Regular vrs. Turbo

Is the ROI in regulars really any higher?

Not that I am qualified to answer but given that a good player will beat a bad player more frequently the longer in which they have to do it or the smaller the M's I would hope the answer is yes. If your question was about $/hour then I have no idea.

EDIT: eeek. should have read the longer your M stays up! must have been half asleep.

Originally Posted by sheets

When you have a skill advantage you want to complicate the game and play smaller pots and try not to get your chips in preflop as much.

When you don't have a skill advantage, you want to play big pots and take the skill away from the other player.

You can use this quote as a means to answer your question. In normals, you have more time to play post flop without getting it all in preflop. Which means that you can use your skill advantage and increase your ROI.

In turbos, you have less time to play post flop, and you end up all in preflop. Taking the skill away and decreasing ROI. However, you can play more turbos than normals in a given time period. If you know proper bubble play, you can increase the amount of $ you can win in turbos than normals since you are able to play more.

I think the reason most posters here play turbos is none of them know how to play on the turn and river anyway so they prefer to get to the blinds levels where they don't have to faster. It's popular to say "my edge is on the bubble" but that doesn't mean it's where your (biggest) edge SHOULD be.

I also don't think we have any regular posters who play enough to have a reasonable sample of each to truly judge the ROI difference. The whole "you can play more" argument is pretty meh if you only play 50 a week.

It is worth nothing that the fees are generally smaller compared to BI in turbos, which given the small edge you have in a SNG may be enough to tilt it that way.

This is my long winded way of saying play whichever one you prefer and don't worry about the ROI difference.

Cool, thanks guys. The first 500 SNGs of my career were turbos of some sort. I just came back from a nice break where I spent some time reading 2+2 and here. I was trying to figure out where the money was last night because I feel like my ROI is larger (small sample size though) in regulars but obviously you finish turbos almost twice as fast.

So with equal buy-in turbo vrs. regular sngs don't you have to have about half the ROI in turbos to make the same amount of money in regulars? Isn't it feasable to believe that your ROI won't be that much lower in turbos?

So with equal buy-in turbo vrs. regular sngs don't you have to have about half the ROI in turbos to make the same amount of money in regulars? Isn't it feasable to believe that your ROI won't be that much lower in turbos?

clearly if you play twice as many, this is true, but I don't think most people's ratios will look like that. If fact, if you do have a better ROI the end result may be that you're willing to devote more time to poker and or you play better because you feel like a winner.

Here's the problem with the arguement as I see it - if 5 minutes blinds are twice as good as 10 minute blinds, then 1 minute blinds are 5 times as good as 5 minute blinds. This may be true in the long run, but boy are you going to see some swings along the way. Betting me a million on a coinflip if I'm giving you 2/1 is a great idea, but I have a feeling you'll pass.

Miffed has a good post in the BC that fits here to me

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...oker-51345.htm

It's all about building a roll for most people. If you only play a small number of SNGs you are never going to get valid stats on what your winrate is. Not only is this because the sample is small, it's because your game will change so much along the way that the first XXX of your sample ends up not mattering.

If you get to a point where you're playing a thousand SNGs a month I could see worrying about this.

for me, the difference is multitabling 2x more regulars vs turbos.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

So with equal buy-in turbo vrs. regular sngs don't you have to have about half the ROI in turbos to make the same amount of money in regulars? Isn't it feasable to believe that your ROI won't be that much lower in turbos?

clearly if you play twice as many, this is true, but I don't think most people's ratios will look like that. If fact, if you do have a better ROI the end result may be that you're willing to devote more time to poker and or you play better because you feel like a winner.

Here's the problem with the arguement as I see it - if 5 minutes blinds are twice as good as 10 minute blinds, then 1 minute blinds are 5 times as good as 5 minute blinds. This may be true in the long run, but boy are you going to see some swings along the way. Betting me a million on a coinflip if I'm giving you 2/1 is a great idea, but I have a feeling you'll pass.

Miffed has a good post in the BC that fits here to me

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...oker-51345.htm

It's all about building a roll for most people. If you only play a small number of SNGs you are never going to get valid stats on what your winrate is. Not only is this because the sample is small, it's because your game will change so much along the way that the first XXX of your sample ends up not mattering.

If you get to a point where you're playing a thousand SNGs a month I could see worrying about this.

Ah I see, makes sense to me. I'm at the position where I feel like my game is much stronger than it was when I was playing turbos in the first place. I'm about 45% ROI over 120 games in the last 2 weeks on the $10 regs and have now moved up to the 20s. How many SNGs/week are you guys playing?

Also a factor to consider: Mr. Fish is more likely to play turbos (gamb000lll, action!) than slooow boooring grind and it's common occurence that at the same stakes slow games are populated with nitty regulars while turbos are donk-fest.

I've discussed this here before but turbos on different sites seem to have very different definitions...turbos at doyles room were like a new level after every hand (one minute?) and really you had to make decisions fast. I'm at full tilt right now and the turbos are every three minutes...it's not nearly as hectic and a game can still take 40 minutes. Much longer than that and my concentration goes down...I really don't have time to play for more than an hour or two a night.

There are both godo and bad things with turbos and normal ones, but i tend to play the normal ones just because i think its more skill there, then on the turbos, you kinda have to relay on the coinflip instead of your skills/reads.

It seems like nobody can come to an agreement as to "where the money is".

if you want to win more money turbos are the way to go.

if you want to win even more money than that and rely on hand reading and skill more play cash games.

I feel very out of place in cash games. I'm not really sure why. I guess because I don't have as much experience there and I have read very little strategy compared to tournies.

I just concentrate on making correct plays no matter what the time limit is. My ROI is pos.

Disclaimer: I've played ~5000 SNGs in the last year, on all of the major sites and both speed structures, at 15%+ ROI FWIW.

The potential for higher $/hr is at the turbos for sure. However, this is counteracted by the sick variance present in that structure. Sure, you can play twice as many turbos in a given time period than regulars, and you're definitely not going to double your ROI from switching to the slower structure. The key difference is that your profit graph will be a lot less jagged at the regulars if you are good at non all-in preflop play, and very good at postflop play. I've run breakeven or negative for hundreds of turbos before and I don't even have a big enough sample size to really know the sick runs you can have at the turbos. Just read the monthly [censored] threads in the STT forum on that "mathematics" site and you'll see that it's not an isolated occurance. A lot of the regulars there have taken up cash games because turbo SNGs became "unprofitable" due to the recent chaos in the online poker economy but it could very well be variance.

I think the edge in profitability in turbo SNGs has diminshed some with the prevalence of tools like SNG Power Tools and SNG Wiz. While a lot of players still don't know how to play the bubble and this is still way +EV for you, that combined with the reduced time investment along with the reduced rake as drmcboy mentioned may tip in the direction of turbos. But be prepared to handle 30 buyin downswings, breaking even or a very small profit over what may seem like weeks if you don't play a lot. If you're prone to tilting because you lost 5 SNGs in a row then I would stay the hell off the turbo tables.

FOOTNOTE: I've started playing again after a 3 month hiatus. I had been playing turbos when I stopped, and I've started back with regulars now. I started with 25 buyins for $5.50s on PokerStars ($140), I'm running at a 28% ROI over 86 games to just about double my roll so far. I've been regularly ITMing regulars with only 3-4 hands shown down to that point, there is just so much more room to make moves and get away from marginal situations with the slower structure. I should make one of those cool signature goal graphics I guess.

Originally Posted by homerdash

Disclaimer: I've played ~5000 SNGs in the last year, on all of the major sites and both speed structures, at 15%+ ROI FWIW.

The potential for higher $/hr is at the turbos for sure. However, this is counteracted by the sick variance present in that structure. Sure, you can play twice as many turbos in a given time period than regulars, and you're definitely not going to double your ROI from switching to the slower structure. The key difference is that your profit graph will be a lot less jagged at the regulars if you are good at non all-in preflop play, and very good at postflop play. I've run breakeven or negative for hundreds of turbos before and I don't even have a big enough sample size to really know the sick runs you can have at the turbos. Just read the monthly [censored] threads in the STT forum on that "mathematics" site and you'll see that it's not an isolated occurance. A lot of the regulars there have taken up cash games because turbo SNGs became "unprofitable" due to the recent chaos in the online poker economy but it could very well be variance.

I think the edge in profitability in turbo SNGs has diminshed some with the prevalence of tools like SNG Power Tools and SNG Wiz. While a lot of players still don't know how to play the bubble and this is still way +EV for you, that combined with the reduced time investment along with the reduced rake as drmcboy mentioned may tip in the direction of turbos. But be prepared to handle 30 buyin downswings, breaking even or a very small profit over what may seem like weeks if you don't play a lot. If you're prone to tilting because you lost 5 SNGs in a row then I would stay the hell off the turbo tables.

FOOTNOTE: I've started playing again after a 3 month hiatus. I had been playing turbos when I stopped, and I've started back with regulars now. I started with 25 buyins for $5.50s on PokerStars ($140), I'm running at a 28% ROI over 86 games to just about double my roll so far. I've been regularly ITMing regulars with only 3-4 hands shown down to that point, there is just so much more room to make moves and get away from marginal situations with the slower structure. I should make one of those cool signature goal graphics I guess.

Sounds about right, my experience at regulars has been the same. I was running stupid hot at first (something like 180% ROI over the first 50) but now variance swung its huge bat at me lately.

I think regulars are for me, maybe one day I will have to start learning cash games.

Originally Posted by homerdash

Disclaimer: I've played ~5000 SNGs in the last year, on all of the major sites and both speed structures, at 15%+ ROI FWIW.

The potential for higher $/hr is at the turbos for sure. However, this is counteracted by the sick variance present in that structure. Sure, you can play twice as many turbos in a given time period than regulars, and you're definitely not going to double your ROI from switching to the slower structure. The key difference is that your profit graph will be a lot less jagged at the regulars if you are good at non all-in preflop play, and very good at postflop play. I've run breakeven or negative for hundreds of turbos before and I don't even have a big enough sample size to really know the sick runs you can have at the turbos. Just read the monthly [censored] threads in the STT forum on that "mathematics" site and you'll see that it's not an isolated occurance. A lot of the regulars there have taken up cash games because turbo SNGs became "unprofitable" due to the recent chaos in the online poker economy but it could very well be variance.

I think the edge in profitability in turbo SNGs has diminshed some with the prevalence of tools like SNG Power Tools and SNG Wiz. While a lot of players still don't know how to play the bubble and this is still way +EV for you, that combined with the reduced time investment along with the reduced rake as drmcboy mentioned may tip in the direction of turbos. But be prepared to handle 30 buyin downswings, breaking even or a very small profit over what may seem like weeks if you don't play a lot. If you're prone to tilting because you lost 5 SNGs in a row then I would stay the hell off the turbo tables.

FOOTNOTE: I've started playing again after a 3 month hiatus. I had been playing turbos when I stopped, and I've started back with regulars now. I started with 25 buyins for $5.50s on PokerStars ($140), I'm running at a 28% ROI over 86 games to just about double my roll so far. I've been regularly ITMing regulars with only 3-4 hands shown down to that point, there is just so much more room to make moves and get away from marginal situations with the slower structure. I should make one of those cool signature goal graphics I guess.

Superb post man, thanks very much. I think you set it out very clearly indeed.

Nice reply Homer.. " My life story "

fyi, my roi is almost double in non turbo sngs. I have about 3k worth of non turbos logged now

It's also a matter of how turbo is the turbo... I find that a turbo on stars plays only a little bit faster then a normal on pp.

A normal on PKR plays faster then a turbo on stars.

Maybe I am wrong, but that's the impression I am getting.