Welcome to our SNG home here at livepokerforum. If you have any questions or would like some advice, please don't hesistate to start a new thread. Please follow a few simple steps first though:

1. Check through these list of frequently asked questions
2. Do a forum search, somebody may have asked the same question before you
3. Post away

What's the best site to play on?
This is a hard question to give an exact answer to as it can depend on your playing style, however if you want to play solid poker, pre-flop and post-flop, we like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. If you like fast-paced poker you could try the turbos at PokerStars or the speed tournaments at Party Poker.

How big should my bankroll be?
You should have at least 30 - 50 buyins at any level you play at. Even more if you want to be safe. It isn't uncommen to have out of the money streaks up to or even exceeding 10 finishes in a row.

What is this ROI everyone keeps talking about?
ROI stands for Return on Investment. Basically it is a numerical percetage used to figure out how much profit you are making per tournament. It's a good idea to keep track of what your ROI is and compare yours to other peoples, if yours isn't as high you might want to start looking at your game to see if you might find some leaks. If your ROI is huge (40%+) then it could simply be that you haven't played enough SNGs yet to get an accurate figure. Similarly, if your ROI is small, or even negative, and you think you've been playing very good poker and can't find anything wrong with your game, it could just be luck playing it's ever-so-annoying role.

How do I calculate my ROI?
Your Return on Investment is calculated by dividing your net profit by total paid to enter all tournaments.

ie, you have won a total of $1,000 in all of your SNGs. You paid $800 in entrance fees. Therefore your net profit is $200. To calculate your ROI it's 200 / 800 = 25%

What should me ROI % be?
As with all things poker-related - it depends. It depends on how many tables you're playing and the stakes you're playing it. Another thing to take into consideration is that a small sample size can unrealistically portray a skewed ROI. So what is a big enough sample size? Well the true answer is, as big as possible. A more tangible answer however is 500. After about 500 SNGs you can get a relatively decent idea of whether you're a winning or losing player, and if so, by what margins. Nevertheless, here are some guidelines as to what good ROIs are at respective levels.

$6s - 20%
$11s - 18%
$22s - 17%
$33s - 15%
$55s - 10%
$109s - 7%
$215s - 5%

Again, you can certainly achieve and sustain ROIs higher than these if you play 1 table at a time and put 100% into every SNG - which is what you should be doing if you wish to better yourself as a poker player. If you're multi-tabling it's still possible to achieve these ROIs, but you must be willing to pay attention to each game and if you can achieve these kind of numbers over a large sample size, you can consider yourself a very good player.

What is this ITM everyone keeps talking about?
ITM stands for "In the money", and it's basically a percentage number of the amount of times you're placing either 1st, 2nd or 3rd (for a 10-player tournament).

How do I calculate my ITM?
It's very simple. Just add up the total number of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes you have and divide that number by the total number of SNGs you've entered.

ie, Let's say you have the following results

1st - 4
2nd - 3
3rd - 6
4th - 6
5th - 5
6th - 3
7th - 2
8th - 1
9th - 0
10th- 1

4 + 3 + 6 = 13
4 + 3 + 6 + 6 + 5 +3 +2 +1 +0 +1 = 30

13 / 30 = 0.43

Therefore your ITM figure is 43%

What should my % ITM be?
Anything above 40% is good. Anything above 45% is great.

Can I post a question about a specific hand and ask advice about my play?
Sure, ask away! We won't bite and hopefully one of the seasoned players here will be able to give you some good feedback on your hand

Should I move up in limits?
That is entirely up to you, though here are a few guidelines to follow if you're thinking about moving up. You should be a consistent winner over a fairly large sample size at your current level (at least 200 SNGs at the low limits, i'd say at least 500+ at the higher limits). You should also make sure you have the bankroll requirements (see above).

How do you multi-table? Do you think I should start?
Again, it's up to you. If you're interested in getting better as a poker player and improving your game, playing 1 table at a time is the way to go. However if you want to make more money and move up in levels faster, you can, in time, play 2-4 tables at a time without losing TOO much quality in your gameplay and winrate, which should substantially increase your $/hr or $/tourney.

I sucks at heads-up play, i have wayyy more 2nds than 1sts, what im i doing wrong??
Well first of all, know that a LOT of HU play is luck-dependant. Nonetheless there are certain things you can do to push small edges and gain an advantage. Cactus Jack wrote an excellent post on HU play, you can find it here:

I've seen the Heads-Up Sit & Go's offered by some sites, are these worth playing?
These games are a bit different to your usual heads-up confrontations at the end of a SNG in that you will start with a lot of chips compared to the size of the blinds and there will be a lot of post-flop play involved - therefore it is always an advantage to the better player. Here is a good discussion on this topic:

Last updated 28/02/06

Note: This is only the first version. If you think there is anything that should be added, please let me know and i'll update it, also, if you think i've got something wrong in the FAQ let me know too and i'll fix it. Hopefully we'll soon be able to have a comprehensive and complete list of frequently asked questions so that anybody new to the forum won't have far to look to get answers

Don't know who stuck it, but thanks.

Good job, GL. Nice and we needed it. (Glad I didn't think of it, because I doubt I could have done as well.)

First real post in this forum, but I think your ROI numbers are WAY low, especially when you have good underlined. Maybe our understanding of "good" is different, but these aren't even close to good.

Lee