6-Max SnGs

[deadlydaveLDN]

Due to recent changes in my circumstances, I have been unable to play much poker over the last few months, and pretty much never have time for long MTTs or cash game sessions. Therefore, I've just started to turn my attention to 6-max SnGs, a version of the game I've not really played much since I originally started playing poker. Obviously the game has moved on a lot in the last few years, ICM etc etc, and people always tell me that SnGs are as close to a solveable poker game as there is. I'll have a lot of questions for the SnG specialists in here as time goes by, but I'll just start off with a couple of simple questions. Bankroll I'm playing exclusively 6-max SnGs at the moment, where 1st place pays ~3.55x the buy in (inc. tourney fee), and 2nd place pays ~1.91x buy in. What should I be looking at as a bankroll, assuming I am not a losing player. ROI What kind of ROI would a good SnG player be looking to achieve in this kind of tournament. ICM Are SnGs now so advanced that by not looking into ICM I will get crushed?

[slapdash]

Re: 6-Max SnGs I guess I'm a SnG specialist in the sense that I'm less bad at them than I am at other formats. :$

Obviously the game has moved on a lot in the last few years, ICM etc etc, and people always tell me that SnGs are as close to a solveable poker game as there is.

I suspect this is vastly overstated. They're certainly far less complex because for a significant portion of the game they are almost entirely a preflop game, but (maybe because I'm a mathematician and have higher standards for what "solved" means) I think they're far from solved. In particular, I don't believe anybody really "knows" the right way to play them in the early levels.

Bankroll I'm playing exclusively 6-max SnGs at the moment, where 1st place pays ~3.55x the buy in (inc. tourney fee), and 2nd place pays ~1.91x buy in. What should I be looking at as a bankroll, assuming I am not a losing player.

It really depends on how much of an edge you have. If you could estimate what proportion of first and second places you'd get, then I could calculate your chance of bankruptcy for a given bankroll (assuming consistent play). At a guess, if you have a significant edge, then 20 buy-ins is probably reasonable if you're not extremely risk-averse. 6-max games games have slightly lower variance than 10-max.

ROI What kind of ROI would a good SnG player be looking to achieve in this kind of tournament.

Depends what level you play at, and what "good" means. At lower levels, I suspect +20% is attainable, and at higher levels I suspect +5% would be pretty good.

ICM Are SnGs now so advanced that by not looking into ICM I will get crushed?

At lower levels, no. At higher levels ... ICM adjusts pot-odds to take account of the pay-out structure. I don't know anything better, and I'm pretty sure that using ICM is better than any mortal's gut-feeling. My impression is that a lot of people put a bit too much faith in it ("it's scientific and complicated, so it must be right"), though. I'm not at all convinced that there's not a better formula. But in the absence of anything better, using ICM and a feeling (which I don't have) for situations where it's likely to be inaccurate is probably the best thing available at present. Also, and I'm not sure I could justify this, I suspect that knowing what ICM says would give less of an edge in 6-max than in 10-max games.