I have 2 horses who play both online and live, I assume their skills are around the same level.

Their online ITM are similar (20%~) in MTTs that pay out 15%, however one player is up about 800 BI and the other down 800. The sample is relatively significant (2-3k mtts).

The former player has 1 big bink that takes up around 75% of his overall profits.

I have seen them both play and they are very successful live players capable of making deep runs and playing FTs competently.

The field sizes of their average events is quite big (600~). Is it safe to attribute the difference of these 2 players to mainly run-good and that in all likelihood they're probably both winning players if you can establish those ITMs? My logic is that stack depths are fairly shallow when players make the money anyway, and unless you're making big ICM punts theres just not much room for a good reg to be much more +ev than another good reg.

Much thanks

Probably variance. There is some chart that gets floated around that shows all the different possibilities over a sample given a winrate. A long term winner can still easily be a loser over a significant sample size.


One thing that you may want to look at is comparing what their average stack sizes are when they reach the money. One of them may been sneaking into money often with a short stack while the other one may get to the money with a big stack much more often.

Playing too much for ITM is a sure way to be ROI-.

They don't play for ITM at all, obv they play the bubble approprately, but the ITM just comes naturally (as it should)

As is playing too little .

Seriously, when OP says one of their horses has a 'bink' that is 75% of his win, we can see that the sample size, while large, is not large enough.

The idea of checking chip stack sizes when the bubble bursts is an excellent one, to see if deuce is correct. The other key spot is the FT bubble; one of the key lessons from the new ICM book by Dara O'Kearney is the importance of that bubble.

One last metric I'd look at is number of FTs. For someone who has played 2000 MTTs with average field of 600, we'd expect about 30 FTs. This number should be a little more stable than overall win rate.

30 final tables would be correct if every player had equal skill level/card distribution. It’s the mathematical answer to the question, but I think a winning player should have far more FTs than 30 over 2000 tournaments unless they’re running like complete dogshit.

I agree with you and deuce that knowing a players average stack size once they reach the money is useful data to know.

I think it’s also useful to know how each player performs once they reach the final table. Sharkscope gives that info, and since all the money is up top you want to be able to close it out and finish top 3 if you’re lucky enough to FT.

OP, pretty sure the discrepancy between your two horses is just variance given the info you shared (i.e. both capable, similar in skill, most profits from Player A come from one bink, etc.)

Thanks for the responses - some extra info. I have no idea how to find out average stack depth at ITM.

Sharkscope - The winning player has 9% FT, losing one has 8.5%. This sounds much higher than what I thought it'd be but I just did this by dividing Final Table by Count.

The losing one binks 15% of FTs, winning one binks 19%. They both FT around 250.

Honestly I have no idea how much these figures are worth, there are some big name pros whos sharkscopes have >15% ROIs and decent FTs%, but their graphs just run it down. Of course it could be them doing well in the smaller events and chain losing the big ones

I would think a lower ITM should have a higher ROI assuming both great players. In the end the only stat that matters would be non showdown winnings - that's where the money is made in tournaments

Non showdown winnings? In tournaments? I don't think so.

You're wrong.

No, you are.

This is some of the better discussion on this board. Instead of the I'm right stuff, can you please explain your positions? I don't play online, so I don't know these stats and who is right. Thanks.

Ok so what is the more important tool in winning poker tournaments? I assume you've won a lot of them

I never made claims about what's the most important tool in winning poker tournaments. I just questioned the claim you made. Next time, when someone questions a claim you made, you explain why you think what you think and then let the other explain why they think what they think.

I posted a comment and you shot it down condescendingly. If you want to be arrogant that's fine, but you have nothing to back it up. Even your reply here is very angry - I would consider speaking with someone in real life if you're looking to pick fights on the internet.

Anyways to get back to the topic - I think non showdown winnings is the key to highest ROI's in MTTs. The ability to chip up especially late game without showing down is how you lower variance an win tournaments.

Dude, I am sorry I hurt your feelings, I didn't mean to. but what you said is wrong.

For many reasons.

It would be great if you could win chips without showdown. But that's not happening in tournaments for many reasons.

First of all, when you go deep into an MTT, stacks become shallow. This means that you can't run elaborate 3 street bluffs anymore. At some point they become shallow enough that you are either raising calling/folding or moving all in yourself. In theory maybe you can find people who fold to your LP raises or people who don't reshove on you, but this isn't happening. Sometimes you cbet and take it down, but if the cbet gets called and you have air, most of the time it's not a good idea to commit on the turn.

If you had a poker database and ever spend sometime into it you would see that the WTSD% of tournament players is humongous. Like you read about the ideal WTSD% in cash and it's supposed to be below 30%. Mine is 58% or something and I am very much in line with other players' stats.

Now, maybe you ll say non showdown winnings matter when stacks are deep. But in most low and midstake tournaments, recreational players don't have a fold button. You aren't going to win money in the early stages by running huge bluffs.

Does all this mean that on occasion a well placed bluff or an all in can't make a difference? No, sometimes it can. But as a rule, MTT players winnings are showdown winnings and those showdnown winnings make up for all the non-showdown losses.

I ll be surprised if you can find me one tournament player who has a positive red line. Do you have a database? How does your red line look?

Heh, I've been reading this with interest because I was curious to hear the reasoning behind each. Anyway I just got started playing online again about a month ago and here's my graph from the last four weeks.

I think if this had been your initial response that the other poster wouldn’t have had any issues with your argument. He may have disagreed, or changed his mind after reading your response.

At the risk of sounding all Kumbayah, I don’t think we should be as dismissive (didn’t find it condescending) as you were in your first reply; which essentially said ‘you’re wrong, trust me.’ Disagreement is great, but maybe next time just lead with your reasoning. That’ll make everyone better, which is my goal.

This place is dead enough as it is.

Obviously I'm not referring to 10-20 bb stacks in low stake tournaments - 30-40 bb+ in mid-high stakes. Most hands go to SD so an overall database approach isn't everything - of course playing SD pots better than everyone is very important, but I would guarantee big winners have much better non showdown which also leads to lower variance.

You know what, since you're much smarter than me let's see your winning graphs. Let me know your poker names and we can compare MTT results.

Hands played bellow 40BBs represent something like 70% of all hands played at least in the games I play. Oh and 99% of the time, when real money is at stake, stacks are less than 40BB.

Big winners have much better everything.

Sure, my PS screenname is the same as my 2+2 sn and my sharkscope is publicly visible. What's your sn?