I don't generally post strategy advice on my blog since it would effect my win rate negatively. However, what I can do is give advice/stats on things such as variance and table selection. That's what I'm going to do in this entry since 95%+ of poker players seem to be pretty clueless in these areas. It will be long but if you read the whole entry & use it correctly it will probably be the most useful blog entry I've ever made.Let's start with variance since it kind of tied into table selection. We'll start w/ some stats that I've posted on my blog numerous times already:After 500 games you're 50% likely to be within 5% of your true ROIAfter 1,000 games you're 67% likely to be within 5% of your true ROIAfter 3,000 games you're 90% likely to be within 5% of your true ROIAs you can see, these samples don't tell you a whole lot. 5% 1 way or the other can be the difference between being a winning player or a losing player at the high stakes games these days.If your true ROI is 5% and you play 1,000 SNGs, your ROI can range from -8% to 25%. Only around 1/5th to 1/4th of the time when you play 1,000 SNGs will your ROI actually come within 1% of your true ROI. In over 10% of a 5% players' 1,000 game sessions they will experience a negative ROI. In about 1/7th of 1,000 game sessions you will experience an ROI that is more than double your true ROI. Your ROI can be 3 to 4x your true ROI over 1,000 games. In over 10% of sessions a 5% player will experience a 60 buy-in or greater downswing. The vast majority of 1,000 game sessions (90% or so) will contain a downswing of at least 25 buy-ins.Although very rare, downswings can be as big as 300+ buy-ins for a 5% ROI player.After playing 18,000 games, your ROI can be as much as 50% off your true ROI. For example, if your ROI over 18,000 games was 10% then your true ROI could range anywhere from 5% to 15%. Now I'm not saying this is likely, but it can happen, & it should be pretty eye opening for you guys. I've seen players run at 5-6% over 20,000 games, only to break-even or lose over their next 20,000 games. Now part of this was that the games got a lot tougher & they didn't stay ahead of the curve, but you get the point.Now that you're educated in variance, let's move on to table selection. A recent study was done to see how winning players effect your ROI. Here's how much each type of player lowers your ROI when they sit in your game:Good player: -4.5%Decent player: -2.8%Barely winning player: -2%We'll assume we play $100 SNGs, in general I'd say each type of player would have the following ROI range:Good player: 5%+, maybe 4%Decent player: 2-3%, maybe 4%Barely winning player: 1%Now you need to use judgement in assessing ROIs. For one, there's good players who practice poor table selection. They might have a 2% ROI at $100s, but actually lower your ROI 4.5%. We'll assess some stats/player types & I'll tell you how I think they would effect my ROI in a $100 turbo:Player 1: 10,000 games, $250 avg. stake, 3% ROI....Without knowing how they play I'd probably assume he lowers my ROI 4.5%...although his ROI is only 3% he has a higher avg. stakePlayer 2: 500 games, $100 avg. stake, 6% ROI, has numerous glaring leaks....this player might even be a losing player, depending on how bad those leaks are, but you don't want to give your opponents too little of credit....despite the ROI, he has a small sample size & glaring leaks...I'd put him as a 2% ROI dropperPlayer 3: 15,000 games, $50 avg. stake, 5% ROI.....this player has a pretty decent sample size, but his downside is his average stake, his ROI in $100s is probably closer to 2-3%, so I'd assume he drops my ROI 2.8%Player 4: 10,000 games, $65 avg. stake, 8% ROI....he has a decent sample, his avg. stake is lower again, but his ROI is high enough where I'd probably assume he drops my ROI 4.5% until he shows me otherwisePlater 5: 20,000 games, $100 avg. stake, 6% ROI, regular speed SNG regular, seems to have leaks in turbos....despite this players' high ROI at $100s, he plays primarily regular speeds, where you can usually get at least 1 to 2 percentage points higher in ROI, if not a lot more....many of these players also usually have a large portion of their sample size being from when games are much softer, since regular speed SNGs don't fill very well & they can't play that many per year....because of all this I'd assume he drops my ROI 2.8%, rather than the 4.5% that his stats suggestPlayer 6: 25,000 games, $150 avg. stake, 2% ROI, high stakes regular, seems to register for any game without looking at the lobby, has a solid understand of SNG strategy & you rarely seem him make a mistake....this player doesn't have the stats to make him a 4.5% dropper, but he does have the game...it's pretty likely that his poor table selection has significantly lowered his ROI...if he read this blog entry maybe he'd boost that ROI up to the 4-6% range....I'd assume he drops my ROI 4.5%Player 7: 20,000 games $20 avg. stake, 12% ROI....many people will make the mistake of underrating this player because of his avg. stake...don't make that same mistake...spacegravy & sizzlinbetta went from being low stakes players to 2 of the best SNG players around within a year...his ROI is high enough to garner a lot of respect, despite the low avg. stake....I think 4.5% might be a little too high since it usually takes low stakes players some time to adjust to the high stakes, however, I think 2.8% might be a little too low...somewhere in the middle like 3.6 might be most appopriatePlayer 8: 10,000 games, $78 avg. stake, 32% ROI...however, through an advanced search you see that his 6-10 seated stats are 1,000 games, $100 avg. stake, 1% ROI....Despite his low 6 man stats it's also over a very small sample & it's pretty clear this player understands poker concepts pretty well & probably crushes MTT SNGs, many of the same concepts can be applied to single table SNGs...I'd give him the benefit of the doubt & assume he drops my ROi at least 2.8%.Ok you get the point, the next thing we need to realize is that some of these players are already in our games. Therefore, if we have a 5% ROI then a decent player doesn't automatically make our ROI only 2.2%. What we need to do is find our base ROI, which is basically our ROI against only break-even & losing players. One thing you need to realize is that in this day & age even the break-even & losing players aren't all that bad, at least at the high stakes. One way of figuring this out is doing an advanced search (for ex. a particular month) & keeping a tally on how many of each particular player is in your game on average. If you really want to go in depth you can do an advanced search on each month of last year, since the toughness of the games is different at particular times of the year. However, that can be very time consuming. If you don't want to take that time you should find an average time like August or September. This will ensure that the games aren't overly tough like the beginning & end of the year (at least on pokerstars w/ many elite grinders) or particularly easy like June & July when many top players are grinding WSOP events. Personally, I just went through 50 games in August & figured that was close enough. Nothing is going to be exact anyway. Let's say you tally your 50 games & you have 20 4.5% droppers, 50 2.8% droppers, & 30 2% droppers. You would take 0.4 (20/50) x 4.5 + 2.8 + 0.6 x 2 & get a total of 5.8. You would then add that to your ROI to get your base ROI. Personally, I analyzed my Pokerstars games in which I had a 5% ROI last year. My base ROI came out to be 8.56%. If you practice reasonable table selection at $100+ & are too lazy to go through the calculations then you could just add 3.56 to your ROI to get your base ROI. As I've said, nothing is exact & it's all just an estimation anyway. However, it's going to be pretty damn close, & about as close as you can get. Another thing you need to do is factor in sample size & what you've learned about variance when using your "true ROI" to calculate your base ROI. If you play $78 turbos, your true ROI is likely not higher than 8%, no matter what your stats are. If you play $100-200 turbos then your true ROI is likely not higher than 5-6%, no matter what your stats say. If you play $300+ turbos your true ROi is likely not higher than 4%, no matter what your stats say. If you didn't table select well in the past then those #s should be even lower. If you play on a softer site then you MIGHT be able to get 1 to 2% points higher.The next thing you need to do is calculate the profitability of different games. I prefer to make table selection charts, with the most profitable games at the top & the least profitable at the bottom. Even with rakeback, I prefer to never play a game in which I have a negative ROI (except on Cake because my rakeback is so high because of my deal). This is because you can pretty much always find a game with similar profitability that will have much less variance. When calculating the profitability of each game you also need to factor in how long each game takes. To get the base profit per game you just take the ROI x the buy-in & then add rakeback. Now you factor in how much time it takes. In general, for 10 minute levels you should multiply this # by 1.2. For 5 minute blind levels, multiply it by about 1.5. For super turbos w 2 minute level, multiply it by around 3. You can't just assume that a game with half the blind level time will take half as long. This is because these games usually go into higher blind levels than the ones w 5-10 minute levels. You will probably be much better off using these #s than trying to figure something out on your own. Now let's look at some #s I estimate my rakeback on FTP to be about 33.5%. I get 28% base rakeback + leaderboard bonuses.$236 turbo: 2 2.8% droppers, 1 2% dropper, 2 losing/break-even players (0.96% ROI, 8.56 - 2.8, -2.8, -2)0.0096 x 236 =$2.27 0.335 x $16 rake = $5.36($5.36+$2.27=$7.63 x 1.5 = $11.45 profitability)$119 turbo: 1 4.5% dropper, 4 losing players (4.06% ROI)0.0406 x 119 = $4.83 0.335 x $9 rake = $3.02 ($4.83+$3.02 = $7.85 x 1.5 = $11.78 profitability)As you can see, despite being almost half the buy-in, the $119 is actually more profitable. This difference is not abnormal, & there's many games w/ a lot bigger differences.Let's look at some more:$555, 1 4.5% dropper, 2 2.8% droppers (-1.54% ROI)-0.0154 x 555 = -$8.55 .335 x 30 = $10.05 ($10.05-$8.55 = $1.5 x 1.5=$2.25 profitability)$60, 1 2.8% dropper, 1 2% dropper (3.76% ROI)0.0376 x $60 = $2.26 0.335 x $5 = $1.68 ($2.26+$1.68=$3.94 x 1.5=$5.91 profitabilty)Despite being over 9x the buy-in, you would need to play more than 2 of the $555s just to match the profitability of the $60!!!!!!Hopefully this is very eye opening from some of you & will open up your mind. These days more than ever, I see a lot of good players basically throwing money away by registering for high stakes games that just don't have a shot of matching the profitability of lower stakes games. I even see good players in games where they won't profit after rakeback long run. That's pretty stupid imo. It's time to put the ego aside & try to maximize your proftability. Ignoring table selection is completely ignorant & hurts everybody, not just you. These calculations should also show you just how bad people overrate supernova elite. I see numerous players lose mounds of money at high stakes just to get supernova elite, when they would do much better for themself if they just table selected over numerous stakes, mixing in a lot of medium stakes games. Not only is it a lot more profitable, but it also leads to much less swings, which in turn lead to less stress & just an overall better quality of life.Ok, now that the instructional portion of this blof entry is over, let me give you a little update.I went on a $45K downswing. Most of it was just bad variance, particularely at $500+ where I'm down over $25K this year (over $11K in just 22 $1Ks & $2Ks). However, there were other factors. One big factor was figuring out who is good on FTP. There's always a transition phase when starting on a new site. You have to get good reads, not only to figure out how to play against those players in game, but to know which games to avoid when table selecting. Because of this, & some new players on other sites, I was in a lot of games that were -EV or very low ROI games that I would not have played if I knew this. The games right now are tougher than ever. I suspect the economy has had some effect on this. Numerous other top players started off the year on big downswings (DDBeast, Kenny05, Sparta45, & BigJoe2003 just to name a few). Some have since recovered, & others are still struggling. When games are this tough you're going to see shrinking hourly rates & increasing variance. That's just something you have to deal with. I did some research on how much tougher the games are. Last year I usually had about 50% of my opponents be winning players. So far this year it's been more like 67% winning players. Not only that but the winning players in the games are much more comprised of the 4.5% & 2.8% droppers rather than the 2% droppers. Another thing that negatively effected me was I was getting cheated in high stakes games on Pokerstars. I ended up getting a $7,200 collusion credit, which I listed under rakeback/bonuses.Prior to the 16th of February I did all of the calculations I listed above. I then made a new table selection chart, factoring in how tough the high stakes games have gotten. I have since been mixing in a lot more medium stakes games, & been careful about registering too early & staying in when tough players enter, since too often some ignorant good player registers 5th/6th making the game not even worth playing. I started using sharkscope hud on FTP & it's been a huge help. Since then I've had better results (sharkscope is missing $8-10K profit during this time). That said, I'm not sure what kind of hourly rate is possible anymore. Last year I averaged about $300/hr. When you factor in variance, my true hourly rate was probably somewhere between $225 & $375 for the year. If I could sustain $300/hr I'd be pretty happy. Maybe I can attain upwards toward $400/hr, & maybe I can only attain in the lower $200s. Only time will tell. Either way, I'll make a pretty good living. The games could become easier. Some of the elite grinders may get burnt out. Maybe variance will take its toll on some the ignorant non table selecting mediocre high stakes players currently running like Gods & they'll have to drop down. Maybe they'll be too ignorant to drop down & go busto. On the other end, maybe people will continue to lose their jobs & the average casual gambler will be seen less frequent online. Maybe players will continue to get better & better & the games will only get tougher. Nobody knows. What I do know is that you have to be a lot smarter about table selection to make good money at SNGs these days. If I had waited til a month into the year to make my 09 goals I probably would have not made them so steep. I suspected that the games would get tougher after many of good high stakes grinders returned from the PCA, but I could not have predicted that the effect would be this bad. Time will tell if my goals are attainable. I usually end up adjusting goals throughout the year anyway. No SNGs are not dead, you just need to use your brain & put your ego aside.Since the 16th I started a new tab in my excel spreadsheet. This is because my selection of games is completely different & I'd like my hourly rate to reflect the games I'm currently playing, rather than the games I was playing. My latest stint into the $1K+ was also pretty short lived. Every time I start playing them again I remember why I quit them to begin with. If you ever run normal in them they can be very profitable, but I just don't think they're worth the variance. This is especially true since my bankroll is dispursed over 4 sites. Even if I keep 100 times my average buy-in on each site I can still go bust on any given site w/ 1 bad run in $1K+. That's pretty absurd. Sure I could keep more on each site, but I think my money is much better off being invested than sitting in some offshore poker account just so I can play 3 $1K+ a day & bubble every one to a 2 outer while trying to stay sane.I'm 90% sure that HappyLucky on Cake is River Prayer/LuckBoxFromHell. They usually sign in at the same time, they play similar, they're both from San Fran, & neither chats. Either way, he's starting off 09 on 1 hell of a heater.Recently 1 of the good players on FTP (Good Night Baby) asked me why I think top Pokerstars players are struggling on FTP. He pointed out myself, Kenny, & sizzlinbetta, Little Kraut. It was a pretty absurd question imo. The numer one reason is variance. None of us have big samples. The 2nd biggest reason is probably what I talked about above. When you move to a new site there's an adjustment period in getting reads to play optimally & table select optimally. Third, overall we aren't even struggling. Kenny is crushing. DDBeast is doing pretty good. I'm break-even. Little Kraut played a lot of tough games, many of which were probably -EV & lsot the majority of his money at the highest stakes. I'm not sure how sizzlinbetta is doing but you get the point. Also, FTP is a lot tougher than it used to be. All of our samples are comprised of the new tougher FTP games, whereas old FTP regs have much of their sample comprised of the softer games, making their ROI look much better then what they could actually sustain in the current state of FTP SNGs.Results:Month of February 2009:$160.07 hrs playedSNG Profit: $(32,330.32)Rakeback/Bonuses: $31,374.22Total Profit From Playing: -$956.10Staking: $4,900.00Total Monthly Profit: $3,943.90Year of 2009:319.84 hrs playedSNG Profit: -$7,847.67Rakeback/Bonuses: $65,924.51Total Profit From Playing: $58,076.84Staking: $9,720.00Total Yearly Profit: $67,796.84