What are easier to play, SNGs or ring games on FTP. Only knowledgeable players please?

Question

if you wanna talk serious poker, you can reach me on aim at Cato988

Answer 1

Easily sit and go's.

The main reason is, you never know someone's bankroll that your playing against in a ring game. In a sit n go, it doesnt matter.

Here's what I mean, If you sit at a ring money table, and you play with the amount that you are possibly willing to lose.Lets be honest, no one sits down with all there bankroll cause you dont want to get busted. So you are playing pretty conservativly cause its for real money and you put your money in when the time is right.

Now heres the problem. They can out buy your skill. If you play smart, you could beat them once, you could beat them twice or 3,4,5 plus times. But, by not knowing there bankroll, they can rebuy continuously and eventually they will beat you.

And you are putting alot of money at stake on something that will come down to a lucky draw in the end.

If you play a sit and go, you are never jeopordizing any more money than the buy in. It is much easier to manage your bankroll.

If someone has millions of dollars, which most of us dont, and they sit at a low stakes ring table game just to have some fun. You know you have the best hand and go all in, is calling $40 a big deal to a high roller, absolutly not.

Look for an article by Chris Furguson through full tilt on his 0 to 10,000.

He went from zero dollars to 10,000 in a year just by freerolls and sit n gos and cheap tournys, no ring games.

Answer 2

They take the same level of skill, but a slightly different style of play.

Clearly a typical S&G is freezeout so when you are out of chips, you are out of the game.  In a ring game, if you get felted you can always reach back into your virtual pocket and rebuy.

The nice thing about a S&G however, is that you know up front exactly what you can win, and what you can lose.  Everyone starts on an even playing field as far as chips go.

The bad thing about a S&G, especially a turbo, is that the blinds progress such that there comes a point when you are forced to play weak hands in a coin flip or semi-coin flip situation.

In a cash game you can sit back and only play one hand an hour if that's what you want to do.

Honestly, I don't think there is an answer to your question.  But in either case always play well within your bankroll so you can withstand the swings that can happen from time to time.  Only promote yourself to higher stakes when you are certain that you are consistantly beating the stakes you are at.

Answer 3

I like them both, and I play them both.  They both take different approaches obviously.  The sngs on fulltill are not all the same either, they have single table sngs and multi table sngs, some of which have more people than some of the mtts.  

With that being said, I would rather play in some of the plo, stud or stud 8ob ring games for long term gains, they are some of the softer games on fulltilt imo. .  If you are familiar with games other than nlhe, fulltilt offers a world of ring games that are not so hard to beat.  Ironically, one of the softest games on there is the 3/6 stud high and I could not begin to tell you why that is other than I do real good in that one.  If you want to try something different, the razz games can be soft at times, however you can loose good there too...lol even if you are playing good tight razz. As for the nlhe ring games, don't worry about others bank rolls, I would actually prefer someone with more money than sense at my table, just look at them as an atm.

As for multi table tournaments, I play in the plo both hi and 8ob on saturday mornings.  I do real good there too, normally I cash in a couple of them and have won them at a rather high rate.  

I still play some online, but since the laws have changed in Florida, I tend to play in card rooms more than I do online lately (the card rooms, especially Monticello and Ebro are ate up with fish and folks who see themselves as the next Gus Hanson).

To answer your question though, I know folks who do nothing but play sngs, both online and live and do great, yet put them in a ring game.....they go bust, and the opposite holds true too.  A fine example is Phil Helmuth, he is a great tournament player, but from what I understand NO ONE respects him in a ring game and he does horrible when he plays in them.  If you are an aggresive player who can shift gears when needed I would probably say sngs are easier than a ring game because as you know, your blinds remain the same in ring games, but in sngs they climb and they climb fast plus if it is a single table sng, not only do they climb fast, you see them more often as folks are getting put out, so shifting gears is much more important in sngs than ring games and there are alot of people who don't know how to shift gears that play in sngs.  Good luck.

Answer 4

This is a hard question to answer, as the two types of games are so different.  

First consideration is buy-in.  Are we talking micro-limits or higher stakes tables and SNGs?  

Next is game-type.  NLHE is better played against people who don't know what they're doing.  In this case you can make a lot of money playing low buy in SNGs since lesser players figure they can lose less money.  Conversely, you're going to spend an hour to make a smallish amount of money assuming you win.  As the stakes go up of course the skill level increases.

A game like Omaha and esp. Omaha HiLo play better against people who actually know what they're doing.  (Less chance of overall horrible suckouts and hitting impossible hands.)  Thus you want to play at a higher level and hope you're not sitting among a bunch of the clueless masses.

SNGs overall are easier to play.  If you can survive a few insane early all-ins by the get rich quick crowd and play a tight and consistent game you can beat them pretty easily.

Table games, if you can play them well, will make you more money quicker.  However, since you're up against a more diverse and constantly changing group of players all playing at different skill levels, ring games are generally more difficult.  So it all really comes down to whether you're asking which is easier to make money at or which is easier to play.