Low limit SNG Real money players vs High limit SNG play money players?

Question

I have heard a few times that most high limit SNG play money players are better than low limit real money SNG players. I was wondering what other's opinions were on this, specifically at Full Tilt. How do players at 10,000 chip, 100,000 chip, 500,000 chip, and 1,000,000 chip buy-in sit-n-gos compare to $1, $2, $5 and up SNG players? Are they better, worse, or about the same? In what buy in bracket do you feel the play money players seem to equal or better the real money players?

BTW, please don't bother answering if you've never even sat at a 10,000 chip or higher player money table AND real money tables. I know in general that play money players are terrible at low and middle limits.

Answer 1

This is pretty funny cuz I just finished up a prop with a friend to get to 10,000,000 FT play chips first. I play for money there as well as stars.



$1 sng's have a lot of variance. One tourny may have people throwing money like there's no tomorrow, but another may be tight and solid poker, fighting a grueling battle for a couple hours just to make a buck.



The worst end, with the throwing money is worse than the 10,000 play chip, but this is an outlier. The other end of the spectrum is more heavily weighted and on average I would approximate the $1 sng's about the same as the 500k chip buy in.



As far as play chips go, the difference between 100k to 1M didn't seem significant. Players are in general more aware, but still exploitable. Moving to even the cheapest money games, players are on average, at that same level.



Fwiw, at $1 sng's I've finished in the money 54% of the time with an ROI of 20.30%.



Comparing that to my play chip, I would guess that I was in the money about 70% of the time. It doesn't require nearly as much "brain sweat" to make the money in play chips.

Answer 2

I think the strategy employed by the players at the high level play money tables is actually better than you usually see at the lower level s'n'g's. I routinely play single table s'n'g's on FT (anywhere from $6 to $20), and I play 1 or 3 dollar single table s'n'g's on Poker Stars. I only played for play money on Party Poker when I thought real money was illegal, but I still learned something. Generally the play money guys, by the time they're up to that level, have learned what works and what doesn't work. Their strategy is actually pretty sound. Then they start playing for real money, and because it's real money and they actually have something to lose they tighten up. They call with KQs in an unraised pot from the small blind instead of raising. They limp more. They try to bluff pots that make no sense. They basically forget everything they learned with the play money games because now there's no "reload chips" button. But when it means nothing to them they play with about the same skill level I'd see on a $10 table. Different sites are kinda funny that way. Low level single table s'n'g's on FT actually have some pretty good players, while the higher level guys often don't belong there. I have more success with $20 games than $10 games on FT. Pokerstars is exactly the opposite. ABC poker will let you cash 60% of the time at the $1-3 level, but get to $5 and above and the skill level increases exponentially. For FT most "big money" play chips players would do all right if they could keep from changing their game at the $10 level. That's easier said than done, of course.

Answer 3

There are 3 levels of play on-line.



Play money- mostly idiots who just jam every hand, with a few serious people who want to practice for free.



Low stakes- Fewer idiots, but still a lot of them. They generally only jam it all in with a pocket pair or A-x. The prevailing school of thought with them is "It's only $x" even though losing even $1 repeatedly adds up in a hurry. I saw one guy lose 10 straight pots by pushing all-in with garbage and when someone said something about donk play he said "it's only $1," forgetting that he lost $10 in less than a half hour. It's almost impossible to avoid losing a big pot to a complete suckout over the long term.



Bigger stakes- By this I mean $5 SNGs or higher. The donks aren't as sommon here, since losing several of these in a session can get really expensive. The bigger the buy-in/blinds, the fewer donkeys are present, but is almost always a few of them around to take money from. With 1-2 donks a table, you can focus on taking their money.

Answer 4

I can answer this question for Poker Stars. Since I rarely play for play money at Tilt.



The highest stakes play money tables on Stars is $80,000 buy in to the Sit and Go.



Personally, I find these players are about as good as players who play in $5 Sit and Gos.



Once you get over $10 buy in, the skill level gradually rises.



So if I had to guess, I'd say that if you are competing well at million dollar play money tournaments, you would probably do okay at $10 real money. So my answer is divide by 100,000 to get a reasonable comparison for real money. On Poker Stars, I'd say divide by 10,000.