

FullOf..IT

am i right in saying that there is no party on it?

MrPillowTalk

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

damn i used up my 5 free searches for the day !!!!
KP was next on my list of people to check out, whats his ROI Eoin.

This shark thing is so cool, im gonna have lots of fun with this.

Jees im gonna get no work done now.
According to that i make on average £30 per £120 6pac entered.

I could play 15 of them in a day, thats £450 (or €680)
Thats €4760 per week, €247k per year, tax free.

I really gotta give up cash games, omaha and MTTs.
(and the job)

I guess 800 odd tourneys is too small a sample size.

kp's roi is 22%, anything above 20% is very respectable so congrats on yours. whats impressive is his profit, nearly $50k sharkscope aint up that long so some nice results.

Ive only played 25stts and am at 20% Roi but like you say I reckon 1000 stts to get a fair representation.

A living can definately be made at six pacs there is a formula to adapting your game to them, however I reckon its important to know how to turn your stt game off as it would probably restrict you in other games.

The shark fin thing comes up if you cash in three in a row or something, you can get a fish symbol if youdont cash in a while as well

Hawk Eye

That sharkscope tool is way off, I remember some of the top tourney players on P5's talking about it, just stating that it was a complete misrepresentation of their actually earnings on stars.
Maybe its more accurate for cyrpto but I remember checking myself a few weeks ago for stars and the games played was nowhere near what it should be.

MrPillowTalk

Hawk Eye wrote:

That sharkscope tool is way off, I remember some of the top tourney players on P5's talking about it, just stating that it was a complete misrepresentation of their actually earnings on stars.
Maybe its more accurate for cyrpto but I remember checking myself a few weeks ago for stars and the games played was nowhere near what it should be.

I heard it is a couple of weeks behind on stars, but on crypto it is 100% accurate only takes a couple of hours for games played to be reflected.

Shortstack

The 5 seater extreme turbo's are very beatable on Prima. Blinds double every two hands. Most of the players have not got a clue how to play these and will fold getting enormous pot odds cos they think they can limp into the moolah.

Norwich Fan Rob

so whats the highest ROI youve seen for crypto for anyone with say 400+ games......would like to know whos ahead of my 27% on my main account.

Hawk Eye

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

so whats the highest ROI youve seen for crypto for anyone with say 400+ games......would like to know whos ahead of my 27% on my main account.

Wow, at the levels your playing £90/120, 27% ROI is very respectable especially considering your sample size. WP Rob.

MrPillowTalk

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

so whats the highest ROI youve seen for crypto for anyone with say 400+ games......would like to know whos ahead of my 27% on my main account.

Dont know most of the winning players bob between 18 and 28%, daithio or kp might be better help.

Just checked my results after a losing stt session the other day, down to 11% roi *sigh*

The C Kid

28% is the best I've seen over a decent sample so far, from guys playing the £66s+.

Norwich Fan Rob

Just bought this thing, bloody hell, this is the best most useful tool ive ever come accross.

Big thanks for the heads up on it guys.

This is gonna improve my notes no end. A complete history of all 6 pac opponents from now on.............lovely

You can even do head to head comparisons.

I particularly like this one.

NCFC Rob vs Buzzer - games played together 52
NCFC Rob higher payout 25
Buzzer higher payout 10
Draw 17

NCFC Rob ROI in these games 64%
Buzzer ROI in these games -22%

Been checking pretty much everyone i can think of, highest ive seen so far is grazza's 26% vs my 27%.

Kinghawko 28% over 966 games.
Ben Grundy (Bennyboi) 48% !!!!!!!!! but only after 32 games.


One or two of the players wont come up for some reason.

Sorry, like a kid with a new toy here.

bubbleking

im a lazy/poor student and im using $10 STT,s to build my bankroll. i dunno why i just think my game is suited to this kind of structure. iv finished in the money of 10 seater STT,s 85 % of the time over the last 100 or so..not bad i think its easy money. :cool:

jimbling

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

One or two of the players wont come up for some reason.

prob because you can email them and ask to be taken you off the list..... if i played poker enough/ well enough to have any stats id probably do the same :rolleyes:

kpnuts

Hi Rob. Check out Hokus Pokus Crocos!

bohsman

tournamentreporter is a fantastic toy for MTTs

AllIn

Rob,
My ROI is 28%, playing mostly £30+3 6STT
UserName TheHen.
Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form
TheHen 294 $17 $63 28% $3,180 - Crypto

Not sure how good the figures are, not a huge amount of games played??

One thing to be careful of is the Av.Profit & Av. Stake are exclusive of site fees. However the Total Profit is inclusive of fees.

Rob(anyone), what's the best way of getting a RakeBack deal with Betfair?
Playing on playing a lot more for the summer.

sprocket1

NashVegas
Even those of you who are familiar with ring game statistics might find yourselves at a loss when you consider how you would measure your success at sit and go tournaments. SNGs can be very profitable, but they also have some scary properties -- strategy differs vastly from ring games and from MTTs. This means that even if you're very successful at 2/4 limit holdem, you might not even be a winning player at a similar level of SNG. Hopefully, this article will help teach you the fundamentals of setting yourself up to be a winning SNG player. Strategy will be covered in the SNG forum that I'm moderating, so this article will focus more on other factors.

To be a good SNG player, it's important that you follow similar rules that you should follow when you play ring games. First, you need to begin playing at stakes that are within your bankroll and within your abilities. Second, you need reliable statistics to measure your success or lack thereof. Finally, you need to know some of the benchmarks to strive for so that you always have that extra bit of motivation to always play your A game, even when you don't feel like it.

SNGs are full of weak players, but if you are not accustomed to the format it is CRITICAL to start out playing at relatively small stakes. If you play 2/4 holdem, you might frequently play $50 pots, but that doesn't mean you're ready to play $50+5 SNGs, even if you have a huge bankroll. You need to start at the bottom -- $10+1 SNGs, and learn the basic strategy. However, if you are a solid SNG player, you are more concerned about your bankroll requirements. In my experience, I would recommend the following bankroll requirements as the minimum bankroll necessary to play at the following levels at Party Poker.



Level Minimum Bankroll
$5+1 $170
$10+1 $220
$20+2 $500
$30+3 $800
$50+5 $1100
$100+9 $2200



Notice that the $5 level SNGs have a requirement of almost 30 buyins, because of the high rake. $10 level SNGs have very very poor play, so 20 buyins (a relatively low number) should be sufficient. $20 and $30 level SNGs have better players, so you should expect lower win rates and higher variance, so a bigger bankroll is necessary.

An important factor at the $50 and higher levels is that, at Party Poker, you start with 1000 tournament chips instead of 800, which reduces the variance slightly. Remember, don't feel like you are obligated to move up when you hit one of these benchmarks -- they are what I would consider minimum requirements.

Once you determine what level to play at, you should start keeping track of your finishes. I would recommend keeping track of how many times you finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th-6th, and 7th-10th. At Party Poker, 1st through 3rd place win money, so your "in the money" statistic (ITM%) is the number of times you finish 3rd or better divided by the number of SNGs you've played. Obviously, for the average player, this would be 30%. However, the average player is a losing player -- the entry fee means that a BREAK EVEN player would need to have closer to a 33-35% ITM.

The most important SNG statistic is the ROI -- return on investment. To find this number, first find the net profit you've earned playing SNGs at a certain stakes. Divide this profit by the amount you've "invested" -- the total buyin (including fees) multiplied by the number of SNGs you've played. An ROI of 0% would indicate that you're breaking even.

Now you've got all these numbers to deal with -- how should you interpret them? First, I recommend playing 100 SNGs at a certain level before you consider your numbers to be reliable to any degree. After 100 SNGs, it's very likely that your numbers are reliable within 5% either way, but keep in mind that if you're learning alot and improving your play, then your SNG rates will lag behind your actual performance. Likewise, if you've developed a leak in your game, it might not show in your statistics for a while. But lets say you've been playing consistantly for 200 or so SNGs. How should you look at your numbers?


ROI -- to consider moving up to another level, you should at least have an ROI of 25% over 100 SNGs, or at least 20% over 300 SNGs. Even if you're just moving from $10 to $20 SNGs, you are going to encounter a higher quality of play. Moving up when your true ROI could be less than 20% risks becoming a break-even or even a losing player at the next level. An ROI of more than 35% is very good. At the $10+1 SNG level, which I am most acquainted with due to bankroll and time limitations, an ROI of 45% or even 50% is considered possible with superior play. If you're playing $200+15, then I would expect the highest possible rate to be much smaller.

ITM% -- This is a secondary statistic. If your ITM% is only 30%, you could be a losing player, but you could have an ROI as high as +25% or better if you almost always finish 1st when you're in the money. However, in my experience, most serious players with the same ITM% have very similar ROIs. An ITM of 35% would reflect an ROI of less than 10% most of the time, and an ITM of 50% would get you up to an ROI of about 45% in most cases. Players who take fewer risks early generally have higher ITMs, and players with higher ITMs generally have more stability in their SNG earnings and can survive on smaller bankrolls than riskier players.

4th place finishes -- I like to look at this statistic because, once you make the top four, you should be making it your unparalleled priority to be SURE you make the top three. The top 3 make money, but fourth is worse than finishing 10th because you've wasted alot of time and won no money. If your 4th place finish statistic is above 8% of your total SNGs played, you should be trying hard to improve your ITM (and your ROI) by turning some of those 4th place finishes into 3rd place finishes.

The bottom line is that a solid player playing small stakes SNGs should be aiming for a 35% ROI, a 45% or 50% ITM, and less than 8% 4th place finishes. If you're good enough to play higher stakes, then you should know what benchmarks are more appropriate for yourself.

Best of luck, and post any questions you have about this article in the SNG forum here at Bet The Pot. I'll be glad to answer.

Remember that the WORST mistake you can make is to play at a level where your bankroll is too small or you are not positive that you're a winning player. Having a 10% ROI at $10+1 SNGs is better than having a 0% ROI at $200+15 SNGs.

See you at the tables.

from www.bet-the-pot.com

bohsman

AllIn wrote:

Rob(anyone), what's the best way of getting a RakeBack deal with Betfair?
Playing on playing a lot more for the summer.

2 ways, a)email betfair and ask them or b) open a new account with a rb deal

Daithio

I suppose I'd consider myself a sort of stt pro, but I do find them very boring after a while. Crypto is definitely beatable, I used to do very well on the ten seaters there as Daithi, but then the 6packs started and the ten seaters kind of dried up. I like my stats on buy ins of more than $200, I have an ROI of 183% LOL, it's only over 6 games though. Otherwise I'm 30% over 745 games, but most of them were on the smaller buy ins before I moved up to the 50s and 100s. I've been playing the 6packs for about 3 months now on a different account, and I'm definitely finding it harder to have as steady a win rate. Over about 300 my ROI is around 15% I reckon, which isn't bad, but they are very very streaky. Often I'll win 4 in a row and then go 8 or 9 without cashing, it's not great for my overall mental wellbeing.

NickyOD

jacQues wrote:

On the way back from the team event this popped up.

Are there people out there who make their money with STTs online?
Or is it always cash and maybe a few STTs for variance?

If so, what levels are needed to play? $100 STTs? Do you multi-table or focus on one at a time?

jacQues

When I was living off poker my primary income was from $50 SnGs on Party Poker. I'd usually play 4 at a time and aim to play 180-200 a week. With a ROI of about 15% that's $1500 and is very doable. The real problem is stopping your brain from going numb. It gets very boring.

jacQues

Thank you all for the replies. Nice article sprocket1, very helpfull.

One thing I do not get is people saying that it kinda wrecks your head. How are ring games better? To me ring games wreck my head more since there is no beginning and no end. Tournaments have a real structure etc. Maybe this is something that happens with all poker games??

jacQues

Drakar

bohsman wrote:

2 ways, a)email betfair and ask them or b) open a new account with a rb deal

I thought most rakeback deals were offered (somewhat dodgilly) by pseudo affilliates. I haven't heard of sites offering rakeback directly to their customers, is this something betfair are doing? or is it just the comp points thing?

Norwich Fan Rob

betfair are now offering rb to all customers who email asking for it.
its a new thing.

AllIn

Emailed Befair today and asked nicely could I have a Rakeback deal.
Got back a reply saying, "please note that your current levels of
play means we cant offer you a a deal based on your usage.
If wish, you can go through Rakemeback.com and open a new account to
avail of this offer, however you will need to use another card as you
cannot register the same card on two separate accounts."

What a load of bull****:mad:. It makes no sense that it if I go through the hassle of registering a different card I can get a rake back deal regardless of what my level of play is.

So I've sent off a stinging email saying that i was going to close all my accounts if they don't sort it. I'll see what response I get.

jacQues

AllIn wrote:

Got back a reply saying, "please note that your current levels of play means we cant offer you a a deal based on your usage.
If wish, you can go through Rakemeback.com and open a new account to avail of this offer, however you will need to use another card as you cannot register the same card on two separate accounts."

Uhm...what!?!? That is madness! They actually tell you to open a second poker account?!?!

jacQues

Goodluck2me

is that not completely against their terms of usage to have multiple accounts open??

AllIn

Just a update on my communication with Betfair about the rakeback deals.
I asked them was opening a 2nd account not completely against there usage policy?

Firstly, they said "There is nothing wrong with opening another account providing youhave an alternative card to register to it. Our Poker software has security within in order to prevent collusion."

Then i quickly got a 2nd email saying "My colleague was not suggesting that you use to different accounts and even if you had two separate accounts you could not log into the accounts from the same computer and any attempt to then collude at the table is stopped by the IP address checking. If you have more than one active account we would ask which account you wish to continue with as the live account and then close the other account."

Then they told me "Betfair do not offer direct rakeback deals", which I know from this thread to be lies.:eek:

I've now received 7 different emails from 7 different helpdesk people mostly contradicting each other.

I just received another which really made me laugh "Having reviewed your account, unfortunately we are not able to offer you a rakeback deal as yet. You are currently raking an average of 706 hands per month on cash games and 690 in tournaments and this does not qualify you for the deal i'm afraid. This considerably low for the inclusion of a rake back deal."

The reason it made me laugh was that I dont play cash games, at all, ever!!! I play amost exclusively STT & a few MTT.
So they must have made this up off the top of there heads.:o

Daithio

Go to www.milkybarkids.blogspot.com and he'll sort you out with 35% RB through BF, but you'll have to set up a new account using a different card. Don't bother contacting BF customer service, they're useless.