June update
I wanted to give you guys a quick update as of June 10th. I have played 485 sngs and mtts. I have been playing some mtts which has cut down on the number of sngs I have been playing. I final tabled the $50 rebuy on full tilt yesterday. I finished 6th for $1200. I get the urge to play mtts every once in while.
I have been running pretty crappy this month until today. I played 66 sngs today and scored $3,200. So it was a good day and I am pretty much on pace to hit my goal of 1500 sngs this month.
Comments
Thanks guys, my roi on 90manKO's is alot higher than single table sngs. But the variance is also higher. One of the nice things though to lower the variance is the bounty you get for knocking players out. I do agree there is more to be proud of winning a 90man tourney versus a 9man tourney.
Since we both have a greater roi on mtt, a question arises: why we continue to play single tables too? Because of higher variance? Variance is a problem only for people who play occasionally. Is there another good reason or are we just wasting our time?
Do you think it's time, for me, to start playing 18mtt? As you can see on my graph, I started to play very bad and, after 45 games, I watched some of your videos (and beanmo's and amt's) and started playing good first at 3 euros, then at 5 euros (~40% roi).
P.S. I: even if they seem stupid questions, I ask them to you because I think that your advises are extremely important to me!!!
P.S. II: Do you like Nissan Qashqai? I'm gonna buy it.
Joseph, these are good questions that I have asked myself. I play sngs with smaller fields for a number of reasons. First, they go quicker. Mtts can take up my whole day if I play a reasonable number of them. The bigger buyin mtts startup hours apart. Second, you get more rakeback, points, leaderboard prizes by playing more sngs/hour. Third, finishing in the top 3 of an mtt dosen't happen very often. Thus, most mtt players have more losing days than winning days. So the variance is much greater playing large field tournaments.
You will probably make more per sng playing 18mans. However, they will take longer. So what I do is figure out which ones I make the most money per hour. For me the $75 45mans on fulltilt are my main source of income.
That Nissan Qashqai is a pretty sweet ride. I like the look of it.
Pimpin
Spent a few hours last couple of days looking at your vid's. Am a member at quite a few other sites but really got alot from your videos...question...
What computer do you use when multitabling? In your 16ish multitabling video you correctly pointed out you need a pretty decent computer to handle that many tables. Currently my PC struggles with more than about 8 so am on the lookout for something quite a bit better 
thanks again
Mark,
I need your help (if you can). Looking at my graph (excluding the very first 50 sngs), you can see that for the first 400 sngs I have done pretty well (40% roi, both at 3⬠and at 5â¬) while for the last 400 sngs I have run very bad, swinging up and down around a 0% roi !!! Since I didnât change anything about the games (always turbo, always 9-handed, always 5 euros) and since I am sure that itâs not a matter of luck, Iâd like to ask you:
WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?
I know that you canât answer exactly cause you are not the player who is playing, but you can answer if you have already had the same problem, at the beginning of your âcareerâ. Did it happen to you too? Doing bad for so long, at low stakes, has only one reason: I am not playing anymore a good strategy. Which mistakes am I doing? Am I loosening my game style too soon? Am I playing too tight on the bubble? Am I doing the right moves at the wrong time, or am I doing the wrong moves?
I really canât get out of it!!!
Any suggestion??? Please help me !!!
Thanks in advance.
Turbo sngs are very volatile. I have had stretches of 3000 turbo sngs at the $55 level of break even poker on pokerstars. Without seeing your play I have no idea if you are making any major mistakes. When your graph shot way up it is also possible you were running good. A good roi for turbo sngs is 4-7%. 40% is not sustainable over the long run playing turbos. If you want to reduce your variance I recommend you play regular(non-turbo) sngs. They take longer but a good roi on those is 8-15%. I have a video on regular sngs if you want to switch over you should watch it.
Thanks for your support, guys
But... I didnt imagine that roi of good players was so low. I mean, even after my hateful swings I preserve a 15% roi at 5â¬. I agree that 30% and 40% are too optimistic (as my roi at 3â¬) but I really wish to not go under 10% at low stakes (where it's plenty of fishes).
Anyway, since you told me that and I trust you, I start playing at 10⬠to leverage profit. I am starting from a -50% roi caused from my first 40 sngs played at the beginning with no idea of sng strategy. I played tonight and the related roi is now -25%... I must get it into a positive roi at the end of next week (let's hope so).
well it also depends on how many your playing at once, like most sng players are playing minimun 9 sngs at a time and max 36ish in some cases so they cnt expect a high roi so assuming you are playin anywhere betweein 1-6 at a time you could keep that roi above 10% but top sng players are making lots of money through rakeback and the mass amounts they play, so even if you was to stay at the lower limit try and increase the amount of games at one time u play, I personally play anyware between 9-16 45man sngs at a time and find this easy enough due to less short handed play but find I can only play 9-12 stts due to the amount of short handed play. But you will see an increase in your dayly profit, ignore wot your stats say because you will become tilted wen they start becoming less just look at your profit over the week or something dnt think about each session results, they mean very little if your playing good.
Good luck at the 10dolla game doe. hope you are successful.
Hey Mark, I really appreciate your videos and they have been helping me a lot. I just had a question on the programs you use along with playing. Is it just pokertracker 3? I saw there is a downloadable version and you can also purchase it. Thanks for all your help!
Thanks for your advises, RYHUNDO. I use to play on the new platform PokerStars.it (here in Italy new laws state that it's legal to play only on italian authorized poker-rooms) where no rakeback programs exist. There are some bonuses instead and I am collecting them. But the problem is that I'd like to win money just from the games themselves, to demonstrate to me that I am good at poker, that's all.
I use to play 8 turbo stt at a time and can play not more than 3 or 4 hours per day (because I have a regular job, a wife and a 8 months daughter)... that means about 30 stt per day. I know that it's not a serious grinding... but this is the situation and I must get some money out of it (I need a new car, for example).
I will continue playing 10⬠stt till the end of june, then I'll consider playing 27 or 45 mtt, trying to increase multitabling up to 16.
I'll let you know how it'll go.
P.S. I: RYHUNDO, now I'm gonna read your blog.
P.S. II: Mark, you owe us an update 
Hey Pimpin I'm takin the summer off and thought I pass the time with some on-line poker but being the fish that I am I'm gettin killed. Untill I master the game I want to avoid grinding at the SnGs and stick with the bigger mtt's, i feel like when i go back to work at the end of summer I'm only going to have time to play once a week in the big Sunday mtt's. I just found sharkscope and plan on adding along with Pokertracker 3 as i was playing with no add-ons and kept beating myself with mistakes in key situations. I see that pokerstars is trying to limit the add-ons and some are even considered cheating. Can you help me with any other aids or add-ons that are a must buy. I have two laptops and can run them on two different networks as in one on fulltilt and one on pokerstars but I'd really like to focus on two or three mtt's on one site to prep for playing live, i think i'd be in over my head grinding with the on-line pro's like yourself at the SnG's. I must say I'm not lookin to cheat just and I don't want a bot but I don't like being at a disatvantage to the players with the add-ons. Thanks for your help in advance William
yo PIMP whats up, I seen you take dwn your $69s yesterday, bought your months profit right up.. good on you. I was checking out your stats in more detail, have you ever done this before? I noticed you had an average profit of $26 for the $69 game plus a dolla rake so like $27 and a mear $5 for the $26 game, this is probably because you natually play the $69 better as its higher stake but why r they that much better, its incredible, isit because of the final table play and the lack of regs playing them? they wouldn't know so much about playing to win they more play to cash anything is as good money. I also wondered if you had even noticed you were gettin $26 per game because if so why wouldn't you stick to these, and play $55 stts which are an average profit of $5 anyways (same as your $24 45man) while they load up because you would get bored waiting and then when your stts are over you should be in 12 or something and if not just keep loading up the $55s until you get 16 going, because I just think playing the $24 ones is taking up to many tables/time of which you could be playing $69 and $55 stts. Let me know what you think.
Yo RYHUNDO, good thoughts here on your part. I have noticed my roi is much higher on the $75 buyin. I think there are a couple of reasons. First, I think my level of caring about the money is higher. I somtimes lose interest in the $26 and will take a coin flip that I might not in the higher buyin. Second, I think I have actually run better in the higher buyin level. I have taken alot of brutal suckouts at the $26 level. I know from playing them though that there are many more fish in the $26 level though so it is kind of weird that my roi is higher at the $75 level.
I would love to play the $75 exclusively but when I play in the morning only 5 start up per hour, so I need to play other games to make more money per hour. Lately, I have been playing stt with buyins ranging from $330 to $60 levels.
I have also emailed fulltilt to see if they will introduce 2 new sngs. I want a $160+12 45man sng, and a $70+5 90man KO. If they do this I should be able to just play multi-table sngs.
William, I only use Poker Tracker 3 and Fulltilt Shortcuts. Also, I have a peice of advice for you. I would recommend you play the sngs before you step into the mtts for a number of reasons. First, sngs are loaded with just as many fish as mtts. There are pros in them but there are pros in mtts also. Second, playing an sng is just like playing the final table of an mtt so you will get great final table experience. Third, you will not have a significant cash in an mtt very often. So it can be very frustrating going weeks or months with no positive results. So if you want to start with mtts, good luck. But if I were a new player knowing what I know now I would start with sngs.
Hi,
My goal for July was to combine poker and vacations. I spent ten days on the island of Ios, Greece and between swimming and drinking at night (not the best circumstanses for a good ROI ) I mannaged to win about 200$ per day.. so my goal was achieved
Pimpin, you use a shortcut for the 2.5x bet. It seems very useful and I have a couple of questions.. First, when antes are in play, the big blind gets huge pot odds and should stick around with many hands - do you think from your experience it is sufficient to lead out only 2.5x?? Second, how can I use these shortcuts..? What kind of software have you purchassed?
Thanks,
HiLoLefti
HiLoLefti, sounds like you had a fun vacation. As for the software it is fulltilt shortcuts, but it is not working anymore with the recent updates fulltilt made. They are working on a new version called poker shortcuts to fix the problems.
The 2.5x raise does offer the big blind better odds. However, with the games now days being 3bet happy I feel the smaller raises are far more profitable. Also, if the big blind calls I have position on him and was the aggressor preflop.
hey mark, i just ran my bankroll up to 400 from 50. I owe a lot of it to you. The videos have helped so much. I really appreciate it and I hope to continue my success. What stakes do you think I can play in with that amount? I've been playing strictly 5 dollar non turbo sng's and 5 dollar mtt. Having good success in both.
Wow that is a huge jump in your bankroll, very good job! For Mtts I like to have at least 100 buyins, because there is a lot of variance in them. For non turbo sngs I like to have 50 buyins, these are more safe to play because of the structure and 3 get paid out of 9.
The whole idea of bankroll management is to prevent you from going broke during bad runs. It depends on how much your bankroll means to you. If you are willing to risk it then go for it. If you would be devastated by losing it then stick to the $5 sngs.
WONDERFUL, Mark !!!
I had the same urge lately (not now, cause I have choosen to play only single table sngs till I reach my modest goal of +1000 â¬). I liked very much 90ko mtt because I think that there are 2 enormous advantages playing them instead of single table. The first is that, when you win a 90mtt, your graph bumps up (as your mood) and you make money to face a loosing streak of more than 20 tourneys (even if you finish 2nd or 3rd things are going well). The second is that, when you are dealt good cards and double up and continue to play well and make your game, you are quite often getting to the final table, where you can win much more respect to single table. I mean that good cards and good play are more profitable in 90mtt. Don't you agree?