Hi 2+2,

I've not been active on here at all really but I have an important question to gather your collective opinions on.

Quick intro: I've been a part-time grinder for the past 4 years. I've played pretty much all formats that you can play in NLHE/PLO and had good success at all of them (except Spin and Gos, **** Stars ).

For the past few months I've been commitedly full-time grinding MTTs across Stars, 888 and mainly PartyPoker where I've had some great success (other sites not so much but only down a few K combined).

Results for PartyPoker:

Graph: http://imgur.com/a/xa7RP

Stats: http://imgur.com/a/TqkeD

My EVbb/100 for this sample is approximately 10bb/100. I don't think I'm some sort of MTT prodigy nor have I worked that hard (I don't own any programs aside from basic PT4). I most likely ran very well for this sample and I'm really grateful for that.

I've looked through graph after graph on Sharkscope for numerous different sites and all of them seem to tell the same story: MTTs seemed to become less profitable around 2015 and ever since I'm just imagining these day-in-day out staked grinders $1000s in make-up trying to beat MTTs which consist of 30% good regs 60% avg. regs and 10% recs. (massive and unsubstantiated guess but must be decently close to accurate).

So my question to the 2+2 forums of which I'm sure consists better and more experienced MTT players and myself is simple:

Is a 30% true* ROI% at avg. BI $70 a realistic goal anymore?

I use 30% as a benchmark as this was the goal for a "good" grinder back in 2014 or so.

*I know this is a very hard thing to define as MTT variance is such a long-term concept but hopefully you get the idea.

The most GTO answer in terms of self-interest to this question is OFC nope, games are too hard to beat. You and all the other regs should just quit and leave me to grind them but don't be a **** - give your honest answer and we'll discuss this until hopefully we all get a good idea of potential ROI% for mid-stake+ MTTs in 2017 and beyond.

Thanks.


EDIT: I know there's probably one of these threads every ****ing year, "poker is dying" "erryone solid" etc etc ****ing etc but humour me please.

It is always a realistic goal. How hard is it to achieve at $70 abi? Pretty hard

Thanks for the input.

To achieve this long-term I believe you'd have to play a very exploitative game vs bad regs and recs alike and try to be balanced as possble vs. perceived good regs. before moving into a playstyle heavily influenced by GTO (when good regs catch on) whilst also accumulating enough of a sample on the various bad/avg. regs out there to find out ways in which they deviate from an unexploitable strategy and target these mistakes.

Understanding how the good-reg/bad-reg/rec density of an MTT playerpool affects perceived EV ROI% is also something I'd really like to look into but I don't have enough mathematical understanding to apply.

E.g. (And this is an excessively simplified version of reality that is probably completely bull****)

"I would beat this tournament for 10% true ROI% if this tournament was made up of 100% this player-type and my own entry" is how I'm defining these ROI% within different player-types. Very simplistic again but trying to illustrate a point.

121 players in this hypothetical tournament with 3 simplified player-types.

40 good regs. Vs. True ROI% = -10% (B/E in game, -10% rake)
40 bad regs. Vs. True ROI% = 10%
40 recs. Vs True ROI% = 30%
1 hero

Given this example, True ROI% would equal 10% as it would be an average of the 3 player-types.

Example as used in previous post:

36 good regs. Vs. True ROI% = -10%
72 bad regs. Vs. True ROI% = 10%
12 recs. Vs. True ROI% = 30%
1 hero

True ROI = 6%, using same method.

My model, estimations and understanding of the maths is probably completely off but if anyone could help me understand how modelling true ROI% based off playerpools works I'd be immensely grateful.

The big problem is if $100 level mtts make up half of your buyins, there are fewer and fewer soft mtts. Most of the easy money is at $33 level and below, maybe $50 level and below.

I saw a graph recently of an MTT Stable's combined graph in the Sunday Milly and I believe it was 30% ROI. This is a stable (can't remember the name) run by pads1161, €uropean and a few other pure sickos.

This is probably the most rec-dense mid to high stake MTT that exists right now and these horses who receive potentially the most elite coaching in the game can only beat it for 30%.

I'll see if I can find the thread...

*EDIT*

Found it, was BitBStaking

https://i.gyazo.com/d8568386de1b12f0...ec2ab4dc31.png

Though this may include games before players were coached (This being said Milly in 2014 softer than Milly in 2017 so probably balances out)

30% roi at 70abi nowadays is considered very good sadly yes

basically 55+ and esp 109+ have gotten so tough last couple of years

midstakes pretty much same, maybe a bit harder but not that much difference

If you click the 109$ 20k super reggy party/stars stuff you probably won't get 30%. If your ROI in the sunday million is 30% then you're definitely a bad reg. But yes, the majority is on the tougher side.

Of course bb/100 is a good metric and is accurate over small samples, but ROI is never accurate at all. The 30% over 25k games has a 95% confidence interval of being between 11-55%, and with other factors such as varying degrees of softness, horses improving/tilting, fieldsizes varying etc the variance is even bigger.

I'd assume stables are largely to blame for this (high-class coaching and people free to put in all the volume they want) rather than a diminishing of the rec population
**** it bois I'm 20 tabling <$55 BIs

That's where I have severe reservations about choosing to spend the next 3 or so years grinding, hard to let success be up to chance. Guess game-selection over multiple sites could be a good shout given smaller fields drastically reduce variance.

Related: Anyone outside of the US have experience playing on ACR?

The upside is that if you get to that ABI you can play significantly smaller fields which will also reduce potential swings massively. So even though 10% or 20% might not seem a huge ROI, if the field is small enough you will still see steady income (as "steady" as MTTs can be)

Even though you may have 100% ROI in some Big 11, the problem is the field size is so big that the swings will still be beyond comprehension. If all you play is 2k+ fields you can easily go years without making any real money, even as a big theoretical winner.

Another way to think about it is to consider HU hypers. 1% ROI in those games will give you a very smooth and steady grind, much smoother than any MTT. So always consider ROI in conjunction with field size. Most of the time small field, low ROI > big field, big ROI.

I'm tired AF right now but I'll run some pokerdope tournament variance calculator sims in the morning. I think you're correct and that certainly grinding smaller sites would be a much more relaxed career I stopped playing at Stars a week or so back and moved traffic to 888 and now iPoker, **** Stars.

For your note on steady income that's essentially been my experience on Party since I started but I'm convinced that I'm just running insanely hot in some way even though I'm winning at around EV bb/100.

I guess what keeps a lot of MTT players in a seemingly perpetual downswing is chasing those sick scores in huge fields.

Having grinded the HU Hypers for a long time in 2013-2014 I'd say 1% ROI at hypers would be really swingy, I won at 3-4% ROI and still had some pretty sick days-->weeks for me at the time.

+1

So I ran 3 sims:

http://imgur.com/a/WoabR

Grouped into

ABI: $76.75 (Conservative ROI% estimates)

ABI: $76.75 (Optimistic ROI% estimates)

ABI: $94.25 (Higher stakes, lower field size + optimistic mid-stakes)

The graphs confirm what "getoffmecompletely" is saying essentially which is good news.

I've tried to make these as accurate as possible and they include rebuys within the BI e.g.

Play "The Contender" on Party which is a $20+2 tournament, we average 1/2 a rebuy per MTT so ABI = $33.

The TLDR of the sims is if you play higher BI, smaller fields, even with lower ROI%, in the long-term variance is reduced. (See confidence intervals + visual nature of 20 random sample graphs).


Finally, the EV$ of the tournaments shows that for a good reg these days playing 30 MTTs a day for 266 days a year (e.g. a working week). $100k+ is still very possible. It might no longer be an achieveable goal to make millions playing MTT poker (unless you luckbox a SCOOP or live MTT) but there's still good money left.

If anyone has a problem with the predicted ROI% I gave in the sims or sees any errors please let me know.

Re-entering is a new tournament, so ABI is 22$.

Yeah I actually realised this as I posted, still shouldn't skew the results too much.

At an abi of say $10-25, wouldn't a 30% roi be fairly easy if someone studies the game and say watched a lot of strat videos from a pay training site?

yes

Depends if you win all the flips or not

MTTs are the softest they have been for several years. The vast majority of regs are confused due to trying to implement strategies that they don't understand, and there is definitely no shortage of pure fish. People moan about win rates etc because they don't have the brain power to work things out for themselves.

Stables are coaching people advanced concepts before they even know how to walk (they are still cancer though). Almost everyone who's actually crushing these days plays their own money, and has a background that goes beyond mtts alone (cash and sng players). 35% roi is definitely achievable at anything but the very highest stakes, and for the true cream of the crop that's probably achievable too.

There are definitely more regs about now, but as implied before, they are for the most part very weak poker minds who play the way they are taught to, as opposed to adjusting to people independently.

Some good points but I think you are talking about micros-low stakes. And even down there the mediocre stable/grind house massiv are being ghosted deep by someone competent


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It's incredibly boastful your post logical. To say I can guarantee to win at 30% ROI is just nonsense even if you are a real good player. MTTs are not the softest they have been in years, micros still are, most $55+ mtts are definitely not (apart from the million etc). Where were you between 2008-11, legit people that would be break-even/losing players now were cleaning up at $55 level playing ABC.

This was jaw dropping once I found out about the extent of this.

2+2 reg date does not equal how long someone has played poker for.

I think your ROIs are too high even in the conservative sim. $200+15 with 100 players 18% is going to be very tough to achieve

Yes. Reentry for one. Good regs from other formats where money has dried up have moved into MTTs. Stables improve every year. More solvers to study with.

Chances are most mtt players still playing in 2017 have ran above expectation lifetime, so a selection bias probably exists from anyone answering your question. But the answer is pretty close to a yes.

I would expect good players that are smart and able to leave the game if it's not very profitable and get other jobs. I expect a constant fluctuation between years that are easier since many regs leave and then more regs coming in just because of that. Unless we are in equilibrium then every year will be the same.