Slim Pickens
03-06-2005, 11:48 PM
A while ago I made up my mind to take online SnG’s seriously enough to decide if I was a winning recreational player. The plan: play 200 10+1 tournaments with the modest goal of a 40% ITM, 20% ROI. I decided to stop the experiment at 180, with a 37% ITM and an 18% ROI. The tournaments so nicely separated themselves into to Phases, One and Two, I couldn’t resist stopping my play and starting the analysis.
Phase 1, tournaments 1-90: ITM=42%, ROI=43%
Phase 2, tournaments 91-180: ITM=32%, ROI=-5%
So what happened? I haven’t been playing long enough to say for sure my style of play didn’t change significantly somewhere, but more likely, it’s our good friend variance. The nice thing about a sample size of 180 is that it gives some manner of statistical relevance (winning confidence is around 90%... close enough for me) without being too many too analyze individually.
I’m breaking down the analysis by the general stages of the tournament:
1) Levels 1-3. How often do I survive? How many chips do I have? How often am I seeing/winning showdowns where I’m within 60/40 either way? How often am I seeing showdowns where all the chips went in with someone a huge (>80%) favorite, and how often was I the dominating favorite? How are the cards treating me?
2) Level 4 to 4-handed. This is all about stealing. How often do I survive to 4-handed? What are my stealing values? How often am I called? What are my opponents generally calling with? When I’m called, how much of an underdog have I been and how often have I been sucking out?
3) 4-handed bubble play. What’s my conversion rate here? How often am I the one busting the 4th place finisher? How often am I stealing blinds? How often am I called and by what? How many hands does the table usually stay on the bubble?
4) playing ITM. How many chips do I have? My opponents? How many near coin-flips do I take/win? How many do my opponents take/win? How many hands does it usually take to finish?
What I hope will happen is that the answer to at least one of those questions will tell me something about the nature of the hot streak followed by the cold streak. I want to identify what factors were purely variance, and which ones were related to my play. I also want to see if I’m playing in such a way that I invite these streaks: taking a lot of chances early, stealing too much, and so on. If I am, is it positive EV or was the initial hot streak just a lot of good breaks on bad plays.
Any suggestions on what to analyze will be greatly appreciated, and I’ll post up the results as my lack of a real life permits me to generate them. Item 1 is almost done...
Slim
Phase 1, tournaments 1-90: ITM=42%, ROI=43%
Phase 2, tournaments 91-180: ITM=32%, ROI=-5%
So what happened? I haven’t been playing long enough to say for sure my style of play didn’t change significantly somewhere, but more likely, it’s our good friend variance. The nice thing about a sample size of 180 is that it gives some manner of statistical relevance (winning confidence is around 90%... close enough for me) without being too many too analyze individually.
I’m breaking down the analysis by the general stages of the tournament:
1) Levels 1-3. How often do I survive? How many chips do I have? How often am I seeing/winning showdowns where I’m within 60/40 either way? How often am I seeing showdowns where all the chips went in with someone a huge (>80%) favorite, and how often was I the dominating favorite? How are the cards treating me?
2) Level 4 to 4-handed. This is all about stealing. How often do I survive to 4-handed? What are my stealing values? How often am I called? What are my opponents generally calling with? When I’m called, how much of an underdog have I been and how often have I been sucking out?
3) 4-handed bubble play. What’s my conversion rate here? How often am I the one busting the 4th place finisher? How often am I stealing blinds? How often am I called and by what? How many hands does the table usually stay on the bubble?
4) playing ITM. How many chips do I have? My opponents? How many near coin-flips do I take/win? How many do my opponents take/win? How many hands does it usually take to finish?
What I hope will happen is that the answer to at least one of those questions will tell me something about the nature of the hot streak followed by the cold streak. I want to identify what factors were purely variance, and which ones were related to my play. I also want to see if I’m playing in such a way that I invite these streaks: taking a lot of chances early, stealing too much, and so on. If I am, is it positive EV or was the initial hot streak just a lot of good breaks on bad plays.
Any suggestions on what to analyze will be greatly appreciated, and I’ll post up the results as my lack of a real life permits me to generate them. Item 1 is almost done...
Slim