Bankroll management for SnG's

We already told you what the right Bankroll Managment is for cash games but of course you also need a Bankroll Managment when you are playing SNG's.
The goal like for every BRM is to have enough money available in case you are faced with a bigger downswing.

Buy-In

In SNG's you don't count your Bankroll with Blinds but with Buy-Ins. For example you are playing a $11 SNG and your bankroll is $550. So that makes $550 / $11 0 50 Buy-Ins.

ROI

First of all lets take a closer look how we calculate our margin long term. To express the margin of SNG's we use the term ROI (Return of Investment).
The ROI is a relative number, so that for the ROI is always shown as a percentage and its calculatet like this:

ROI% = ( Profit / (Buyin + Rake ) ) - 1

Example:
You play twenty $11 1-Table SnGs and you resulsts are 3x first place, 2x second place, 1x third place, 14x out of the money.

The Buy-In and Rake together for these 20 SnG's was 20*$11 = $220.
Your profit was 3*$50+2*$30+1*$20=$230

ROI% = ( $230 / $220 ) - 1 = 1.045 - 1 = 0.045 = 4.5%

So which ROI is possible on the different limits? To answer these questions we refer to a test made with a big sample size:

$11 SnGs 25% ROI
$22 SnGs 20% ROI
$33 SnGs 16% ROI
$55 SnGs 13% ROI
$109 SnGs 10% ROI
$215 SnGs 7% ROI

So but don't get that wrong. Of course you can only achieve a higher or lower ROI, depending on your skill level. Very good players will propbaly achieve a higher ROI while weaker players in general will achieve a lower ROI.

When should you start playing SnGs?

2 options but i strongly recommend the first one.

Start with the $11 SnGs

To start with the $11 SnGs i recommend every player a bankroll of 50 Buy-Ins. But when you already achieved a lot of experience with Texas Hold'em you can start with a smaller bankroll. You could start also with a bankroll of $400 (36 buy-ins). When your bankroll shrinks down to $200 you should switch back to cash games and only go back to SnGs when you again achieved the $400 mark.

Start with $3 and $6 SnGs

Why should I start with $11 SnGs, although there are $3 and $6 SnGs, you willl ask now. But the answer is easy, its because of the rake structure of these SnGs.
The $11 SnGs are $10 buy-in and $1 rake so the rake is 10% of the buy-in.
The $6 SnGs are $5 buy-in and $1 rake so the rake is already 20% of the buy-in.
The $3 SnGs are $2.40 buy-in and $0.60 rake so the rake is 25% of the buy in.

But everybody who wants to start with SnGs needs a bankroll of 50 buy-ins and that would be at least $150. You should go back to cash games as soon as your bankroll goes down to $80.

With $300 bankroll you can of course play the $6 SnGs (50 buy-ins). In case you should fall back to $150 you must go down to the $3 SnGs again.

With $400 dollar like in our example above you can switch to the $11 SnGs (about 36 buy-ins only but because of the rake structure this is not a big deal)

Rule: As soon as you only have 50 buy-ins left for the limit beneath your actual one then go down to the lower limit

because of the high rake structure at the $3 and $6 SnGs it takes some time to get up to the necessary $400, so patience is essential for this strategy.

When should you play which limit?

A very basic rule is the 50 buy-ins rule. So that means as soon as you have 50 buy-ins for the next limit you should move up and of course you have only 50 buy-ins left for the lower limit you should move down. A downswing where you loose 10 buy-ins is not a rareness.

So your roadmap for SnGs would be:

Move up to $22 SnGs with a bankroll of $1100
Move down to $11SnGs with a bankroll of $550

Move up to $33 SnGs with a bankroll of $1650
Move down to $22 SnGs with a bankroll of $1100

Move up to $55 SnGs with a bankroll of $2750
Move down to $33 SnGs with a bankroll of $1650

But actually the higher you get in the limits the more conservative your bankroll managment should get. So you should switch to a 70,80 or even 100 buy-ins rule once you are playing $33 or $55 SnGs.

When do i beat a limit regular?

It will happen that you win a lot of money within a short time just because of luck and you think you can beat the limit. But that is not true.

Lets say we are a winning player on $33 misfortune and we have ROI of 16%. Now we are playing 500 $33 SnGs. With a ROI of 16% with should have won about $2640. But actually it could be that we just played these 500 SnGs break even with a ROI of almost zero, but we could also have a ROI of 32% with almost $5000 profit just because of the typical mathematical deviation.

But that doesn't mean we have to play 2000 SnGs on every limit. Because of our content and the live coaching we can expect PokerStrategy members 'in general' to be much better then the regular player. Also because of our active bankroll managment the danger of going broke is not really that big as long as we are goind down a limit when we loose too much.