Roi Poker
@Lock I have 1374 MTT's played - ABI $18.52 - 48.3% ROI @Intertops 366 MTT's played - 16.63 ABI - 48.2% ROI. I figured this was in the decent range with obvious room to improve. I'm not using poker as my only income. Sounds as if I want to make more I may need to increase my BR online and play a little higher. In simple terms, calculating a return on your poker investment can help to determine whether or not poker is the game for you. A spread of 100 games is a good sample size and 13.6% is a modest. Your Poker ROI is a calculation of how profitable your poker game is. ROI stands for “Rate of Investment”, so your ROI is the difference between how much money you put into your poker game, and how much you get out of it; the difference being your profit. Calculating Your ROI in Poker.
Anyone that play poker tournaments (MTTs and SNGs) will have a specific return of investment, ROI. It's good to know you ROI as you when will know how much you can expect to win in a certain number of tournaments. You can also compare your ROI between different poker forms and find out there your profit is the best.
ROI in poker is used for tournaments, not cash games (in cash games it's about the win rate and how much you earn by the hour). Here are some examples concerning SNG heads up.
Let's say you are playing $50+$2.50 heads up and thinking about moving up to the next buy-in level, $100+5. Here we compare your profit with two different win expectations:
Buy-in $50+2.5 x 10 matches = $520.50
Result 7/10 won = $700 in money > net win: $170.50
ROI 170.50/520.50 = 33,3% ROI
Buy-in $100+5 x 10 matches = $1050
Result 6/10 won = $1200 in money > net win: $150
ROI 150/1200 = 12,5% ROI
In this example, we can see that you make more money playing $50+$5 supposing the different winning frequences (7 out of 10 vs. 6 out of 10). However, 7 out of 10 it's not very realistic and the difference to the next limit will probably be less.
Therefore, we add another example.
Buy-in $50+2.5 x 10 matches = $520.50
Result 6,5/10 won = $650 in money > net win: $120.50
ROI 140.50/520.50 = ca 28% ROI
Buy-in $100+5 x 10 matches = $1050
Result 6,2/10 won = $1240 in money > net win: $190
ROI 190/1240 = ca 16% ROI
The second example shows that you are winning more money playing $100+$5 given the performances (6,6 out of 10 vs. 6,2 out of 10). As you can see, the ROI in poker doesn't need to be extremely good when you are playing at higher limits because you will win pretty much money even with a relative small return of investment in percentage.
These kinds of calculations can also be made for comparing SNGs with MTTs and other situations.
Related articles:
Comprehensive Introduction to ROI for SNG Tournaments,
includes profit chart for different SNG levels and hourly rate information.
Return on Investment (ROI) is the way in which the profitability of SNG tournaments is measured. This is shown as your profit per game and is expressed as a percentage of the buy-in after the rake (or fee) is removed. For example someone making an average of $2 per game at the $10+1 level would have an ROI of 18.2% ($2/$11 = 18.2%)
Hourly Rate simply takes your expected ROI and number of games you play per hour and gives an average hourly 'wage' for your efforts. Using the above example an 18.2% ROI at the $10+1 level and 4 games per hour would give you an hourly rate of $8. These two concepts are heavily related. Increasing the number of games per hour (by multi-tabling) may decrease your ROI but increase your overall hourly rate.
This article will look at what kind of ROI can be expected by winning SNG players at various levels and will look at some of the factors which affect your ROI and hourly rates. Further SNG Planet articles look at the areas covered here in more detail and explore the mathematical principles behind them.
SNG ROI Expectations - Today's 'Tougher' Fields.
Way Back in 2011 some of the SNG Pros from 2+2 did a review of 100,000 SNGs at various buy-in levels and came up with the following chart of Sit N Go ROI expectations for winning players.
Roi Poker Calculator Explained
$11s - 25% ROI
$20s - 20% ROI
$33s - 16% ROI
$55s - 13% ROI
$109s - 10% ROI
$215s - 7% ROI
In the years since this survey was published a lot of changes have taken place. These include the US legislation which has taken many purely recreational players from the game, the growth of training sites and websites such as SNG Planet, and the availability and common use of poker software tools - we have summarized these in our article asking Are The SNG Games Becoming Tougher
The common consensus is that these numbers have been reduced and that today’s chart for solid winners should look like this:
$11s - 20% ROI
$20s - 15% ROI
$33s - 10% ROI
$55s - 8% ROI
$109s - 7% ROI
$215s - 6% ROI
SNG ROI Calculations - Including Sample Size Factors
OK, we have outlined some realistic expectations. The key to these numbers is the significant sample size over which they were gathered. To demonstrate the effect of this we will look at an example after a smaller (100 SNG) sample. This shows clearly that to decide whether you are a profitable SNG player you need a very large sample of games.
Imagine our player has an ROI of 18.2% after 100 games at the $10+1 level. This represents an overall profit of $200. Now we change the outcome of just 5 Sit n Go bubble hands, all of which our player won in the sample we look at.
This time - instead of winning 5 bubble 'coin-flips' each was lost resulting in getting 4th place and no money. While originally winning these 5 flips enabled our player to get 2* 1st, 2* 2nd and 1* 3rd place. The total for these finishes was $180... so now instead of $200 profit we have just $20 – that is a significant change for just 5 hands.
What this should demonstrate is that short-term there are large swings of fortune in SNGs and that a 100, 200 or even 500 game sample can be easily affected by just a few hands.
So what are the other factors that can affect your Sit N Go ROI and Hourly Rate?
- Number of winning players at your table can have a large impact - see related articles on choosing the right tables and the fishiest poker sites to avoid them.
- Your ability to make good decisions at the bubble is critical. Each 'bad' decision (in terms of prize pool equity) will cost you money over time. If you are not using a calculator like ICMIZER then you are more or less leaving profits on the table! See www.icmpoker.com for more.
- The key to a good hourly rate is to play several tables at once. Again information on successful multi-tabling can be found here on SNG Planet.
- Whether you play turbo or regular SNGs. While turbo SNGs may have less time for your skill advantages to come into play you can play more games per hour - increasing your hourly rate.
- The level at which you play. Having a ROI of just10% at the $30+3 level is better than 20% at the $10+1 level, and will obviously bring you more profit over time. SNG Bankroll management is critical here - those 5 bubble coin-flipscould have a big impact at the higher levels.
Roi Poker Strategy
In summary the key factor here is selecting the right poker site - you will never achieve a good return in SNGs if the site you play at is full of other winning players. 888 Poker is a great choice for SNG players looking for the highest ROI and Hourly Rate at the lower to medium (up to $22) levels, where the action starts to tail off. Players from many countries can grab $8 to trial the games completely free - then a 100% deposit match if you like what you see. Make sure you check those profitable 888 SNGs for yourself soon!
Check out our comprehensive room reviews - each one rates the opposition you are likely to face and suggests places to play depending on your preferred buy in level.