I've mentioned a few times that I wrote a program that takes my online tourney stats and applies them to Live Tournaments to determine what my winrate would be and if the tournament is worth my while to play.

Unfortunately, the only way to run that program is to have the host software (Labview) which 99.9% of people do not have. Well, I promised a few of you guys a while ago that I would get around to making a spreadsheet version of it.

Well, it took a lot longer than I thought but I finally finished an Excel version of it. I loaded it on Google Drive and you can/should be able to access it and download it using the below link. DON'T try to use it with Google View. That is garbage, you have to download it and run it in Excel for it to work properly.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Byuo...it?usp=sharing

On the top left of the screen click "File" and then scroll down to "Download" and Download the Excel file. It is an Excel 2007 file.

It was a pain in the ass trying to find a free hosting site such that you can just click a link and download without having to load the site's software. If you know of any friendly hosting sites then by all means feel free post the file on there and post a link here to the site/file.

To my knowledge, I'm not sure if anyone has put together a program that will tell you what your live tourney winrate would be if you were reasonably confident of your stats. At the very least the program will show you what you need to be in order to be profitable. You can also play around with it to see just how sensitive long term tourney winrates are to inputs.

Lastly, feel free to send the file to anyone. Its my hope the poker community finds it very useful. If/when you take a look at the program, you will see it is very comprehensive. I tend to go a bit overboard when I work on a project

NOTE: If you click on the "red" download box it doesn't work. You have to go to the FILE tab on the top left of the screen, then scroll down to download and that works

Very nice thank you.

I've stickied this for a while because we do have readers who play tournaments. There's a permanent link in the permanent strategy guide sticky.

Wow... This is going to take some time working through to fully understand all of it. Thanks!

One quick question:

You mentioned before that you had some algorithm that would take your (i presume live) cash game winrate and compare it to a given tourney prize pool and buyin and assess if the tourney is worth your while.

Is that in here? After a quick look, I'm not sure I see it.

(Ignore this post if it is. I'll eventually find it.)

It depends. If you are what I call a Level 1 user, it will take NO TIME. You simply plug and chug.

But if you are what I call a Level 2 user, then yes, it will take you a little bit of time to understand the calculator.

Yeah, THE WINRATE CALCULATOR IS THE ALGORITHM and pretty damn comprehensive if I do say so myself. Basically, my first approximation was to use an algorithm. Unfortunately, algorithms only provide very "narrow" regions that are accurate.

However, if I compile various algorithms and formulas and then mix and match them with various data in spreadsheet form and put them altogether then I get algorithm/database kinda hybrid that is very accurate against a wide region of tournaments from smaller $100 tourneys to $10k tourneys.

So I put all my logic, assumptions, formulas, etc in the calculator. Basically, the calculator works on two levels.

Level 1) Users who just want to plug and chug and get an output: For these users (which should be 95% of users) they only need to use the main calculator page/worksheet titled Winrate or click on any of the hyper links that say "calculator" Then they just plug in all their inputs in the gray cells that aren't write protected and the calculator will spit out a theoretical winrate.



Also, for Level 1) users there is a worksheet/Tab titled "How to Use" on the bottom left corner of the worksheet which provides instructions if the front face isn't intuitive enough...

Level 2) For more advanced users who want to understand the logic, assumptions, formula, etc... These users can look at all the red comments on each input and category in each tab/worksheet and then finally look at the tab/worksheet titled "Assumptions and Formulas" and that should pretty much provide a comprehensive in depth treatment of how the calculator works.

I tried to make the calculator as user friendly as possible. Simply plug in your best guess for all your stats, enter tournament details like # of players, entry fees, round duration, etc and in some categories I provide recommended entries and drop down menus you select from when you click on the cell... and the calculator will spit out the winrate on the bottom.

On the right of the calculator is a bunch of stats that may interest the user such as payouts and tournament duration which will be within 10% of actual.

Lastly, I designed this to work for pretty much all tourneys from your local B&M fast structure 20 minute tourneys to the WSOP $1.5k to the WPT $4k to the WSOP $10k...

Go nuts, have fun, and you will see that for most of us, the smaller B&M tourneys for $100 - $200 is not worth our time UNLESS we are just a beast in these tourneys with an ITM% of 20% and we make Top 3 final table like 25% of the time. Then for those monsters, sure, play the smaller tourneys. But for the rest of us mere mortals who are winning tourney players, you see that your normal cash game winrate will be double to triple to quadruple what it would be vs the smaller tourneys.

Also, the model shows you just how "sensitive" tournament winrates are. Its amazing how the difference in a couple of percentage points here are there can seriously impact your longterm tournament profitability. Which basically means you really have to be "good" to be a longterm tourney winner because that game is definitely one in which every small edge makes a dramatic difference...

I'm curious as to how the field size super affects the $/hr, it looks like we need large fields to overcome the high rake?

It looks like there is no way to have a positive $/hr in a 100 person size MTT.

It depends on the size of the rake as relates to the tournament entry fee. When you are talking about those $100 or less tournaments in which the vig is $20, then yeah, you can have super awesome stats and you are looking at a winrate of like $5/hr - $10/hr even with awesome stats.

Basically, the calculator shows that if you are going to be playing tournaments, you really want to be playing 150+ field tourneys where you have good stats and thus a big edge vs your field. Basically, if you are really good then your edge can make up a lot in the way of smaller fields... but only to a point.

And for the most part, $100 or $150 tournaments with fields of 150 people or less just are not worth it. And when you are talking about smaller buy-in like $80 or $60 in which the vig is STILL $15 or $20 its just criminally insane to play those tournaments!!!!

Yuck...

I found a very small slight error in the calculator when calculating winrates for 91 - 120 people. Nothing major, but I'm a perfectionist with these sorts of things. I fixed the bug and also did a slight tweak to the duration algorithm. I posted the newer spreadsheet named "Dgi Tournament Winrate Calculator v2.xlsx" . You know you have the correct version when if you enter field size of 91 - 120 people the pay out average for Early, Middle, and Late have no gaps. The mistake I found was a "gap" in the Late average (which doesn't impact the winrate at all). Like I said it was a minor error but it bugged me.

here is the link

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Byuo...it?usp=sharing

same instructions. Click the "FILE" tab on the top left of the screen then scroll down and select download.

I will also send the link to a mod and ask them to swap out the link in my first post with the above new link

I just wanted to correct this post somewhat. It's all relative. If you have awesome stats and a super soft field then it could be worth it to play 100 person tourneys that are $100 or $150 entry fees.

Looking at the calculator, you can achieve $25/hr to $50/hr winrates depending on how awesome your ITM% and Final table Top 3 percentages are (i.e. ITM% 30% and Final Top 3 30%)

So the answer is, it depends.

But if you are looking at the normal 15% ITM% then you are looking at winrates of $5/hr - $10/hr and compared to grinding 1/2nl or 2/5nl, for most players that isn't the best use of their time...

I was going to say this too.

I play in two weekly tourneys that are small buyin (<$100) and high rake (charity games with 25% of the pool to the charity), and because the field is so soft, I'm nicely +EV over about 2 years of play. But when you look at the rake, you'd think these tourneys are unbeatable. Since the fields are relatively small (100 runners or so), I find that survival is usually the best strategy. You're never at a huge chip deficit, so let the agro-tards battle it out, and take themselves out, until you get very close to the end, at which time, just one double-up and you're in the chip lead.

However, it is a miserable existence, and I only do it because they are the only games mid week that are close enough to me so that I can play frequently after work (and after running in the forest with the dog). These games, and this winning strategy are mind numbingly boring.

Awesome job!

I've seen young tourney pros look down their nose at 2-5 and I wondered what kind of win-rate they actually achieve. This tool should help me understand that a little better.

Yeah the issue I was having is the ITM distribution % in small field MTT's

great work!

Bump.
Because this tool is amazing.
And dgi deserves more props for his hard work!