stiffer competition

[fakedecoy]

Has anyone found that FTP Turbo SNGs, from $6 to $33, since mid March have a lot better players lately? Feb to mid March I was doing 17% ROI and winning fairly consistently, but since mid March I've gone badly negative. There are still some donks, but the competition has gotten a lot more difficult on a consistent basis, with the blinds reaching higher before the bubble breaks. I find that if I make one mistake anymore, I'm out, whereas before I could make a lot of mistakes and play pretty sloppily and still make it in the money. Am I imagining things? Is it just me?

[taipan168]

Whilst it's not impossible that competition has gotten tougher, I'd say it's a sample size issue - it's very easy to run bad over a period of weeks or months. How many games did you play between Feb and mid-March, and how many did you play after mid-March?

[fakedecoy]

Actually, it was early April that things changed for me. That's when I peaked and went downhill. I didn't figure out the time frame right with the first post.

570 games 17% ROI
360 games -12% ROI

I thought I was just running bad for a while, but I may need to spend a couple hours examining my recent history to see what's happening. I'm not complaining, because I'm still up a lot from the first run and moved down in stakes from $33 to $6 as I noticed it wasn't going well. All 9 player and 6 player SNGs, so the variance shouldn't be crazy like larger tourneys. I've been tweaking my strategy every week or so as I learn more and I feel much better about my play, so given the results I have to wonder whether I've unlearned something good, like I was doing something better before but for the wrong reasons.

[taipan168]

Still too small a sample size to really draw any solid conclusions from. Quite possible to run bad for 1000+ games unfortunately.

Probably the best thing to do is to post some hands/tourneys and we'll take a look to see if any leaks have gotten into your game.

[Nakamura]

Yeah, 360 or 570 games is way, way too small a sample size. From a personal perspective, I have run bad by another whole order of magnitude!

Bad players often make similar plays to very good players, just for the wrong reasons. At some point mediocre players find the fold button, but find it a little too often IMO. In adjusting their game, weak-tight tendencies start to creep in along with the 'good' folds.

Pick a random tournament and post it. You won't learn much by picking a tournament you did 'well' in and posting it.

[Kijjo]

A 29% ROI difference sure feels like crap, I know. The thing is that 17% may very well be quite high for your actual play, meaning that you may have been running quite good which would inflate that #. Then you combine some running bad with the possibility of some frustration/tilty play (not saying you are, but it's likely at least a small factor), and all of a sudden you've got a pretty big gap.
Since these are single table games, I'd be interested in your ratio or first, second and thirds before and after the date you pick as the peak.

[fakedecoy]

Yes, running good and tilt could have something to do with it.

Here's the info -

17% ROI was 40% ITM
-11% ROI was 32% ITM

[Jack Sawyer]

bah, can't seem to come in better than 3rd for the past like 1K games.

bubble, bubble, 3rd, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, 3rd, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, etc.

it's humbling, really. and LOL to opponents being better, if they actually were, I'd stop playing.

[stardustakos]

I play the 11$ and the 22$ (at a four 11$ one 22$ ratio)SNG's at Party the last month and the competition is fairly light.

In EVERY game, one or two bad spewy players are doubling up, 2-3 regulars are holding to late game along with some weak tight short stacks. I am most of the time last 5.

Late game is the key, bad players don't know how to shove or properly call and it takes constant concentration to succed. You cannot make a mistake at this point, it doesn't have to do with competition when you have eg round 3,500 stack a weak tight player with 1400 shoves and because you are not paying attention you call w K8o, crippling your stack the time you need it the most.

Now mistakes like this in combination with running bad (like Kijjo said), drops your ROI significately.
Being a beginner, I am still struggling with mistakes let alone I am running bad from the beginning of the year.

A solution that worked for me is playing only two tables at a time and paying attention to all the players at all times, trying to exploit their tendencies. I know that you heard all this before, but for us beginners , that our late game is not solid yet, it is important to pay attention and always study at least the same amount of time we are playing.