Coach Shawn

Hey RFC members,

            This month I would like to talk about a topic that is not discussed in great detail, but can be a great way to increase your overall weekly and monthly poker winnings. The subject is playing heads up SNG's (Sit n Go's). If you are like me then this is the area of your game that doesn't get as much practice since it only comes up at the end of an MTT or SNG tournaments, but may turn out to be the most profitable way for you to play poker. I have been experimenting with these heads up matches over the past few months with great results and positive ROI. The 4 main reasons why I find these so appealing are as follows:

1. They only take on average of about 10-15mins to play which translates into about 4-6 per hour. (Average of 5 per hour)
2. Always in action since you are playing almost 95% of your hands. (Great for loose players … no time to get board)
3. Rake is only 5% instead of the regular 10% on SNG's and MTT's
4. This is my favorite reason - You start off with a 50/50 chance of winning since you  only have to beat one player. This is a big difference from MTT's which is usually only paying top 10% and top 30% in single table SNG's.

Theoretically you would only need to win half of your matches (and you are starting out with a 50% chance) to break even. Unfortunately in the real poker world there is that nasty word called the RAKE which is a percentage the site takes to run the tournaments, so you actually lose a little bit if you only win half your matches. Obviously as you gain experience playing heads up you should definitely be able to improve on a 50% winning percentage. It is not uncommon to have a winning percentages of 70% or greater especially when you are playing in the lower buy in tournaments.

Now I would like to go through some of the numbers behind playing these Heads Up SNG's to truly show the potential profit that can be obtained once you become a successful heads up player. For simplicity, I will use a $10 +$.50 buy in levels, 100 SNG's played and an average of 5 matches per hour. The table below shows the profits at the different winning percentages:

i)    Games Played  - Pretty self explanatory. For this example we used 100 games

ii)   Win % - How often you win your heads up matches. 60% - 65% is realistic at this level, but with

      practice and experience you should be able to do better.

iii)  Wins - Games won

iv)  Losses - Games lost

v)   Rake - This is the percentage that the site takes to run the tournaments. For the heads up it's 5%

     100 SNG's X .50 = $50

vi)  Rake Back - For those that are not familiar with Rakeback , this is a percentage that a site will be

      willing to give you back on the total rake that you have paid each month. Newer sites seems to use

      this to entice new members to join. Standard rakeback is 30% which I have used above. If you do not

      have a rakeback program (Which I strongly recommend that you obtain) then you can remove .15

      from the SNG rate column.

vii)  Profit - It's the calculation of (Wins - Losses) X Buyin ($10) - Rake + Rakeback

viii) SNG/RATE - This is profit / Games played (100)

ix)   HR/RATE - The hourly rate is calculated by taking your SNG/RATE X 5 (Which is the average that can be played in an hour)

Now that you know how to read the columns you can see that at just a 55% winning percentage, you are actually showing profit. At a 65% winning you have an hourly rate of $13.25. If you were to play part time only 10 hrs per week that would be over $130. Not too bad for a part time hobby.

Let's see what happens at the $20 + $1 levels: 

What about $50 + $2.50?

One note that I would like to point out is that as you play the $50 and higher, the play tends to be a little bit better. So instead of a 65% - 70% , maybe you will be able to obtain a 60% winning percentage. If at 60% you will have an hourly rate of $41. At 10 hrs/week that over $400, at 20hrs/week that's over $800 etc …. I think you get my drift.

I hope that you have found this article to be useful and that it may have shed some light on the potential profits waiting for all of us at Heads Up SNG's. Once you can figure out what your winning % is over time you can easily calculate weekly and monthly earnings. If you want to make more then you can work on getting a better winning % or increasing levels.

If anyone has any questions, comments about this article or needs assistance getting set up with a good rakeback program then please email me at shawnrfccoach@yahoo.com. I am also available for  coaching sessions if you are looking to get some 1 on 1 focus on your SNG or Heads Up play. I can really help with bankroll management and set up a plan to have you on the winning path. These sessions can be purchased directly through the RFC site under the Standard Members section and 1-1 Coaching link. I look forward to hearing from you.

Shawn (BT323) - RFC Coach

"If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to Victory" - William Hazlitt