Wait, how did they create the skill advantage of the player in the simulation? And I don't fully understand why they chose those tournament player sizes. But I guess it points to what NoahSD has been saying for a while - in terms of guaranteeing turning a profit (which is most important to your livelihood as a poker player assuming you don't have an unlimited br and risk of ruin is a major concern), smaller player fields are crucial.

Galen -

Thanks for understanding the intended tone of my post. I have never been very skilled at expressing my thoughts in writing, and was a little worried that my comments might come across as merely angry. There were minor frustrations in my post, obviously, but I was just trying to be constructive and helpful towards what I agree with you can be a very interesting discussion.

This comment makes so much sense to me, it gives me a greater understanding of your posts in general. Of course I wish posters were more thoughtful in their posts, but it is what it is. I could go on for HOURS on how the school systems have been set up to teach people to do tasks and create a product based upon the specifications of others, instead of training people how to use their brains for thought, but I've alread rambled way too much in this thread. When I come across an interesting thread like this, I probably read 20 posts for every 1 I'm really glad I came across. But that's ok, I'm not too worried about the other 19.

The thing that I was most suprised about in your marketplace thread was that you didn't expect that backlash and laugh it off! I knew it was coming when I read your initial post day one. In many ways it was a good thing - some people posted some really intelligent comments, which I wouldn't have thought about without your thread. I'd happily discuss my opinions on ROIs, markups, etc with you in a different place, but again, enough clogging of this thread.

I think I share your pessimism towards peoples attitudes and opinions on poker, but (and maybe it's easier for me to accept being mostly anonymous and unknown) probably not to the same level as you. However, it is the people, rather than the variance that is driving me in directions other than poker these days. So maybe I am equally frustrated!

Maybe I should've PM'd all this stuff, apologizies for clogging the thread. However, I think everyone has the right to post, but, like Galen, I hope everyone takes all the comments and statistics with a grain of salt. I'll continue to weed through the posts to find ones that are insightful, or those that tell an awesome joke. These stats were just a springboard for another interesting discussion, and hopefully it dives someone smarter and more motivated than me to do more in-depth statistical analysis and simulations.

Just as an aside, I don't know that the OP stated that he chose them because they would have the highest ROI, just that they were a representational "strong group of tournament players" selected because of their inclusion in the fantasy league.

I did a slightly different analysis of the 2011 WSOP data back before this year's series that looked solely at ITM%, not ROI. My initial selection group was all players who had made the top 9 positions in the 58 events during the 2011 WSOP. That was a total of 461 players and 5.642 events, with 1,059 cashes. But because I was interested in the ITM% for top players, I sub-selected for only those players who had entered 20 or more events (meaning they'd spent at least three weeks at the WSOP and a minimum of $30K in buy-ins). That weeded out many players who had cashed in an event and used their winnings to play the Main Event or a couple of other similar events. My final group was 97 players, 2,521 entries, and 332 cashes, and a median ITM of 13.6%. Lots of variance in there, both in ITM% and ROI.

this is exactly the problem I was addressing. OP didn't chose the top ROI players at the wsop yet made the title "top players... 30% ROI" as if he was talking about the top ROI players at the wsop which is very misleading.

Like you said, this is a "strong group of tournament players", but that does not automatically translate into a strong ROI at the wsop. Or I should say, this ROI is still pretty strong, but not as strong as it could be if they were to concentrate on the money rather than fame as a whole.

I don't think many readers truly understand, for strong players, their plans have huge impact on their ROIs at the wsop, which was the main focus of my last post.

Would you consider those players to be the players who's EV (i.e. redline) is highest? If you only take the sample of players who "happened" to win you are basically taking a biased set of data anyways. I think OP was close. You want the sample of individuals who you believe to have the highest theoretical EV I think. That part of it may be up for grabs. Either way good work OP.

I understand this is not the question directed at me. I just want to point out maximzing series EV and maximazing ROI are two different things and a lot of people don't seem to bother to know. there are moves in certain situiation are right in maximzing their whole ev at the expense of ROI, there is a time and opportunities issue here.

The problem with selecting on number of entries in 2012 is that players who had early success in the 2012 series are more likely to appear in the sample. E.g. there might be player who has only intended to play a couple events, but then make a big score and use the money to extend their schedule, and there might be players who had intended to play everything, but go 0-fo-15 and run out their bankroll.

You should try to case select only on criteria that are causally prior to the variable of interest (2012 ROI). So you could select on number of events played in 2011 (or as you have, making a final table in 2011). But no part of the criteria should plausibly depend on 2012 results.

An other analysis was made on a French forum (by a guy whose nickname is equivalent to "golden bollocks" in English, congrats for that) regarding results of all the French players who participated to these WSOP.

Here is the link to the analysis:
http://www.clubpoker.net/forum-poker...es-francaises/

Out of 630 French participants, 94 made money (14%).
The global ROI is -6% (excluding the one drop).

There is a detailed table, as well as a graph of the combined results in this thread (again excluding the one drop).



It should be noted that the usual top French players are rather found at the very bottom of the ranking.

Does that include rake?

the true ROI of this group is very likely lower than the actual results. one lady did well in the ME shoot up de group ROI.

It should be noted, due to the nature of tournaments, for any selected group, their true ROI is much more likely lower than their results indicate for any given year. the ROI you qouted is one of those exceptions.

as for the group of 88 players in the OP,given everything else equal, it is more likely one in 20 series their result has a higher ROI than the true ROI while the rest of the 19 have lower ROI than the true ROI.

That's certainly not the way I read it. I was fairly certain he meant that it was the ROI for top players, not the top ROI for all players.

The players with the best ROI in the WSOP are those who enter a single tournament and cash high. There were at least 33 players in 2011 who cashed in every tournament they played, but none of them played in more than 2 tournaments. 49 players that year had an ITM of >50% and <100% but none played more than 6 events.

The player from my sample with 20+ entries in 2011 who had the best ITM (29%) was Simon Charette, with six cashes in 21 entries. Most of them were small, but he took second in a $1,500 NLHE event later in the series, and his ROI for last year was +730% (the QuadJacks database has multiple listing for his entries this year and needs cleaning up).

Close seconds in terms of ITM% were Dan O'Brien and Victor Ramdin, both with six cashes in 23 entries (26%). None of Ramdin's cashes were for more than $20K, however, and his ROI for the season was -30%.O'Brien, on the other hand, made two final tables and, even through he chunked some big money away in 3 $10K buying and the $50K Player's Championship, he still had a +114% ROI.

Ooops, missed Max Pescatori, at 27% ITM and 28% ROI.

You want a player with great ROI? Kirk Caldwell. He entered one event in 2011, #32, a $1,500 NLHE tournament. He took first place, for $668,276, an ROI of +44,452%. He entered three events this year for a total of $5,000 in buy-ins, didn't cash in any, but his ROI for 2011-2012 is still almost +9,500%.

Nobody professional considered a "top" player is ever going to touch those kinds of numbers. But if you're looking for the top ROI of players at the WSOP, that's where you're going to find it. I'm fairly certain that's not what you're looking for, either.

also does it include dinner vouchers?

We really are talking about totally different ROIs. I was talking about true ROI or expected ROI for a specific group for future events, while you were talking about the ROI for the luckiest group from the past events.

just consider this: we have a group players of all of the ME winners this century, we can calulate the overall ROI of this group for the past 12 years. I am sure it is pretty high. But what markup are you willing to pay for this group for next wsop series? you see the difference?

the whole disccusion is really about the expected ROI in the future. players care about bracelets/FTs/cashes/total winning/net profit a lot more than ROI which is the most concern of investors. this group is far from the best group you can select when it comes to ROI.

oops，just find a mistake in this reply. it was obviously meant "for any selected group, their true ROI is much more likely HIGHER than their results indicate for any given year. "

Actually, I was trying to address the disparity in interpretations about what the OP was writing about. I don't believe he (or I) ever said anything about "expected ROI". The title of the thread states "Results" and "ROI", not "EV".

Based on the sample data available for just 2011-2120 WSOP entries and cashes, there's not enough to make any predictions. The number of events per player is too small to be of statistical significance for any predictive effort.

I understand. but the way this thread going has been more on the misleading rather than thoughtful discussion.

somehow, a wired scenario pumped up in my mind...

On an NBA fan site...

A: hi guys, I just did the research, and found out the 3p% for this year's All Stars is 30%.

B: cool! this is lower than I thought. those are the best in the game.

C: But Dwight Howard isn't exactly good at 3pt shooting. In fact, I don't think any of those were chosen because of their 3pt%. The 3pt% in this group really does not mean much, and it is certainly not the highest group you can get in NBA.

D: you want the highest 3pt%? Joe Smith and Tony Kidman were the highest the past season. They each shot one and made it, 100%.

E: who cares? I am just curious the 3pt% of this group!

C: my bad. I thought we were to discuss the 3pt%...

(meanwhile, a new thread was created for "serious discussion": now that we know the best players in NBA shoot 30% at 3 point, what ppg do you think an average NBA player has is acceptable?)

Nice. I guess I'll e-mail Quadjacks to clean it up. I played far fewer events this year.

Fixed. ROI over 2011/12 jumped to %1275
http://wsopdb.quadjacks.tv/index.php...ayers&id=38263

Very interesting reading ITT. I do have a quick question. One of the methods for reducing tournament variance I thought I saw mentioned earlier was players selling pieces of themselves to one another. If a group of five players got together and pooled their buy-in and split their winnings, how do you avoid the appearence of impropriety in the event 2 or more reach a final table together?

As an example, let's say 5 players get together and agree to split winnings in the $50k event. Fortune smiles on the group, and 3 of them make the final table. The incentives for these three to collude against the other players are going to be huge. How does one contend with this problem?

If my question is misguided or not on point, I apologize.

A better database with many more established pros and a much larger ten year sample of results, is the wpt database on wpt.com

It lists how many tourneys entered, number of cashes, and several other relevant stats. I believe this data is also Available on sharkscope.

Okay, so which excel/stats wizard wants to undertake making the update to this informative spreadsheet all those years ago?

Here is a major study showing the top 400 pros in the main event having an ROI of 30%. So anyone paying over 1.1 MU for anybody who sells at MU, probably has a 95%+ chance of being a minus EV buy.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

Can't really be done. wsop doesn't publish the records of which events people buy into anymore as far as I know.

Ahhh but there is a place that does publish the info and that's Pokernews. Because of their app that encourages players to update their chip info and the on the ground reporting its easy to build a database of players.

I did one earlier in the month on twitter for Mike Matusow. But I really wanted to try someone who is a known name around these parts, someone who updates a lot on twitter to help verify info and puts in volume So I went through Poker News, WSOP, Hendon Mob and Twitter and was able to get a pretty accurate win/loss situation for a player.

Now if there is an event they played that I missed then I see it as a plus for that persons stats. I only entered in info for that player if chip counts counted them as "busted" or if the Poker News report reported about them. I'll leave out the name, but this is from 2019-2008. I think it is possible to put together a player database since getting the chip info is pretty easy. There are 2 years where Poker News didn't do this though, so I had to click on WSOP.com find the year, go to the report and just quick search the name to see if they were reported on. Then I did a advanced search on twitter to confirm this info.

The only other snag would be getting re-entry info and bounty info, not sure if Hendon Mob reports the bounty info at all. But with this player it was pretty easy to get.







This is also including WSOP Europe events. I just did currency conversions for what they were during that month and year.

Really interesting and well done! Obviously you’ve chosen not to name the player, which makes sense, but are they someone who is considered by their peers to be a “pro”? Just curious.