Hello,

I am a fairly new poker player, but so far after some study I have built up a solid win rate in cash games, microstakes 1/2 online and recently 1/1 live but that is still a small sample.

Anyway at my local club tournaments are what are mostly played. I played my first one last Friday and they are definitely softer than cash games, my only surprise was the payout structure. 112 people registered and it was a triple chance also, at my table just me and one other guy did not use our rebuys.

So imagine my schock when the payout is anounced and only the final table of 10 players get paid. Wow, when there was 25 people left everyone at my table had less than 50BB, meaning you would need a lot of luck to make it in the money. In my mind at minimum 15 should be paid, if not 20 since I know there were a ton of rebuys.

With a structure like that is it even worth playing at tourney's like this? So far my win rate at 1/1 is 10$/hour, still not a big sample but with more study I honestly believe I can get it close to 20$/hour.

What questions should I ask the manager next time I go in to see if it is worth playing these tourney's or not??

Paying roughly 10% of the field is fairly standard for large tournaments.

Actually you just need a solid strategy. Having 40+BBs with half the remaining players left to be in the money is a Godsend. 20+ is good.

I’m not going to go over the strategy here as there are books and books and books written on it but you are seeing it wrong, probably from lack of experience. You need to learn about SPR, ranges based on stack size, ICM, etc.

So if you are serious about tournaments then do some research on strategy. The top 10% getting paid out is a good thing if you are one of the better players in the tourney. You get to take advantage of all the dead money.

And yes to win a tournament you do need some luck. Especially to first place it.

Depends on the rake and your ability.

If you're not comfortable navigating tourneys where the field has <50BBs you may have trouble with these formats. There is still a large amount of skill with those stack sizes, and assuming the rake isn't atrocious it will be profitable to players who are skilled in these formats.

How is there skill involved, maybe I am wrong but basically you are trying to get it all in on a flip with short stacks when you have 60/40 edge right? One flip goes wrong and you are toast.

Yes you are trying to get it in when you have a +EV edge but if you have 20bbs you don't need to be thinking about getting it in. You just play poker with 20bbs. There is a lot to it as far as mid-late tourney play. Way more than can be answered in this thread. Like I was saying there are whole books and training courses on it.

if they have a flat payout structure and 20 People get Paid, the mincash is usally less than 2x the buy-in.
i think 15-20% ITM is average, so mincashing 2x is not very profitable.

with only 10% getting Paid, the payout structure is more profitable.

ITT: someone that has never played mtts before

everything about this tourney is all normal stuff, it doesn't get softer than 100 man live rebuy mtts - count your blessings

also, a 10bb an hour win rate is ok, 20bb win rate would be kind of unreasonable, when I grinded live, I maintained a 17bb win rate for a while and most other regs were around a dozen or less and didn't believe I was accurately accounting or assumed I was a luckbox

it'll take months before you realize your true win rate and even then it'll ebb and flow, but winning $20 an hour at 1/1 is a fool's errand - it's neither more money than you'd earn at a normal job that required your brain nor is it really sustainable without high variance exploitive play - best bet is to move up stakes or lower expectations

$20 an hour should never be a life goal - most nearly everyone I know from my grinding days a decade ago were like you and most regret not quitting sooner - I know one guy who's still stuck in Macau grinding 25/50 (equivalent to like $3/$6) and he's ****ing miserable, constantly complaining about his life and trying to get out of it but as a man in his late 30s with an empty resume and no life skills, he's finding trouble finding a life outside playing what's lately become barely profitable poker

luckbox confirmed

You're basically asking how to play MTTs.

Yes you'll need to win some flips, but flips aren't the only way to accumulate chips. High variance is not the same as unprofitable.

You also have to realize that no matter what tourneys you play, you will spend the vast majority of the time navigating stacks in the 20-50bb range. That's one of the biggest adjustments moving from cash to MTTs.

True enough, although at my club the game hardly plays like a regular 1/1, half the time there is a straddle for 2 and my regular open is $12 and will often get 4 callers or more. If anyhting I am afraid certain players will run out of money soon.

But yes the game is high variance, basically they treat a draw like a made hand and will pay anything to chase it. I saw a guy call a 130 all in when he needed a 4 to a gut shot. That's the level I am talking about here.

Since the sample is still low, I figure that if I can get it close to 20 and hold it for a month or two, then I can move up stakes confidently.

I am just questioning whether I should invest time in studying MTTs, it is softer, but more profitable? Not sure quite how to calculate that. I played 5 and a half hours. So in my mind that cost me at minimum 40 for win rate at cash, plus the 40 buy in for 80.

50bbs stack for all players?? This is profitable

Not profitable will be the 20 players with shorts stacks when the luck will be a big part of your success.

Play good poker and you will.be good in this type of MTT

My local club has the worst structures. After certain level the blinds go up.really quickly and the winner is often the guy who gets the good hands in the final hours of the mtt

True that is the first thing I have to study to get better, right now in cash if I drop below 70 BBs I just top off.

Live is fun......Read the wells, look for Furo playing the $4 180's.

I think the OP should read up on variance, and Nash "Kill everyone".