I'm not a MTT player but follow the WSOP every year and the big stories are always stories like Ivey winning his 10th bracelet or so and so winning their Nth bracelet.

It got me thinking, why aren't they keeping stats like:

Number of cashes divided by events entered
Number of final tables/events entered
Number of bracelets/events entered

I'd think those stats would carry more weight and give a better indicator of a pro's skill than just tracking bracelets, final tables, and cashes.

Good post.

It would be bad for the game to see that some of the "winningest" players of all time are actually lifetime losing gamblers, so i'd say that's the biggest reason why this information is not reported.

What sounds better?

TJ Cloutier...with over $10,000,000 in tournament winnings.

OR

TJ Cloutier...lifetime -$1,000,000 tournament loser now dumping his social security checks playing $100 tournaments.

I always laugh when players are on TV and they are announced along with their "winnings" since their "winnings" sometimes have no relation to whether they are up or down.

It would be nice if businesses could track earnings like poker players do. A business could generate $1,000,000 in a year and have $800,000 in expenses for a $200,000 profit, but if this business were tracked via the poker world, you would say the business "earned" $1,000,000 that year.

OP: I mentioned almost the exact same thing you did (a need for a ratio of cashes/entries) on another forum just yesterday.

a) It's a lot of extra bookkeeping work for no extra reward

b) It would be bad advertising overall because the "juice" charged in tournies generally crushes most players (probably not all players, for sure)



BONUS: c) There are roughly 8 Hong Kong dollars to the US Dollar. If the poker marketers could get away with it they would report the tourney wins in Hong Kong dollars to bring in more fresh fish

I agree with what other people have said but I would also like to add, it is really no one's business whether someone is winning or losing money playing poker.

It also goes against the history of gambling in general. Some card rooms still mostly use initials and not names to call players, until camera phones you would get mobbed by security for taking a picture, etc.

This would be different if the prize pool wasn't put up entirely by the players, then you could make a case for it

That's an interesting statement: Would this mean we should hide big tournament scores from public scrutiny, too? If we did this it would mean poker being played in shady backrooms like they once were with no information about anything going on.

PERFECT POKER MARKETING STRATEGY:

a) Make big wins very public, to encourage people that it can be done.
b) Make losing entries private, to obviate the shame and embarrassment at being a loser at poker so the player can chase the dream without feeling bad about it
c) Avid bracelet hunters are Caesar's Entertainment's best friends (prized revenue workhorses)

You bring up a good point regarding hiding tournament wins. Since that isn't possible, or even wanted in most cases, I should refine my statement to say, "it isn't anyone's business how much someone is losing playing poker".

And yes, it works out pretty well for the casinos.

This is basically how the GPI/Hendon Mob and the poker media already works. If the GPI listed buy-ins and/or ROI, then we'd probably find out that at least 25% of the "top 300" tourney players have actually lost money in the last 2 years.

Arty: You may be right about the 25%+ figure, but without accurate buy-in numbers it's impossible to tell for sure...

Apart from a couple of years ago, WSOP don't publish an entrants list.
That's why.
/end thread