After about 1.5k games at 4% ROI, I decided to try grinding these over the current month, to see what kind of ROI I could get in the long run, and more importantly an hourly ROI while pushing my volume up.
First week went great. I played maybe 25 hours and was up $700. Since that first week I've been running bad, stuck in the same place, and sliding backward over the past two days, days that should have be softer than normal. To give you a background, I've read a bunch of threads at various forums and played around with SNG Wiz in the past. I think I play a pretty standard reg style. I've been able to push my volume to 15, and now 20, while playing 2.5 hour sets usually. This month I even started labeling regs, which on occasions has allowed me to avoid reg-infested groups of games, particularly during the mornings US EST.
At this point I'm not sure I can grind these. Playing 1k of low variance games only to break even is too much of a grind for me. I don't know if it's mostly variance, or whether I'm making a ton of mistakes. I'll try to post some hands in this thread to get some feedback. I know one or two of you have reasonable experience grinding these, and I'd appreciate some advice. Would anything else be helpful besides hands (ie PokerTracker stats)? I would also consider some coaching if my ranges need a tune-up. Overall I feel like I'm solid at playing and grinding these, and should be beating them to some extent, especially if I'm willing to game select.
Thanks for your thoughts..
both of you have forced me to get out of bed and respond,
i will respond to user first, DON's are made for grinders and thus the roi is going to be low. turbos especially at this level are definitely beatable for more than 2% though, now you have forced me to open up my HEM and find some stats for you.............................(pause while i open HEM and look up stats) , keep in mind before i post these that these are stats over the last year and a half or two at these games, more beatable when they first came out, anyway...
my stats for turbos... 5.5% at 10's over 2300 games
... 4.4% at $20's over 3800 games
... 4.0% at 52's over 5800 games , thats close to 12k in profit.
............ i will also say that most of them time i was 25+ tabling some of these so my roi is lower than if i were 12 tabling or less.
After looking up these stats i realize i really need to get back to playin 52's, so now i need to grind my ass off to boost my roll from under $600 by playing 10's to 20's then back to 52's..........anyway, back on track starting next paragraph.........
Rakeback Reviewer........
as much as you want to think that these aren't ~'high variance' ish, they are. low roi's plus all the shit that can happen on the bubble, i'm down 30 buy ins in the last 200ish games, and my hem graph shows i should only be down 9 buy ins, you can just run so bad at times.
I'm not saying that i will comment much if you post hands but you should definitely post hands to see what some people may think, it can really help, i really should show a few of them myself......... its sometimes confusing in DON's too because you can be in a spot maybe sitting 4 or 5 out of 6 and have a good hand and not know if you should shove to build up the stack so you don't become short or fold and wait for shortie to be all in or a shot at being all in before you might be.............
anyway....
you can either try and fight through it to see if its just some long term variance, or you could also drop the amount of tables and work on your game (i've done this a little bit lately, i ran real bad but should have made money instead of lose for what thats worth)
i feel like i rambled so if i didn't answer somethign just ask away, post some hands also.
I was going on the $20 turbo DONs as 2%, $20 non turbo DONs 6%. I assume the ROI for $10 DONs may be slightly higher. It may be the case that more regs play the turbos, hence the difference in the ROI, just a thought.
no, the difference in roi mostly comes because of the turbo/non turbo difference, more time to play poker in non turbos.
Thanks for the feedback. I never gave non-turbos much thought because of the doubled rake, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't give them a shot. It could be a way for me to get my mind off the slide, and to boost my VPP totals if I'm ever running behind monthly VIP requirements.
Thanks for staying up Pharreal, and I appreciate you posting your personal stats. Bad variance often gets to me emotionally, and that's something that I have to learn to deal with. Now's a time for me to find some perspective and a chance to do some study.
Before I get into hand examples, I want to ask people about their PC hardware. I have a very old AMD dual core with 3gb DDR ram and a 11k RPM raptor HD. When I have 15-20 tables running along with PT3 something the tables stutter or freeze up for a second. Is my hardware just that old?
I'll start off with a hand that SNGWiz is telling me to push with, that I folded in-game. BB is a tight player at 10 VPIP. The reasoning for my fold is that he is short enough to feel like he doesn't have enough FE to steal against the medium and big stack behind him, and I could still have a good opportunity to steal the next hand if it's folded to me. If not, I can survive my next BB with some FE still intact. I think this is a pretty clear fold.
(Note: posting a css/html conversion from pokerhand.org, hope it works smoothly..)
PokerStars, $125/250 NO Limit Texas Holdem Tournament, 6 Players
P.S. This hand converter is showing stack sizes before blinds and antes. Effective stack sizes are 1650 and 905 for BB
i fold all day here, i know that sngwiz will tell you to shove/fold in certain spots in DON's when it is in fact the opposite that should be done. i fold this for multiple reasons though, if i get called i'm behind and become shortie and bubble most of the time, he will call a lot i think, because he is the short stack, etc. i'd rather fold and still have chips and not get involved and let somebody else do the dirty work than to risk most of my stack with 3 hi.
not sure whats the prob with ur comp, i had that problem before, it was my Tableninja causing it.......it could be a number of things.
yep, i think I had the same issue caused by TJ. Do you still use it? I'm also wondering if I'm missing out on not using a helper app. I guess I'd only want something that clicks my timebank and clicks the OK button when registering for games. I'm trying to open games myself for the time being, as I'm trying to game select, but it is time consuming.
yea i am still using TN and have no problems now. i love tableninja for playing these, auto refreshing info button is huge
Ah yes, I remember playing around with that option, but AFAIK the auto-refresh interferes with note taking and I didn't really rely on the info screen that much. But maybe I just didn't give enough time.
...
I've got another hand that looks like ATC time to me. Any way that I can fold this?
Poker Stars $10.00+$0.40 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t150/t300 Blinds + t30 - 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter
BB: t1900 M = 3.02
UTG: t2295 M = 3.64
Hero (MP): t1275 M = 2.02
CO: t5200 M = 8.25
BTN: t1510 M = 2.40
SB: t2820 M = 4.48
Pre Flop: (t630) Hero is MP with 7
8
1 fold, Hero raises to t1245 all in, 4 folds
yea, i mean u gotta hate being in these spots but its either shove now, or hope for a better hand UTG, or something to get all in, in the BB, its really up to you, idk what the right play is, shove now or hope u get better the very next hand.
Played a set of 18 non-turbo $10's with the idea of saving specific hands in notepad for review. Definitely found myself in plenty of spots where I didn't have a clear idea of what to do. I'll look at bigger forums to see if they have DON-specific threads/dciscussion.
Also looked up my all time chip stats for each blind level:
Please understand that ROI sucks ass! Players obsess with ROI and fail to remember that its only a decent reflection of one's ability in STTs (not sure how many for MTTs) if you have around 10,000 games to look on. And even then, a lot can change in 10k games, I mean, I've definitely improved since 10k games ago.
$ per hour, $ per hour!!!! This should be your new obsession! That is why ROIwise Turbos suck, but when it comes to $ per hour they totally kick non turbo's ass! $ per hour will take into consideration multi tabling, and rakeback, which are things that you should add in at when analyzing your games.
GL!
Puyon, I can agree. ROI vs. $/hour is a bit like chip equity vs. $equity. ROI does give me some idea of how I'm doing in comparison to other players.
Thanks for bringing this up. I like the point when talking about the Turbo's - They do make sense when discussing the per hour, right?
Hey, smuck, not sure what you're asking. Turbos usually entail more games/hour and lower rake, whereas non-turbo might allow you to cash more often. I haven't played enough non-turbos to compare hourly rates or roi.
As far as OP's (mine) slump, looks like I'm starting to pull through. Took a bit of a break, looked at some hands, looked at some DON training vids on sngg, and went back at it playing smaller sets at first. Game selecting $10 and $20 turbos and playing mixed sets.
i prob need to go over some stuff, i can't get on a winning track in DONs
Played over 25K games of DoNs on different sites, only good decision i made was when i decidedto stop DoNs. If ur winning at DoNs u can win more playing regular SNG with a normal payout.
Me neither pharreal. Had a nice ~30 buyin upswing this week, and then, boom, downed 20 buyins in 2 days. Really not fun. The sick part is that I'm avoiding reg-filled games and playing games with 6 or more casuals.
Kind of an aside, but looked up a $10 reg with 21/14 stats over 1.4k DON hands, yet he is crushing it for an 8% roi over 13k and is at the top end of the 2010 DON leaderboard.
yea i started to think, if you played fewer and could play 21/14 you can exploit a lot of people. probably high variance at times but there are a lot of chips out there for the taking most of the time, especially against regs so.... playing like that if you are real good can be profitable obv.
Well, I watched that guy play for a few mins after posting this, and this is the one hand I saw him play:
He minraises to 200 UTG seven-handed with a ~1500 stack, gets called by a loose big stack right behind him. The flop is something like K34 rainbow, both players check. The turn is a Q and he leads out and gets called. River's a J and he bets again and gets put all in. UTG (the 8% roi guy) shows QJs for two pair, and the big stack shows T9 for the straight.
That's a fishy holdem play period, but it's especially horrendous in a DON. If you had to guess, you'd expect to see that guy with a negative roi based on this limited info, right?
no, a decent amount they will fold pre, another decent amount they would fold to a c-bet, if he would have made one on flop he would have won the hand, yea.....
its prob not what i would be doing but i can see it working to build a stack, thats they thing tho, i'd rather save chips than risk to get to 2k or be down to 1k and have almost no stack
overall i see how it can be profitable but stilll, it does seem risky overall but who knows, maybe thats where DON's are moving.
I believe I see what you're saying - play small ball to take advantage of overly tight play. Playing QJs from UTG 7-handed and a medium stack (with at least one loose player behind you) seems really bad either way though.
yea, i mean, its not what i'm going to do but i could see it working, seems like high variance play though.
Are you playing the turbo DONs? because ive noticed that ROI in these for many regs, is almost break even, they played a ton then realised its not profitable to break even or make 2% ROI. The non turbos seem to give the best ROI even if its only maybe 6%. Thats my experience, hope it helps.