2 SNG Superstars 2012 (Part 2 - STTs)

Welcome to Part 2 of my look at how the top 5 SNG players stack up for the first four months of 2012 in a variety of different formats. This time I'll be looking at Single Table Tournaments. Use the link below if you missed Part 1.

Part 1 - HUSNGS
Part 2 - STTs
Part 3 - MTTSNGs

Whilst the Turbo 9-man STT was probably the 'original' SNG many years ago, it is gradually dying, and has been for a while. It has become somewhat of a solved game, and under the current rake structure, is barely beatable. The vast majority of high-stakes SNGs played these days are 6-max SNGs, although Hyperturbos have become very popular at the lower stakes since their introduction.

Turbo 6-Max SNGs

Buy-Ins available: $1.50 - $100

1500 Chips, 5 Minute Levels

1st  - WushuTM

WushuTM is Austrian Poker Pro Thomas Muhlocker. Muhlocker is actually more of an MTT and 6-Max Hyper Turbo SNG reg, but has managed to run rather well over a small sample in the high-stakes 6-Max Turbo's he has played this year, presumably with some table selection involved. 

Leaderboard stats on top (left graph), Lifetime stats beneath (right graph)

Muhlocker has earned ~$850k in profit across multiple sites, with his single biggest score being $84k for an outright victory in a $150 MTT on Full Tilt at the beginning of last year.

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Hyper-Turbo 6-Max SNGs

Buy-Ins available: $1.50 - $7,140

500 Chips, 2 or 3 Minute Levels

1st  - jellycz

No, you haven't read that wrong. I've double checked it. Twice. 'jellycz', who is Poker Pro Petr Jelenik from the Czech Republic (I did double check this too, I didn't just assume it from his screen-name), has played over 50,000 SNGs already this year. It perhaps won't surprise you that Jelenik is a Supernova Elite player, who last year played an enormous 114,000 SNGs in his quest to become SNE in 2011. Apparently he has managed to avoid burn out as he is on course to play even more than that this year.

 

Jelenik has also had reasonable success in the MTTs he has dabbled in, including a win in the $215 Sunday 2nd Chance tournament at the end of 2009 for $46k. When factoring in rakeback, Jelenik has made a about $300k on PokerStars. You can follow him on Twitter @jellycz.

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Turbo 9-Man SNGs

Buy-Ins available: $1.50 - $1,000

1500 Chips, 5 Minute Levels

1st  - tonkaaaa

Although from this chart alone it might not seem like it, 'tonkaaaa' has had an incredible 2012. tonkaaaa is Canadian Poker Pro Parker Talbot, and in mid-February he finished 2nd in the $215 Sunday Warm-Up for $88k. In the ~10 weeks since then he has doubled that in the MTTs and SNGs he has played.

Perhaps what makes this more impressive is that Talbot has only been playing professionally for a little less than a year. $300k for a years work doesn't sound too shabby to me! You can read more about Talbot's story, and success, by clicking here.

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Hyper-Turbo 9-Man SNGs

Buy-Ins available: $1.50 - $100

500 Chips, 2 Minute Levels

1st  - L.A.Ruseman

Perhaps a bit less glamorous of a leaderboard compared to some of the others, but it definitely includes some sick grinders, with almost 100,000 SNGs played between the top 5 in just four months, with a majority of those games being played at just the $7 level, as that is where most of the traffic lies in these games. Atop them all is Andrew "L.A. Ruseman" Russell. A former Double or Nothing grinder, it seems he has transitioned well into the 9-Man Hyper-Turbos, and has a very consistent graph to show for his efforts.

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Fifty50 SNGs

Buy-Ins available: $1.50 - $200

1500 Chips, 3 Minute Levels

1st  - ICANTSNG

Fifty50 SNGs are the bastard offspring of Double or Nothing SNGs, which were discontinued by PokerStars in February 2011 because of their susceptibility to collusion, as was evident when a Chinese cheating ring was uncovered to have stolen $750,000 from the Double or Nothing games. Fifty50's were a direct response by PokerStars to this, and rather than the top 5 out of 10 players doubling their money, half of the prizepool is distributed in relation to the number of chips a player finishes the SNG with.

ICANTSNG is the sick grinder in this category, playing over 25,000 games so far this year. ICANTSNG is from Australia, and achieved Supernova Elite status for the first time last year, and isn't too far behind pace to repeat that feat this year. SNE is worth $100k-$120k, and ICANTSNG seems to have found a somewhat variance free way of getting there, based on his results over his last 75,000 games.

Note:

*Leaderboards based on January 1st - April 30th 2012 results

*Players who block themselves on Sharkscope aren't included

1 SNG Superstars 2012 (Part 1 - HUSNGs)

Approximately at this time last year I did a blog post looking at how the Sharkscope leaderboards shaped up for each category of SNG on PokerStars. I thought I would do something similar this year, taking a look at  the first 4 months of the year so far. I'll be breaking it down into 3 separate posts:

Part 1 - HUSNGs

Part 2 - STTs

Part 3 - MTTSNGs

I'll post up a chart of the five biggest winners in each format, and then take a more in-depth look at the biggest winner.

First up then is HUSNGs, and there seems to be an incredible amount of money circulating in them.

The top 5 players alone have made a combined $450,000 in Turbo HUSNGs and an incredible $900,000 in Hyper-Turbo HUSNGs. It is evident that there has been a shift over to the Hyper Turbo format since they were introduced on PokerStars in July 2011, and a majority of the Top 20 players in the "Any Game, Any Stakes" list on Sharkscope are Hyper-Turbo HUSNG players.

Turbo Heads Up SNGs

Buy-Ins available: $1.50 - $5,000

1500 Chips, 3 Minute Levels

1st  - Adonis112

'Adonis112' is 31-year-old Poker Pro Olivier Busquet from New York. He is also well known as 'livb112' which was his Full Tilt username. One might surmise that Busquet is pretty good at poker. For a start he has won just shy of $3 million in SNGs and tournaments since he began playing in 2006, mostly in Heads Up SNGs.

Not only that, he has accrued just over $3 million in live cashes, including a victory in the 2009 WPT Borgata Poker Open for $925,000. Also, just a couple of months ago, he finished 2nd place in EPT Campione 2012 for €430,000. 

He's hasn't done too badly online this year either, as he is the biggest winner in the High Stakes Turbo HUSNGs this year. If you are interested in finding out more about Olivier Busquet, his website is here.

Hyper-Turbo Heads Up SNGs

Buy-Ins available: $1.50 - $1,000

500 Chips, 2 Minute Levels

1st  - Serkules

'Serkules' is a 23-year-old Poker-Pro based in Germany. Since September 2009 he has earned $1.25 million between his PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker accounts, mostly in Hyper Turbo HUSNGs.

2012 has also been rather kind to Serkules. Not only is he up $365k in the first 4 months of the year, he also chopped the $2k High Roller event 4-ways in the inaugural TCOOP in January 2012, worth ~$165k. You can read a little more about Serkules here.

*Bear in mind the leaderboards don't include anyone who has blocked their stats.

4 Sickest Sunday ever?! (stpauli111 wins 4 tournaments)

Scott Hall, better known as 'stpauli111', played 32 MTTs on PokerStars yesterday. He won four of them:

• The $215 Sunday Supersonic for $42k
• The Bigger $162 for $41k
• A $55 Rebuy for $24k
• A $200 Rebuy for $23k

Scott Hall

Hall is an American poker player from Arizona, currently residing in Spain. He has over $2.5 million in online winnings to his name, although I don't think I'm going out on too much of a limb by saying this is the first time he (or possibly anyone else for that matter) has binked four huge tournaments in one day!

Must be nice!

Congrats to Mr. Hall.

Edit: I have just discovered (thanks Amatay) that he also won the $100 Rebuy on PokerStars on Saturday for $16k. #runbetter 

5 The positive side of variance!

Variance is a funny thing. I went through 4 or 5 months of what seemed like continuous pain with no sign of reprieve. But apparently I've paid my dues, and I'm running really well recently. Overall I'm probably running to expectation, it just took 6 or 7 months to even itself out.

That is why getting frustrated with the short term in poker is so futile. Don't get me wrong, I get annoyed with the short term plenty (as you'll know if you read this blog regularly!), it's just generally a waste of energy.

The graph below shows the extremity of what I'm talking about. Okay, this graph includes all the turbo MTTs I have played (as well as SNGs) which are naturally high variance, and doesn't show rakeback, but still...

epitomised, All Games, PokerStars, Last 6 Months

It's very possible that I'm playing a whole lot better now than I was during the bad patch, as I really think success breeds confidence in poker. Obviously thought I'm not playing that much better, I'm just running hot as well.

PokerStars taking over FTP speculation
I'm eager to find out the reality of the possible PokerStars takeover of Full Tilt. I think if it were to happen it would probably be a good thing in general. It obviously would be for anybody with money on Full Tilt. The only downside I can think of is it diluting the player pool, but Full Tilt and PokerStars managed to run alongside each other perfectly well for a long time so I can't see that being a huge problem.

The thing is that PokerStars is almost perfect, certainly in terms of software. So it seems almost silly to have a slightly inferior (imo) software running alongside. They will probably end up improving everything though, so then potentially you just have two virtually identical poker sites, which seems a little silly. I'm also interested in how the VIP system might work. If PokerStars owns both sites, will they merge the VIP system somehow? At least if I'm not able to make it as a PokerStars Team Online Pro, maybe the chance is there to become an FTP Red (Spade?) Pro?! Although if PokerStars have any sense (which they obv do), I don't think we'll be seeing quite so many sponsored players on there!

It will certainly be interesting to see see how things play out...