Multi-tabling SNGs

Let me just quickly write down my thoughts on this issue as this is relevant to my play now. For players just starting to multi-table, this should be an interesting post.

You will always hear from poker players everywhere that playing SNGs is all about the volume. Initially, I was hesitant to agree. I always thought that ROI was a better gauge of success. Profits will eventually follow. But I now realize I am wrong about this and will explain why. This is probably old information for some of you grinders, but should be good for the beginners.

My ave ROI in SNGs as a whole is somewhere in the 15% range. It is a decent ROI but this is achieved usually playing only 1 or 2 tables at a time. Assuming that I play 2 games in a day. This will total 60 games in a month. Assuming I play 11+1 SNGs. Then my total expected monthly profit for SNGs is 60 x 11 x 0.15 = $99

Now, let's see what happens if I multi-table SNGs which I have been doing only recently. For arguments sake, I will assume that I only play 3 tables at one time which is easily achieved. This means that I can play 6 games in one day or a total of 180 games in a month. Obviously my ROI will drop as I now pay less attention to each table. There are many calculations out there about how much your average ROI drops for every table you add. But for simplicity's sake, I will assume it will drop to a low of 6% which is a very conservative estimate for 3 tabling. Then my total monthly profit becomes 180 x 11 x 0.06 = $118.80

Even at this very simple monthly progression of 1 table to 3 tables and assuming a big drop in ROI. Your profit still grew by 20%. This is not even counting any rakeback or bonus or the added player points that you get for playing more games which translates to some value.

So same time spent for poker playing. But you get a higher overall profit at the end of the month. Common sense, right ?

Yes, your ave ROI drops. But at the end of the day, it is the time that you spend playing poker versus the profit that you get which is more relevant. In mathematical terms, it is the profit per hour.

OK, a note of warning. I am not saying that multi-tabling is automatically equivalent to better profits. The premise of this post assumes that you are a somewhat experienced winning player and you know the basics of SNG play, push/fold strategy, ICM, the relevance of Q and M, sklansky's gap concept, etc. Because as you begin to multi-table more and more tables, your decision time has to be quicker. Therefore, you have to be following clear cut rules on what hands to play/push/fold. There is not much time to analyze player tendencies and whether somebody is bluffing or not. It is all about making +EV decisions.

Therefore, the logic I have presented in this post is strictly not for beginners and especially not for negative ROI players. Beginners are better off learning the ropes by playing 1 table at a time. Only if you are already winning consistently in playing 1 table SNGs will you reap the benefits of multi-tabling.

As for myself, I have only started multi-tabling 3 tables consistently the past 2 months. So it is a little early to analyze my results. I have noticed a slight drop in my ROI, but so far so good. I will give further analysis on this maybe by the end of the year when I have accumulated more info.

Thanks for reading. =)