Talk to me about a large number of 6th place finishes....

[octaveshift]

I had the vast majority of my SNG histories wiped off my drive by Party's software a little while ago. (My fault, I never changed the default purge settings. Blah.)

One thing I had noticed before they were lost was that my most common OOTM finish position was 6th place. (I no longer have that data, so I can't give exact numbers.)

I now have a little over 100 SNGs in my new data set, and I see a similar trend emerging: (numbers rounded)

1st: 20%
2nd: 14%
3rd: 5%
4th: 8%
5th: 7%
6th: 14% <=========== OMG?!WTF1!!11
7th: 13%
8th: 8%
9th: 7%
10th: 4%

So the question is: Is a high number of 6th place finishes indicative of anything specific? (Besides a small sample size, and busting out in 6th a lot. /images/graemlins/wink.gif )

I would be curious to know what OOTM position other people bust out in most frequently....

[Freudian]

Do you go into accumlate-mode in level 4 no matter what number of chips you have?

You do get weird results in small series of numbers though. In my new PT db (old one is full) I have a high number of 7th places compared to normal. I don't think it means anything apart from being a random thing that will even out in the long run.

1st 15.1% 38
2nd 13.1% 33
3rd 12.7% 32
4th 15.5% 39
5th 13.9% 35
6th 8.3% 21
7th 12.7% 32
8th 4.4% 11
9th 2.8% 7
10th 1.6% 4

[axeshigh]

I play the same stakes you do (party 30+3) and right now, in the last 300 tourneys, I have more 6th places than anything else (even firsts), with 20% ROI. FWIW

[spentrent]

Come on brotha in another 100 games you could draw those percentages out of a hat and assign them to each place and you'd be wondering why you now have a lot of 4ths... or 3rds... or 7ths...

[Wes ManTooth]

Your 7th place finishes are statically very similar to the 6th place finishes. Quite often finishing in 6/7th place is usually in level 4 or 5 as results of preflop pushes. With the given data I don’t think you are doing anything significantly wrong, if anything to suggest try to monitor your play when you become 6 or 7 handed. You may want to even track the hands you were involved in that resulted in busting out in this position and see how overall they are different from other finishes.

[maddog2030]

I've had this same problem, only worse. At first chalked it up to variance. But now over my past 500 SNGs 6th place has taken the most finishes at 18.5%, compared to my 1st place finishes of 16.5%. I can't complain too much as my ROI is still at 29%.

But now that this seems to be a real problem, I'm wondering if I get too aggressive too early. I'm probably going to go back and look at some of my 6th place finishes this weekend and see what happened.

[octaveshift]

[ QUOTE ]
Come on brotha in another 100 games you could draw those percentages out of a hat and assign them to each place and you'd be wondering why you now have a lot of 4ths... or 3rds... or 7ths...

[/ QUOTE ]

As someone who only single-tables, I think it will be a while before I get an N that is significant.

/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Is there a board consensus on minimum significant sample size?

[maddog2030]

500 is probably the minimum you can call significant.

[tminus]

i play 10's and they fall like this:

1st
6th
5th

[45suited]

My opinion is that as long as you are pleased with your ROI, it is kind of unnecessary to delve too deeply into your finish distribution.

It would be one thing if you had a ton of 9ths and 10ths, but it seems to me that the reason so many of us have alot of 6ths, for example, is because we're not just letting ourselves getting blinded down into irrelevancy.

Sure, maddog's got alot of 6ths, but how many times was he relatively short stacked, took a chance, doubled up and ended up taking 1st? I'll look over specific situations and HHs, but with a very good ROI, I'm not going to beat myself up over alot of 6th place (or whatever) finishes. I don't think you guys should either.

[Nottom]

I think its pretty standard, basically you blind yourself down through the first couple levels, push something decent at level 4/5 and when you get called you either finish 6th/7th or double up and usually make the money.

[maddog2030]

This is a trend I've seen for awhile in my finishes (ie. 6ths finishing more than any other spot, including 1sts). Perhaps it is good to take the bustouts I do in trade for more ITM spots. Perhaps not. Perhaps its variance. But it is something I want to look at because my ROI isn't always going to be so high, and I could be missing out on an even higher ROI.

I don't usually pay too much attention to my place distribution since it's hard to draw any conclusions from it other than if you're a winning player or not, and even thats only good for the obvious cases (too many 7th-10th finishes, for example). But I think my high 6th place finishes are indicative of something. Does it mean its good to take those 6ths? If yes, then I'll be happy to know to take those in the future. Maybe I'll even get to look forward to them. If not, then maybe I can plug an ROI hole that's big enough to affect hourly rate. Or maybe it really isn't indicating anything. In any case I'd at least like to know since I don't see the trend going away.

But it's certainly nothing I'm going to lose sleep over.

[FatalError]

talk to me about small sample size

[11t]

Your large % of 6ths and 7ths may be the reason that you are taking so few 3rds.

[kyro]

I'm pretty sure I answered this exact question a little over a week ago.

After 600+ SNGs, I've finished in 6th more than every other position except 1st. It goes something like 1, 6, 3, 4, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10. Oh, my ROI is 20%, so I must be doing something right.

[rvg72]

[ QUOTE ]
Your large % of 6ths and 7ths may be the reason that you are taking so few 3rds.

[/ QUOTE ]

7th used to be my big OOTM finish by quite a bit (and 1st was my most frequent of all by quite a bit) so I took steps to lower this and now my 7th place finishes are way down but my most frequent finish has become 3rd and my ROI has dropped accordingly...

I have decided to move back to 1st's and 7th's...

OP, with the ROI you are showing I wouldn't change a thing. You are probably doubling up a lot in level 4ish giving you a great win rate and the side affect of that is busting out in 6th when you lose the all-in.

[tminus]

tell us about what part of boston you live in so we can invite you to a game /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[astarck]

[ QUOTE ]
It would be one thing if you had a ton of 9ths and 10ths, but it seems to me that the reason so many of us have alot of 6ths, for example, is because we're not just letting ourselves getting blinded down into irrelevancy.

Sure, maddog's got alot of 6ths, but how many times was he relatively short stacked, took a chance, doubled up and ended up taking 1st?

[/ QUOTE ]

I view 4th-6th as almost the exact same finish position on Party. I do this because the blinds increase so rapidly that depending on the texture of the table you hit these push/fold blinds between positions 4-6 the most. Since many 2+2'ers are pushing from the sb/button when blinds are high they are getting unlucky at times and busting out.

As long as your ROI is high and you have no "weird" finish percentages, I don't see any reason at all to worry. If 7th was your highest place, I might be concerned, but we all know that the blinds can get very high with anywhere from 4-6 people still left.

Don't they say those who have really high ROIs finish in 1st and 4th the most? And if we consider 4-6 the same, then no problem at all.

EDIT - If you are going to bust out, might as well bust out in 10th so you can get in another sng quickly. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif I think I shall create a new sng strategy: Knowing the sngs you bust out and purposely get out in 10th so you can make way for only those sngs that you get ITM. Gotta make that hourly rate go up. /images/graemlins/grin.gif