Hello Poker Folks!

How do you gauge your skill level at a live tournament game?

Maybe I should post my results:

Number of live poker tournaments that I've played in a lifetime is only 2.
I was ranked between 40th to 50th place out of 100 players in both games.

What should those results tell me so far?

I only know with cash games, most suggested to play at least 40,000 hands to determine your skill level.

Thanks & Good Luck!

Absolutely nothing

sixfour,

Thanks for quick reply! Is this true regardless how many tournament played? I assumed you felt tournament is just a luck rather than a skill game?

tournaments are a skill game in a long run, like 1000 or 10000 tournaments, 2 of those tell you absolutely nothing.

Also, if you do want some measure of success in tournaments, all that counts is money won, not places, since 100th out of 100 pays the same as 20th. In fact, most beginnining players make a mistake of trying too hard to ladder up rather than focus on winning the tournament, forgetting that you make most money at the very top.

no lol, what tut said. if you took a two tournament sample of jamie gold circa 2006 you might think he's the greatest player of all time, and a two tournament sample of phil ivey circa any time he's busted early twice in a row you might think he's a donk

Agree with all that has been said but it would also help to know how you exited these tournaments.

Did you call with too many speculative hands early on, fold a lot of flops and eventually pretty much get blinded out?

Did you play too tight when the blinds were low, eventually shove with a marginal hand from a bad position and lose?

Did you just get absolutely dog**** cards for 2 hours? (it happens)

Did you get it in as a 95% favourite and lose to a 2-outer on the river? (it happens)

You can't do much about the last two reasons, but the first two are worth watching in case a pattern develops.

MTT's are difficult to gauge based on results, as they tend to be an all or nothing affair. If I have a small edge in cash game, I can ground out a decent win rate over time. if I have a small edge in MTT's, I can go dozens or hundreds of tournaments without breaking into the top 10%. Also, i can make it to the top 50% easily, every tournament, by just playing ultra lag.

Look at the quality of your decisions, the depth of data you use to make those decisions, how accurate your reads are, how close your in-the-moment equity estimates were to the actual equity. Look at the frequency you play hands, and how often you play them passively and how often you play them aggressively. How do you change you approach based on effective stack sizes, proximity to the bubble, and reads on players and table dynamic?

MTT's are hard to gauge, since the increasing blind pressure forces action, and a little rungood in the right spot can make a bad player look really good.

It comes down to, are you making +EV decisions, and are you using the right information to make those decisions?

What about RIO?

People would argue that Jamie Gold isn't among the 50 best tournament players of all time.

I would guess that Gold still probably has a very good ROI. A measure of variance in their results might be a more appropriate gauge. If two players have the same ROI over 1000 tournaments, but one player has a smaller standard deviation in their results indicating more consistent results, I would be apt to say that he was the more skilled player.

Of course, some players choose a win big or go home strategy intentionally, so maybe I am wrong.

Would you suggest that a $11 donkament grinder achieving a 300% ROI over 10000 games has achieved more success?

Yeah it can’t just come down to RIO, it’s a bigger collection of things than that. It is going to be a mix of good decision making but also even composure at the table.

I would suggest that somebody who won $1.000.000 from 1.000 $11 buy-in tournaments has achieved more success than somebody who has won $1.000.001 from 100.000 $215 buy-in tournaments.

Probably semantics but while I agree that the $11 donkament grinder is probably more skilled, I'd call winning the extra $1 being more successful.

I agree, there are definitely different way to define who’s most successful. In cash games, the hourly rate is a good indicator but you can’t use it to the same extent for tournaments.

Thanks for sharing your insights!

Last Monday I started playing online MTT tournament for the first time and played one game per day. Tonight was my 5th online tournament and guess what...I got into ITM!!! I'm so stoked. However, I guess I'll need to wait and play at least 1,000 games to gauge my skill level... Also, I'm disappointed that ACR/BCP doesn't port all data especially buy-ins information into pokertracker. Grrr! Anyway, I guess this is a beginning of a long poker journey.

Don't set goals for results, just focus on making the correct decision on each street in each hand. If you want to set goals, set goals for learning, be it you'll read some books, watch some videos, learn concepts, post your own hands for review etc etc

I couldn't agree with you more. I've only been playing 3 years. And really I'm only now seeing the real results...although from the first year I placed well in live tourneys and even online, what makes a good poker player is the continuous upward swing. Long term ongoing results is what truly matters.