Profit Calculations and Strategy Adjustments for Sit n Go Multi-Tablers.

We will look at some of the issues involved in Multi-tabling Sit n Go Tournaments. Here we will cover ROI issues and strategy adjustments. and more practical questions of whether to Tile or Cascade your tables and playing in 'sets' or 'continually'.

Let us begin with an important concept - it is not possible to make a decent profit playing SNGs unless you multi-table! Think about it this way, a fantastic player at the $20 level with a 20% ROI – and an average game length of 40 minutes. Single-Tabling this player can expect to make an average of $6 per hour... This is fine for the recreational player who is having fun and making a little profit along the way. But for those wanting to use SNGs to build a poker bankroll it is probably not enough.

Of course adding more tables will usually reduce the ROI for each game played – while at the same time the hourly profit will increase. The question is what is the ratio? How much does each additional table remove from your profit?

Jennifear, an online pro and regular poster on Pocket 5’s came up with a figure that makes sense - 8%, not from your overall ROI though - of your total profit figure. That is 8% of your $4 profit per game per extra table, the next table taking another 8% from your $3.86 and so on. I will list the numbers and see how it works with our experience / expectations, assuming 1 game = 40 minutes.


1 Table - $4.00 per game - 1.5 games per hour = $6
2 Tables - $3.86 per game - 3 games per hour = $11.04
3 Tables - $3.38 per game - 4.5 games per hour = $15.21
4 Tables - $3.10 per game - 6 games per hour = $18.60
5 Tables - $2.85 per game - 7.5 games per hour = $21.37
6 Tables - $2.62 per game - 9 games per hour = $23.58
It seems to work - notice that by the time we get to 6 tables the original 20% ROI has gone down to a little over 10% (ignored the rake here to keep the numbers simple). This would seem to account well for the lesser amount of reads / time to make decisions that multi-tabling involves.

Of course, there is no need to stop at 6 - while some forum posters seem to base their self-esteem on the number of tables they can play we will look at it from a profit / loss perspective only though!!

Now, 6 early game situations are far easier to deal with than 6 bubbles right? You'll be folding, folding and then folding some more... but the key strategy perspective for multi-table SNG players is this:
You will not always get the time to make decisions that you would like - you need a plan!
What kind of plan? OK, we will look at the various stages...

Early - Since you'll have less time to make good post-flop decisions you'd better cut any marginally profitable hands from your pre-flop range, the profit from these may well rely on hand reading, which you are not going to be in a good position to do! Suggestion is to know in advance which hands you will play from which positions.

Middle - One good aspect of multi-tabling is that it forces you to play extra-tight early, so you may well have a little fold equity by now. Again though you are looking to keep those decisions as simple as possible, a great example of this is that small pairs play better than unpaired high cards... you get immediate feedback on the flop (either hit a set or did not).

Late to Bubble - Probably going to find yourself in push / fold mode sooner when multi-tabling (again you want easy decisions). Revisit your ICM Calculator and work out the numbers for BB200 for example. Since you will have less time to accurately put opponents on ranges then err on the side of caution at first - assign 'average to loose' for opponents until you have evidence to suggest otherwise.

KEY PARTS:
1 STACK SIZE
2 POSISTION
3 CARDS
4 CHIP CONSERVATION

OPEN SHOVE VERY INPORTANT, ALSO PAIRS HAVE QUITY 4.1 AND TARGET YOUR AVERAGE STACKS NOT YOUR SMAL STACKS.