My STT Plan

At 1.5/3.5$ you will be happy to see any reg around. These games are beatable at ~10% ROI without much knowledge. When it comes to ICM most of players wont have a clue, so don't try to exploit with too wide pushes at certain points.

7's gets a bit more reggie, but depends on day/month. Sometimes u see supernovas trying to get the volume and playing these limits and u will need to table select, but on average they are ok (2-3 regs). 5-7% ROI should be achievable.

15's is there a breaking point starts: regs are much more common, table selection is advised. This limit and up keeps supernovas at their pace, so u should expect some heavy fighting. But yet again quite often u will find lot of fish or not so good regs. 3-5% roi should be achievable.

Thanks biogas, very helpful.

I guess rakeback matters a lot when you play these games, it certainly used to when I played, I think 40-50% of my profit came from Rakeback/Promotions etc.

I think I should put a lot of volume in to try and reach a good PS level (bronze, silver, etc whatever they're called).

Hi,
I generally agree with Biogas;
-if you played 4 years ago, be prepared to the fact the game changed a lot (i would use caps-lock to higlight the words "a lot" bud I dont like useing caps ), regs are much, much better, and imho, the difficulty of field on 7s-15s today is simmiliar to mid /highstakes in 2010.
-On 15s, you can still archieve decent roi (I personaly have over 7% on these games on 10k sample lifetime, and 11.7% if I count only 3k games which I played this year),
-esp on stars, the rakeback is no too important imo resp. reasonable rb is for SN+; you should first try to generate good profitability pre rb, and when you will be sure you are beting the game you can start grinding SN.

Hey MikeAK47,

If you were making between 40-50% of your profit from RB 4 years ago, then I would be very wary in today's game. Your game would need significant tightening up to even survive at lower limits then what you were playing before.

Da fish are now better educated and have access to more information through sites like ours. The only way to be a sure - fire winner is to study and keep up with the latest strategies.

As a matter of fact, I think playing STTs at $22 4 years ago, that current equivalent standard of play now would probably be equivalent to the $3.50s on Stars. Remember this game is evolving fast.

Regards

Laz

Thanks for the replies guys.

Don't know if you can get anything from this, bear in mind these stats are from 4 years ago...

That's the graph of me building my BR on FT, from $11 to $1628 using good BR management, I think I'd take shots at the next level at around 30-40 buyins, towards the end I was playing over-rolled because I enjoy being a BR nit.

While playing I'd study the game on this site and others, training vids, use SNG Wiz etc.

This was on FT when America was still allowed to play.

I'm just wondering whether it's even such a good idea to invest my time in studying STT strategy if the games are so tough these days, I could be investing my time learning more profitable games.

My RB was so high because at the time I had 27% RB and Full Tilt offered a REALLY good loyalty schecme (Iron Man I think), and I was getting the equivalent of around 50-60% RB.

I want to play poker seriously, I'm love studying the game, I'm hoping to be able to turn a decent profit while I'm at uni (start in a few months).

Hey MikeAK47,

These stats are pretty useless applied to to the game today. Not because of the stats themselves. But because the game has evolved so much in the last 4 years.

Edges are now much thinner and you can't have significant leaks. In the old glory days you could still have significant leaks and still make a profit.

These days you will be burnt by those leaks, so getting up to date with the latest strategies is paramount.

Regards

Laz

Hey MikeAK47,

I use chrome for a browser, and it will decide when I could view images and when I can't. It just decided to show your images and they are nice.

I still think you should probably start at $3.50s with a view to move up to $7s at the 1st available opportunity if your play holds up at $3.50s and you have the BR to move up to 7s.

Those figures are based on Playing at PokerStars, so if you are still at FT, I would suggest maybe doubling your BIs. Start at 7s with looking to move to $15s or equivalent if your game holds up.

Keep Studying

Laz

Thanks Laz,

I was building up a BR on FT from the 1000s on FTPs I made years ago, I've now moved that to PS (more traffic).

I think I'll play the $1.5 for a few days while reading up on some strategy just to get a feel for the game, then I'll jump up to the $3.5s.

Thanks for the help!

Awesome. I'm sure once you get back into the swing of things, you'll be jumping limits in no time. I look forward to seeing some awesome graphs in the blog that you will no doubt create to record those results.

Good Luck and crush

Laz

Actually... good idea.

I'll make a blog with PokerStrategy affiliate links all over the place ♦

Hi Mike,

I play the regular speed 9 man games on Poker Stars. I find them ridiculously soft up to the $15's. On occasion you might find some of the $15's regged up but generally they are easy money and some of the regs are terrible anyway.

I try to play most of my $15's after 6pm UK time in the week as most of the recreational players are at work until then. And obviously the weekends are great, Saturday and Sunday after 2pm UK time are softest from my experience.

Don't bother playing the anything lower than $3.50 because the rake is ridiculous even if the games are insanely soft you will be better off playing the $3.50's.

For bankroll it depends on your ROI.

For me personally:

$3.50's - 30 buy ins.
$7's - 40 buy ins.
$15's - 50 buy ins.

These bankrolls are based on my ROI which is relatively high because I focus more on quality over quantity so my variance is insanely low. My biggest down swing is <$200 in a 2k game sample.

The only thing to really focus on is your hourly rate. You have to find a balance between how many tables you play and the quality of your play and the point at which your hourly is maxed based on your skill.

For me this is usually sets of 12 which gives me 7.5 games an hour and my average profit is $1.70 a game so this yields $12.78 an hour pre rakeback.

Sometimes I'll play 15 sets but only if the games are softer than usual as this makes up for any mistakes I make due to fast decision making but with a 60 second time bank it's pretty sweet.

I would recommend sets over continuous play because this means you can hyper focus on the late game and bubble pawning due to having less tables. On average I'm usually left with seven games that go to bubble or later. Occasionally you will get what I call a "OMFG" set where you end up on 10 bubbles or further. Continuous is ok but taking a 20 minutes break away from your computer between each set is very important, fresh air, toilet break, drink/snack etc then a 5 min review of hands from previous set.

When I play continuous the quality of my play starts to drop after a while so that is why I prefer sets.

Woops long post!

Hope this helps.

If you need any more advice on reg speed games let me know.

PS: If you don't mind variance, turbo's are definitely beatable without game selection up to $7's. Game selection is recommended at $15's+. I can't offer much advice about these games since I haven't played enough.

On important thing I would like to note:

I see a lot of players that were huge winners in mid stakes pre Black Friday and are now not even decent winners in small stakes. I was a victim of this as I was a solid winner in $6.50 18 man turbos on Full Tilt pre BF and when I moved to Poker Stars I pretty much broke even over 3.5k $3.50 18 man turbos assuming I was just running bad.

So quoting the High Aldwin "Forget all you know, or think you know"

Haha basically I started from scratch and started beating the 9 mans.

It was easier for me to change format since I had never really learnt 9 mans before so no bad habits leaked through.