Measure of tournament performance

[judgesmails]

Other than $$ earned (I measure that in ROI), how do you measure your MTT perfomance? Because of the high degree of variance in MTT, I think it is important to have other measures of performance to help a player determine whether they are playing MTT well.

I have been tracking my average %of field beaten and my median % of field beaten. There is some value in measuring this, but I am not really certain what good performance is in these measures.

Do any of you measure this, if so, what constitutes "good" performance? Do any of you have other meaningfull measures?

Thanks in advance.

[Trainwreck]

I'm going with [WIN $ - (BUYINS + ADDONS + REBUYS)] / TOTAL HOURS PLAYED for my hourly rate.... Is it acceptable pay? Leave room for improvement...

Also though, how do you feel about your play? That is probably the best ruler of all.

I agree that it's much harder to use the #'s to judge that, but ^ is what I use.

>Trainwreck<

[shaniac]

Talking philosophy, rather than dollars and cents, and echoing what trainwreck said:

How did you play? Did you make fewer mistakes than your oponnents? Did you correct or eliminate leaks in your play? Did you incorporate new concepts into your game? Did you maintain your equanimity?

I believe, generally, that if you are working towards accurately assessing your ability and making improvements to your game, then you are on the right track whether you are winning or losing at the moment.

Shane

[MLG]

Ive been thinking about this a bunch, hence I'm dragging it up from the depths of the 5th page. I do not think there is an objective mathematical way to examine how skilled you are. The way to go about it is rather to examine big hands that you played during the tourney. There are several areas to look at.

Getting Knocked Out
This is a good place to start. For example, how did you get knocked out, did you get sucked-out on, fine thats not a problem, you got your chips ion as a favorite in a big pot, cards happen. Did you run a big bluff and get called? Well, thats ok, but you need to examine it further. Did you get called by a hand you thought would fold, well thats a bad read, make a note and move on. Did your opponent have a much better hand than you thought, well thats also a bad read, and you need to examine your motives for bluffing in that spot.

Did you have a small stack when you busted? If thats the case how come your stack was small? Bad beat, fine. If you were at around 8 BBs did you attack the blinds from late position, if not why not? If so, and they actually had a hand and you lost, thats not a mistake, thats bad luck.

How I Got My Chips
Just because you might have been a big stack in a tourney does not mean you always played well. Did you suck-out to get those chips, if so was it avoidable (if your Kings happen to beat AAs thats pretty excusable)? Once you got your chips, did you use them? Did you gamble with smaller stacks, putting them to difficult decisions? Did you raise a bunch from LP, and fire again on the flop if called? Or did you tighten up and wait as the field caught up with you? When you get lots of chips early the field will always catch up, the question is how. Did you lose a couple of coinflips against small stacks, or did you not play aggresively enough, and take advantage of your stack? One is a problem, the other isnt.

Or did you never get chips? Sometimes that happens, everytime your raise somebody plays back, you flop a set, somebody rivers a flush, you lose a chunk here, a chunk there. On the otherhand, if you held 1010 or AK, just called a raise and then folded when you whiffed on the flop, thats a problem. If you were constantly waiting for that perfect flop rather than being aggresive preflop, well thats not so good.

The Other Hands
After the big hands, think about the smaller ones. How many blind v. blind battles did you win? How many times did you bet your draw and take down a pot? Or, this time every time you bet your draw did you get raised off of it? If that happened, was it because you were betting too many pots and the table was adjusting? Sometimes it is, and sometimes its just bad luck. Luck comes in many forms, thinking about your hands lets you separate out the different types of luck, and focus on your decision making process.

Its the thinking that helps you improve, not the statistics. The statistics mean nothing if you dont think about them, and internalize them, and make them your own.

[esbesb]

Great post MLG.

[MLG]

Thanks. I try /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[beachbum]

[ QUOTE ]
Once you got your chips, did you use them? Did you gamble with smaller stacks, putting them to difficult decisions? Did you raise a bunch from LP, and fire again on the flop if called? Or did you tighten up and wait as the field caught up with you? When you get lots of chips early the field will always catch up, the question is how. Did you lose a couple of coinflips against small stacks, or did you not play aggresively enough, and take advantage of your stack? One is a problem, the other isnt.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is a weakness in my game. When I build a big stack in the first hour, it's from flopping a set, making other big hands, or picking off the idiots who seem like they want to give me their chips in those first few levels. However, when I triple or quadruple my stack in the first 3 or 4 levels, I seem to always gravitate toward that average stack size as the tourney rolls on. I guess my thinking is I can wait and be more patient now for good hands.

I know when I'm not a big stack and I see one playing aggressively, I'm just waiting to pick him off and double up off him. So, I try not to be careless with my big stack and be too generous to the other players with my chips.

I guess I should be more focused at that point on who will smooth call a raise then fold to a flop bet, who will defend their blinds by reraising all-in, who is so afraid of going broke that they are only going to call me pre and post flop with the very best hands, how much raising is too much (table image), etc.

I mean, you look at Fossilman. He pretty much led the WSOP from wire to wire. I'm sure he put plenty of pressure on his opponents the whole way, but did so selectively at the same time.

[MLG]

usually when you get a huge stack early the field will catch up, it is very rare that you will be able to carry it all the ay home. However, when analyzing your play its the process thats important.

[sofere]

[ QUOTE ]
I mean, you look at Fossilman. He pretty much led the WSOP from wire to wire. I'm sure he put plenty of pressure on his opponents the whole way, but did so selectively at the same time.

[/ QUOTE ]

For the record...although fossilman made it to the final table through aggressive play...He won the final table by giving bad beat after bad beat after bad beat. Definitely wound up being a game of luck rather than skill.

Who knows, maybe those glasses had some magic powers.

[RacersEdge]

I actually think with some key metrics you could paint a poker players profile. Obviously, it wouldn't be absolute - 2 players with the same profile could be different at their skill levels - but it would let you focus on areas that need improvement and see critical factors to good play.

The original poster talked about mean/median finishes - I think you would need to break that down into a distribution on likelihood you fininsh in a certain position. It could be that never busting out early is not optimal play.

Another dimension I think would be valid would be stack size relative to average once you reach the final table.

Others possibilities..

Number of steal attempts - and steal success rate.

Number of bluff attempts and bluff success rate.

Percent times you open raise with 5 players or less.

Frequency that you call all-ins of short stacks.


If you had the data, it would be a very interesting regression model to see the weighting of factors that affect ROI.