Tip #15: The Price Of Playing Against Good Opponents

Playing SNG tournaments against several other winning players can seriously impact your returns. This occurs whether or not you have a ‘winning edge’ against these opponents and is exaggerated by the nature of the sit and go bubble. This article shows how and why playing against winners can affect your returns and suggests ways to remedy this.

We start by comparing the average returns for a SNG tournament in which 4 other players are winners. We then look at a typical bubble situation to show how this effect can be compounded. Finally the solutions are covered.

Let us start with an above average sit and go player who enjoys a 20% ROI at the $10 level (we will ignore fees in these examples to keep the numbers simple). This return is against an ‘average’ (over a large sample) opponent mix. Now we add 4 winners to the 10 player game as ask what would happen to this ROI.

The obvious way of looking at this is to reduce the available prize pool by the average of the winning opponents return’s. Say each had a ROI of 10% in this case. Instead of a $100 prize pool before the first hand we are now looking at an average of $56 – each player will return $11 for $10 invested over a large sample. 20% of $56 is only $11.20c, a significant difference. Note that our player’s average return was higher than the other winners, the effect you are seeing happens even when we are ahead of the other winners in terms of skills.

Avoiding winning opponents can increase those returns, yet very few players actively do this. When you log on to your favorite site and see 3 or 4 players pre-registered for the next 5 games you can be pretty sure these are regulars. Note their names, look them up on database services and – most importantly – avoid the successful ones. Something as simple as taking 10 minutes to browse your favorite poker forum before returning to the tables can result in you having a better return for the time invested playing.

Alternatively you can find a site which has less winning regulars at the tables. There are huge differences between sites in this respect – with some attracting large numbers of pro or semi-pro ‘grinders’ and others being largely recreational. Check out our dedicated room reviews today to find a the most profitable site for your individual requirements.