i know this might sound like a silly question, but if you had to ballpark a general range for vpip, pfr, preflop 3bet, and showdown %, what would they be? i guess this helps me with some frame of reference as to how they're playing.

i played with david pham once like two years ago, and all i remember is him playing like 3-4 hands an orbit but never seeming to get his stack in any kind of danger. quite remarkable really.

a lot of solid players play positional TAG in tournaments and scrape a few small pots and slowly build their stacks with little variance (until the inevitable all in bad beat). and i see droolers splashing around in pots in hands / positions / situations that should destroy them in the long run, but suck out or backdoor draw the f*ck out of people and get paid off, and seem to make a few decent deep runs per year. i hate to say the latter are "more lucky" than others, but i would also hate to say that they are doing things more correctly. but maybe there is some other magical framework outside of fundamental cash game poker like what TT suggests. one based on instinct and unicorns.

then you have this elite group from above that seem to be able to get the best of both worlds. they seem to live on some precipitous edge and lean on their reading capabilities to pull them back at just the right times. PLEASE TEACH ME.

I hope u are revisiting this thread Todd.

How long do you see online MTT's being profitable and which direction will it go the next years?
Will everyones ROI drop down significantely due to all the training sites, forums etc ?

why would u ask him that??

i know, maybe it's a ridiculous question. the way he describes playing those top five (all pretty laggy), i just want to get more detail on how they're actually playing. like are they all raising every hand or limping / calling a lot, do they 3bet a lot or not much, are they taking a lot of pots down before the river, or are they forced to showdown a bunch because they are so laggy. my brain just works with pt numbers i guess

nevermind... i didnt really read what you were saying. for some reason i thought u were asking for his vpip/3bet etc...