Blog: Let's play one or two, or 200k sngs

[monkeyheaven]

SNG promo day 143/28 (think that's about right). 
Including the non-promo days at the beginning of the month, think I've played close to 100 hours this month, definitely tough going, fitting alongside a full time job, albeit I've been taking a bit of time off to grind. 
Plan to share a full review at the end of the month, assuming I don't get crushed.  

Just noticed Unibet have updated their plans and will remove 50+ 5max sng at the end of the month.  Think I'd have given it till the end of the year but they have all the data to inform this decision; one of my pet hates is sites leaving dead formats or buyin levels cluttering up the site (hello Stars), so overall I think, sadly, it's the right decision.  recs don't play them so  if sites don't prop pros to play them, they won't run. My guess is the promo has done nothing to attract recs to these games, but hopefully it's provided some momentum for the 25s to run more frequently

[monkeyheaven]

SNG Rake-free promo Review Part 1

Will only be playing a max of 8 more sessions on this months promo, dont think its giving away much at this point to share my overall approach to the promo, plus whats right for me may not be for others.  I came to these conclusions at end of day 1, fair to say I havent stuck to them rigidily and all has not gone as predicted.

Rake free games

During day 1 I established who was playing which buyin level.  I am confident I have a huge edge over at least one of the high volume regs (who I shall not be naming) and I expected at least one or two players to be in certain games who were better than me.  Based on this and my historic ROI, I estimated my ROI to be:

25s: Historically I got just over 5% ROI on a large sample, based on the observed standard in these games during day 1 of promo, I thought my edge would be same or higher than historic results and combined with the additional 5% from rake-free, estimated my ROI at 10-15% or €2.5 - €3.25 per game.

50/100s: Historically got 10% ROI over an ok sample (50/100s used to be considerably softer than 25s), based on day 1 findings, didnt think I would have much edge, maybe I'd have 3 - 4% ROI, so perhaps make €1.5 per 50 and €3 per 100.

50s were not worth playing (assuming a 25 was available) and 100s wouldnt run as much as 25s and I had a lower estimated ROI% in them, so would introduce a lot more variance.  Conclusion, only play 25s.

The Leaderboard

I could max out at 16 tabling everything from 25s-100s and probably finish 2nd on the leaderboard each week and still be +EV in the games (cant play full-time so 1st was out of sight).  Or. I could play my optimal 12 tables and optimal €25 buyin only and come 3rd/4th each week.  Easy decision, the value of the leaderboard element of the promo comes a distant second to the value of focussing on the highest value rake-free games.  

The Grind

Clearly week one was going to be the best week by far in terms of liquidity and game quality.  A lot of the recreational player money would dry up early in week 1, some decent regs would get crushed by variance and decide to quit altogether, and some weaker regs would step up from 4s/10s then realise they were not competitive in games and drop back.  This looks like its holding true; week one the top ten players averaged 900 points on the leaderboard, week two they averaged 700ish points, and this week it looks like it will drop again to about 550 points.  

So, I took some afternoons off work in week 1 and put in total of 40 hours play, since then just been playing evenings when there is better liquidity and game quality.

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Next time, when promos done I'll update on results, fingers crossed I run good.

 

[Dennis__]

I am really surprised at your high estimate of your 25s ROI. I played the same table count and estimated 1%, 2% at the very most. After all the games are/were super reg heavy. Are you that confident you have a considerable edge over the other regs?

[monkeyheaven]

@Dennis__theres a wide variety of regs. There's one or two that I make many ridiculous adjustments for, I'd rather they were at the table than a -30% roi rec.  Rest of the regs I just try to play as close as I can to optimal, some of them will make mistakes and I'll profit, and a couple are very good and I have no edge (prob they have an edge on me).. I see a lot of mistakes being made..I make a lot of mistakes too, 10% roi in games of this standard and a rake free turbo structure with added leaderboard money is very achievable for players that understand the format well. I've not requested my results yet so I don't know what I'm achieving at 25s, and it's only going to be a sample of a few thousand games so of course I might be running bad/good. 

[Dennis__]

@monkeyheaven 

well, I still have to disagree. Maybe it is because I literally had a bad year at everything higher than 10s, maybe because I am not good enough, but I simply don´t see how even bad regs can be exploited for such a winrate, especially when 12 tabling.

[Groggy]

Interesting post. I'm curious as to why you expected your win rate to be better than your historic ROI when the games were much more reggy than usual? Was rake on the 25's 5% before the promo? 10-15% ROI in the games that ran seems difficult, although maybe not impossible. I would be very curious to see how you fared at the end of the month compared to this guess if you are willing to share. I would also be interested to know what aliases you commonly used in the pools if you are willing to reveal that. I wonder if the high volume reg you felt you have a huge edge on is the same one who I felt I have a large edge on. It would be hilarious if we were both thinking of each other ;) But I think I know who you mean.

 

In terms of liquidity the games were certainly best in week one. In terms of game quality I would have thought the weeks would get progressively easier. A lot of regs generally get excited for promos like this, over-extend, burn out then drop the volume, meaning their slot is more likely to be filled with a recreational, who don't really care about playing in rake free games so will roughly play the same amount every week (unless the increased difficulty of the games put them off). I think saying you'd rather have these bad regs in the line ups than a -30% roi rec might be slightly stretching it, but it is certainly nice to have players in the pool that you have exploits on.

 

 

[monkeyheaven]

If anything I was being conservative in the value an exploitable reg adds, but I'll review this a bit more at the end of the month. 

Anyone know best route for requesting results from unibet, I see the poker results request thread is perhaps not being monitored at the moment?

[P0kerM0nk]

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@monkeyheaven wrote:

Anyone know best route for requesting results from unibet, I see the poker results request thread is perhaps not being monitored at the moment?

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@monkeyheaven 

Try 2 + 2 forum as seems to be more effective, or keep tagging some admins in the request thread on here till they get the message lol.

[Dennis__]

@monkeyheaven as the games seemed quite a bit softer today than in week 1 I would change my mind and say 10% is achievable, it wouldn´t be easy however and I see myself at at 3-4% probably.

[monkeyheaven]

Promo Results and Review

I’ve pretty much finished with the promo, games aren’t great this week and I’m kinda burned out as I’ve played about 120 hours poker alongside full time job.  Have got results from unibet, not quite the detail I wanted but still interesting I hope. 

So, headlines, most generous sng promo I’ve ever played went about how I expected.

Results for the entire month, including all leaderboard money, non promo days at beginning of month.  I 12-tabled and mostly played the 25s aside from a few days in week two where I played 50s and ran bad/was overmatched.

games played 2712

total buyins €68587

avg buyin €25.3

profit €6862.37

avg ROI €2.53

avg ROI 10.1%

hourly rate €58.1€

im happy with how things went, hard to judge but felt like overall I ran at about ev.  Promo saved me about €3k in fees and added another €730 in leaderboard prizes. Some talk of sng’s are dead, so how would my results look taking away the promo benefits:

profit €3510 (assuming 5% rake, and 25% rb)

avg ROI 5.1%

hourly rate €29.7

So, I think that’s still pretty decent, of course the liquidity has been key to profits this month, many mediocre regs have moved up from 4s/10s and been profitable only because of the value in the promo, these guys will drop back next month and liquidity will fall off.

week 1

Played a grand total of one 50, determined that the player I wanted in the 50s wasn’t there, and played rest of week at 25s.  Took three afternoons off work, played about 40 hours total, felt like I ran not great aside from a 4 hour period on Friday night where I had a €1600 upswing, which was fun.  Came 4th in leaderboard for €350 after unibets double payment, and won another €2600 at tables.  Games were soft, one reg is a big spot for me, he was at most tables, I’ve said this is worth more than a -30% whale and this was an understatement.  I think regs in the games will know who I’m referring to, I went after him in almost every hand he vpip’d, he definitely caught on somewhat by week 3, sizing tells and being hugely unbalanced when checking can be exploited with ATC for a lot of $$

week 2

Realised an exploitable reg was 50s, so played a few hundred 50s and filled with 25s in first half of week.  Didn’t go well, think I lost money at the 50s, was very swingy and exhausting as there was typically at least two players at each table as good or better than me.   Prob ran bad, but would have been better sticking at 25s I suspect.  Came third in leaderboard for €250 and made about €100 at tables.

week 3

Didnt play much, liquidity wasn’t great but games were softest of the month and I ran super hot.  4th on leaderboard for €175 and another €2775 at tables, 500 games for an ROI of 23.5%

week 4

Havent really played, game quality and liquidity has been poor.  Lost €200 at tables and will prob just lock up a top 20 finish for €30 leaderboard.

 

[Dennis__]

nice performance, although I am pretty sure you ran above EV with those results.

I am eager to know who the sh1treg you keep referring to is. Maybe you can pm me?!

[CuteRaven]

Great results, well done!

[P0kerM0nk]

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@monkeyheaven  very impressive results, good to see that lots of work has handed you a nice return :atisfied:

@Dennis__ wrote:

I am eager to know who the sh1treg you keep referring to is. Maybe you can pm me?!

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@Dennis__  you trying to find out if it's you? 🤣

[Dennis__]

@P0kerM0nk I don´t fit the description, as I didn´t play at all during week 2 and hardly during week 3. But I detected no such player myself so I am eager to know who it supposedly is

[P0kerM0nk]

@Dennis__  was just pulling your leg 😏

[CuteRaven]

@Dennis__ There was one reg that was quite exploitable during the first 2 weeks that I played. There were worse players in the pool, but this player was easy to identify. They were easy to run over with flop checkraises, or with OOP floats and then river bets when they checked turn (or lines like this). They overly cbet flops and overly gave up turns. To their credit though, they eventually made some decent adjustments on week 2 after a few too many checkraises from me and HU matchups where they got destroyed.

Anyway, I'm not a 5 man SNG expert and am not sure if this is who @monkeyheaven is talking about.

 

[monkeyheaven]

Back to the grind.  

Was the highest volume 5max sng player on the site, Its been two years since I last played, aside from a couple of sessions here and there. I work in the game integrity of an online poker operator so whilst I do study strategy as part of my job it’s not focussed on these games…I’m very rusty.  Haven’t been all that interested in playing, but having some work done on my house, extra cash would be nice.

Starting point is about €25 and T€50 left in my account since I last played.  Goal is : Starting at 5max sng €4s rebuild my bankroll, strategy and multi tabling skills back to the point that I am comfortable 12 tabling the highest games that run; liquidity looks considerably worse than 2020 so this will be a mix of 10s and 25s I guess, and achieve €20/hour minimum.

So far.  Played a couple evenings at €4s, first 6 tabling, yesterday 8 tabling, and will go to 10 tabling today if the liquidity is there.  Bankroll is at €95

[FreedoM]

Welcome back and good luck, but taking into consideration your edge, isn't it more profitable to play Hexapro? 🤔

[KrustyTheClown]

11 hours ago, monkeyheaven said:

Back to the grind.  

Was the highest volume 5max sng player on the site, Its been two years since I last played, aside from a couple of sessions here and there. I work in the game integrity of an online poker operator so whilst I do study strategy as part of my job it’s not focussed on these games…I’m very rusty.  Haven’t been all that interested in playing, but having some work done on my house, extra cash would be nice.

Starting point is about €25 and T€50 left in my account since I last played.  Goal is : Starting at 5max sng €4s rebuild my bankroll, strategy and multi tabling skills back to the point that I am comfortable 12 tabling the highest games that run; liquidity looks considerably worse than 2020 so this will be a mix of 10s and 25s I guess, and achieve €20/hour minimum.

So far.  Played a couple evenings at €4s, first 6 tabling, yesterday 8 tabling, and will go to 10 tabling today if the liquidity is there.  Bankroll is at €95

It's the "curse" of a real grinder. The grind never ends.
Will be interesting to follow your progress once again. GL 🙂

[CuteRaven]

Welcome back! In some ways it's nice to have more regs at the 25€ limit so that it can run more often (and also nice to read a SNG blog especially from a legendary grinder like you) 😀

Liquidity at the 25€ level seems to be best in the evenings around 19-23 CEST. Saturday seems to be surprisingly bad (comapred to what you might think), but it's probably because of the Hexapro extreme promo, Friday they probably run best.

Edited October 9, 2022 by CuteRaven

[Caladrias]

Good luck buddy. You’ll still run into me every now and then, although the bulk of my volume on Unibet has now shifted to mtts. Still adding some sngs as fillers sometimes or when I feel like playing a shorter session. Only the €10+ games though, see you there!

[monkeyheaven]

Will continue grinding the 4s until I’m up to €300 bankroll then start mixing in 10s, currently at €150 br.  Standard of reg play at this level might be worse than ever, which is encouraging for once I’m back at 10s and 25s. 
 

@FreedoM I’m sure there’s more money to be made for the best hexapro players than in 5man sng, but it’s a big strategy shift, I would need to start over basically, and a lot of the edge I have in sng is from understanding ICM pretty well.
 

@CuteRavenmight be a week or two before I’m back at 25s, hopefully I can help with the liquidity, certainly will prioritise Friday evenings, historically I thought this was best time of the week.

[monkeyheaven]

Have run pretty good, br at €412.  This has come from 10 tabling the 4s.  This evening, started to mix in the 10s and 12 tabling.  
 

Not sure what hourly this equates to, maybe €12/hr from playing 4s, which is better than I was expecting from this buyin level, obv sample size issues.  Plan to start adding 25s once I’m at €750 br.

is it possible to request results from unibet still, couldn’t see anything thread about this?

Think I can L5 on the rewards scheme, any idea what this translates to as a rakeback % ?

[Purps]

8 hours ago, monkeyheaven said:

Is it possible to request results from unibet still, couldn’t see anything thread about this?

Can't request results here anymore, but you can ask the Live Chat to send you the results file ( spreadsheet ).

[CuteRaven]

Nice progress! L5 should be very easy once you reach 25€ stakes. If this chart is accurate it's about 15%

Edited October 19, 2022 by CuteRaven