golFUR
01-24-2005, 07:42 PM
Disclaimer #1: I play at UB exclusively. There are so few of us it needs to be said sometimes. /images/graemlins/smile.gif
I'm a year and half along the same old story so many of us are repeating. I caught the first season of the WPT on TV and jumped on to UB after the Aruba episode. I spent some time in playchips before placing in a freeroll and getting some pennies in my account. From there I picked up a few books, started discussing odds with my friends in IM and made a deposit or two. Now I've got a few tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of hands under my belt, a small few thousand of them have made their way into poker tracker and I'm not disatisfied with what I've seen. I could have happily gone on this way, playing hobby poker, raiding my bank on occassion for a luxury item or emergency vehicle repair... then I won a much larger MTT than ever before. Then I went and looked at my cash history and realized I've won quite a few of these, money'd in quite a few more...
Now I'm asking questions that haven't been asked in our friendly little poker chats.
ITM vs. ROI
I found a poll several weeks back that asked for people's ITM%. One of the respondants noted that ROI was much more the measure of a player. I wonder though. First, if it isn't a shoot out, the winner is 'technically' the most penalized player. He beat every single player there but didn't get every single dollar, goes one line of thinking. The second is just based upon my own experience, but, it seems to me that for a tournament player it would be a great deal more valuable, in the long run, to get ITM first and worry about 1st or 2nd place later.
If you can get ITM consistently it is only a matter of time before the cards fall the right way to give you a 1st or a 2nd - vs. - Play all out going for the biggest stack possible at or near the bubble and then hope/expect that your larger stack is going to pave the way to 1st, meanwhile risking going out before the money even starts.
I just don't know about this 2nd line of reasoning. I've gone from 20th of 20 on to win and I've gone from 4th of 150 out in 148th. Given that anything can happen in a NL tourn, it would seem to be a great deal more valuable to assure money first, get your buy in plus the significant/insignificant % on top of it depending on place. If you only win 1 out of every 20 times you money, the return on the investment is still so much more, given the buy ins and other consistent money finishes, compared to the same level of ring play...
Granted, I need to pick up Harrington's book and search the archives (I'm terrible at searches here folks, help me out). I'd be interested in seeing some #s on expected ITM and ROI, bank size required or expected for a given tourn size (assuming all you will play is MTTs) and other's thoughts on ITM vs. ROI.
Let me preempt one argument, or, state this a little differently. I also happen to feel that while a player may be comfortable with one style most often, they should be able to play any style. It is easy to say we are talking about a difference in styles when it comes to these tourn questions. As I can play either though, I might just be asking 'which do you feel is better?'
My current MTT strategy or style involves playing very tight, looking for monster pockets to double up with, until the money line and sometimes well past it, all the way to final table. I don't steal blinds, I don't look to keep people honest or whatever... I'll even go through short phases where I am folding playable pockets (small pairs and AJo and the like) because I don't "need" to play right now, or against "that" person, or whatever. If I can't rebuy I'm not allowed to make any mistakes... This strategy has got me ITM just shy of 30 times, of which 5 are 1sts (four of which were for less than $500).
The other MTT strategy (which if memory serves, I did use for a few of those 1sts) involves being a great deal more aggressive as the bubble approaches and certainly more aggressive once the dead money is gone. As the blinds at this point are huge if you have a good read you can make a lot of T$ just stealing and such... however, you also risk going out before getting a single dollar back.
What is more important? Having a big stack when it comes to get rid of those just happy to have made it? Or having a small stack just in to the money but having it over and over and over again?
I'm a year and half along the same old story so many of us are repeating. I caught the first season of the WPT on TV and jumped on to UB after the Aruba episode. I spent some time in playchips before placing in a freeroll and getting some pennies in my account. From there I picked up a few books, started discussing odds with my friends in IM and made a deposit or two. Now I've got a few tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of hands under my belt, a small few thousand of them have made their way into poker tracker and I'm not disatisfied with what I've seen. I could have happily gone on this way, playing hobby poker, raiding my bank on occassion for a luxury item or emergency vehicle repair... then I won a much larger MTT than ever before. Then I went and looked at my cash history and realized I've won quite a few of these, money'd in quite a few more...
Now I'm asking questions that haven't been asked in our friendly little poker chats.
ITM vs. ROI
I found a poll several weeks back that asked for people's ITM%. One of the respondants noted that ROI was much more the measure of a player. I wonder though. First, if it isn't a shoot out, the winner is 'technically' the most penalized player. He beat every single player there but didn't get every single dollar, goes one line of thinking. The second is just based upon my own experience, but, it seems to me that for a tournament player it would be a great deal more valuable, in the long run, to get ITM first and worry about 1st or 2nd place later.
If you can get ITM consistently it is only a matter of time before the cards fall the right way to give you a 1st or a 2nd - vs. - Play all out going for the biggest stack possible at or near the bubble and then hope/expect that your larger stack is going to pave the way to 1st, meanwhile risking going out before the money even starts.
I just don't know about this 2nd line of reasoning. I've gone from 20th of 20 on to win and I've gone from 4th of 150 out in 148th. Given that anything can happen in a NL tourn, it would seem to be a great deal more valuable to assure money first, get your buy in plus the significant/insignificant % on top of it depending on place. If you only win 1 out of every 20 times you money, the return on the investment is still so much more, given the buy ins and other consistent money finishes, compared to the same level of ring play...
Granted, I need to pick up Harrington's book and search the archives (I'm terrible at searches here folks, help me out). I'd be interested in seeing some #s on expected ITM and ROI, bank size required or expected for a given tourn size (assuming all you will play is MTTs) and other's thoughts on ITM vs. ROI.
Let me preempt one argument, or, state this a little differently. I also happen to feel that while a player may be comfortable with one style most often, they should be able to play any style. It is easy to say we are talking about a difference in styles when it comes to these tourn questions. As I can play either though, I might just be asking 'which do you feel is better?'
My current MTT strategy or style involves playing very tight, looking for monster pockets to double up with, until the money line and sometimes well past it, all the way to final table. I don't steal blinds, I don't look to keep people honest or whatever... I'll even go through short phases where I am folding playable pockets (small pairs and AJo and the like) because I don't "need" to play right now, or against "that" person, or whatever. If I can't rebuy I'm not allowed to make any mistakes... This strategy has got me ITM just shy of 30 times, of which 5 are 1sts (four of which were for less than $500).
The other MTT strategy (which if memory serves, I did use for a few of those 1sts) involves being a great deal more aggressive as the bubble approaches and certainly more aggressive once the dead money is gone. As the blinds at this point are huge if you have a good read you can make a lot of T$ just stealing and such... however, you also risk going out before getting a single dollar back.
What is more important? Having a big stack when it comes to get rid of those just happy to have made it? Or having a small stack just in to the money but having it over and over and over again?