Party Super Musings [Archive] - Two Plus Two Older Archives

locutus2002

11-07-2005, 06:59 PM

The obvious observation is that your ROI is unlikely to reflect your true EV in a large field tournament even over 365 tournaments.

Hence returns, especially large ones, are likely to be a poor metric for gauging the quality/improvement of your game. The critical skill to improving as a player is based on self-perspicacity, and discipled review and analysis of HH. Skills which many of us develop for the first time in college. (Endogenous change)

It is also unlikely that the inevitable changing of the composition of a tournament over time (weaker to stronger, etc) would be reflected in ROI. (Exogenous change)

Benal

11-07-2005, 07:00 PM

Sats are a good way to offset the cost of playing these regularly. I'm quite confident that for the cost of 4 direct buyins ($648), I could win at least twice that number of entries via sats.

Apathy

11-07-2005, 07:05 PM

yvesaint

11-07-2005, 07:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Sats are a good way to offset the cost of playing these regularly. I'm quite confident that for the cost of 4 direct buyins ($648), I could win at least twice that number of entries via sats.

[/ QUOTE ]

you do realize that using sats is the same thing as buying in directly

its as if i said "oh i could go to a 200 NL ring game and double my buy-in, thats a 200+15 right there"

illegit

11-07-2005, 07:10 PM

Fairly obvious.

200 tournaments
1 cash
1 win
1 final table
-----------
ROI: 0%

At first glance that's approximately exactly what one would expect with those awfully bad-mediocre results, correct?

woodguy

11-07-2005, 07:11 PM

Assuming you are paying full price.

I know that you should count winning a SnG sat as "paying" $162 as you won $162 in the sat, but on average I would say that many players here pay on average "out of bankroll" less than $80/entry via the SnG sats.

All that being said, you make a good point, and it reinforces the idea that you must play to finish deep and not "survive".

Get 3 Final Table finishes and you're freerolling that tourney the rest of the year. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Regards,
Woodguy

Benal

11-07-2005, 07:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
you do realize that using sats is the same thing as buying in directly

[/ QUOTE ]

Say by chance I win every sat I play, I'll be waaay better than break even for the year when I win a Super vs buying in directly (as per OP).

So how is it the same as buying in directly when it costs less to do so?

N 82 50 24

11-07-2005, 07:38 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
you do realize that using sats is the same thing as buying in directly

[/ QUOTE ]

Say by chance I win every sat I play, I'll be waaay better than break even for the year when I win a Super vs buying in directly (as per OP).

So how is it the same as buying in directly when it costs less to do so?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've often wondered about this line of reasoning. It really just doesn't make sense to me. A satellite has risk, like any other form of poker. In addition, it takes time to win a satellite. How is a satellite any different than playing a $60 turbo STT and taking your winnings to the $215 tourney on Sunday? IMO, it isn't.

The only question you should be asking yourself is where you think you can most easily make money. For example, do you suck at satellite situations but you're a STT expert? In that case, you should not enter a satellite... you should just use STTs to build your roll to the point where you can enter some big MTTs (btw, I'm assuming that's your goal here, even if entering those MTTs would be outside of normal bankroll management guidelines). If you suck at STTs and you tend to kill satellites (superior patience, whatever), maybe you should consider just playing satellites. I know of at least one person who makes a comfortable hourly wage from playing satellites to the $215. He's convinced you find the worst players there and he doesn't like shorthanded play. It's the best place for him to make money right now.

Forget the idea that you're getting in cheaper. Just focus on playing where you think you can make the largest hourly wage within your risk tolerance level (or listen to strassa and play where you can develop your game... but that's a different mindset).

yvesaint

11-07-2005, 07:42 PM

[ QUOTE ]

So how is it the same as buying in directly when it costs less to do so?

[/ QUOTE ]

because its basically the same thing as winning a small tournament, and using those winnings to play in a bigger tournament

it would "cost less" for me to win a 50+5 SnG and use my winnings to buy-in to a 200+15

but i still had to win that 50+5 SnG in the first place

do you see what im getting at? its not like you entered the satellite for 30 bucks then immediately got 200 tournament bucks back. you had to play for it, and win it.

N 82 50 24

11-07-2005, 07:45 PM

11-07-2005, 07:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

So how is it the same as buying in directly when it costs less to do so?

[/ QUOTE ]

because its basically the same thing as winning a small tournament, and using those winnings to play in a bigger tournament

[/ QUOTE ]

please tell me you understand the difference between a satellite payout structure and a cash tournament... it's MUCH easier to win 10x (or 20x, whatever) your buy-in in a sat than a cash tourney...

EDIT: if you're talking about STT's, then i understand...

ilya

11-07-2005, 07:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The obvious observation is that your ROI is unlikely to reflect your true EV in a large field tournament even over 365 tournaments.

[/ QUOTE ]

Over in the STT forum we like to say meaningful sample sizes start at around 1000 SnGs....am I crazy or should that figure be even higher for MTTs...like....way higher?

ansky451

11-07-2005, 08:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The obvious observation is that your ROI is unlikely to reflect your true EV in a large field tournament even over 365 tournaments.

[/ QUOTE ]
Over in the STT forum we like to say meaningful sample sizes start at around 1000 SnGs....am I crazy or should that figure be even higher for MTTs...like....way higher?

[/ QUOTE ]

The number is so high, its not even important to bother figuring it out, especially if you are regularly entering supers with 1000 entrants.

Benal

11-07-2005, 08:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

So how is it the same as buying in directly when it costs less to do so?

[/ QUOTE ]

because its basically the same thing as winning a small tournament, and using those winnings to play in a bigger tournament

it would "cost less" for me to win a 50+5 SnG and use my winnings to buy-in to a 200+15

but i still had to win that 50+5 SnG in the first place

do you see what im getting at? its not like you entered the satellite for 30 bucks then immediately got 200 tournament bucks back. you had to play for it, and win it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course I realize that I basically win $162 when I win a sat, and then I'm spending that $162 when I play a Party Super. I was simply trying demonstrate a different approach to the original post.

Shaniac stated you would need to win a Super just to break even when playing 4 Supers a week for 50 weeks. That's $648 * 50, or $32400. If you ABSOLUTLY had to play these 4 Supers a week, why buyin directly if you can win an entry for an average of $75? $300 * 50 = $15000

Now let's say that 1st place pays an average of $32000. I'm now showing a profit of $17000, vs being break even.

Jason Strasser

11-07-2005, 08:29 PM

Lol you play this thing 200 times you ought to expect to win more money than 1 first.

ZeeJustin

11-07-2005, 08:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Lol you play this thing 200 times you ought to expect to win more money than 1 first.

[/ QUOTE ]

Winning 5x as often as the field is not as easy as you think. Maybe you are good enough to do it, maybe not, but I certainly wouldn't laugh at someone who only wins one out of 300 as they are most certainly a winning player.

locutus2002

11-07-2005, 08:35 PM

I'm going to ask my wife how to do the math for this.

In a super you win a small range of values up to 5 times entry fee, in a super you win a large range of values up to 150+ times entry fee. If it scales its about a million tournaments to get the same level of accuracy.

Of course 1000 tournaments is probably way too many to get a meaningful estimate of ROI on STT given the small fieldsize (10) and small return (5X). Inspite of STT dogma.

ZeeJustin

11-07-2005, 08:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A lot of players can win in the cash games and don't realize what a major leak MTT play is for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmm, I have always thought it was the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless he is talking LHE cash game players losing at MTT's, you are right.

Most NL cash game players can win easily at tournaments, while the opposite is not true.

ZeeJustin

11-07-2005, 08:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Of course 1000 tournaments is probably way too many to get a meaningful estimate of ROI on STT given the small fieldsize (10) and small return (5X). Inspite of STT dogma.

[/ QUOTE ]

1,000 SNGs will be meaningful, and will almost certainly be enough to tell if you are a winner, but it won't be extremely accurate in terms of roi.

Pat Southern

11-07-2005, 08:42 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

So how is it the same as buying in directly when it costs less to do so?

[/ QUOTE ]

because its basically the same thing as winning a small tournament, and using those winnings to play in a bigger tournament

it would "cost less" for me to win a 50+5 SnG and use my winnings to buy-in to a 200+15

but i still had to win that 50+5 SnG in the first place

do you see what im getting at? its not like you entered the satellite for 30 bucks then immediately got 200 tournament bucks back. you had to play for it, and win it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course I realize that I basically win $162 when I win a sat, and then I'm spending that $162 when I play a Party Super. I was simply trying demonstrate a different approach to the original post.

Shaniac stated you would need to win a Super just to break even when playing 4 Supers a week for 50 weeks. That's $648 * 50, or $32400. If you ABSOLUTLY had to play these 4 Supers a week, why buyin directly if you can win an entry for an average of $75? $300 * 50 = $15000

Now let's say that 1st place pays an average of $32000. I'm now showing a profit of $17000, vs being break even.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your profit is then coming from your sats, not the supers.

locutus2002

11-07-2005, 08:45 PM

show me the math.

The underlying finishes (1st through 10th) are discreet values that should be IID for a player. They are discreet, but if they were continuous a sample of 30 games would approximate a T distribution with a 90% confidence interval. The discreetness is going to mean more observations for a a similar confidence interval, and ROI is overlayed on outcomes in the tail ends of the distribution. It's going to mean more readings, but no where near 1000.

ZeeJustin

11-07-2005, 08:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
show me the math.

The underlying finishes (1st through 10th) are discreet values that should be IID for a player. They are discreet, but if they were continuous a sample of 30 games would approximate a T distribution with a 90% confidence interval. The discreetness is going to mean more observations for a a similar confidence interval, and ROI is overlayed on outcomes in the tail ends of the distribution. It's going to mean more readings, but no where near 1000.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is your math factoring in that you are playing vs a very diverse field of players in terms of skill, and will face around 2,000 unique players in your 1,000 tournaments?

locutus2002

11-07-2005, 09:01 PM

No. It assumes that all the random variables are equal.

But you could go about this a different way. If you actually had 1000 finishes in a short span of time (lets say 3 months is short but who knows). You could randomly sample your population and do some sample statistics to see how quickly your sample converges on your population statistics. This of course does not tell you if the population ROI is indicative of your true ROI, just how quickly the sample converges. I think the important variable to look at is what position you finish, not whether you cash or not.

It all makes for some interesting cocktail discussions, and I've heard very large numbers bantered around for STT players, and I suppose the empirical evidence of players should count alot more than the math.

pineapple888

11-07-2005, 09:07 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I think the important variable to look at is what position you finish, not whether you cash or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, finish position is totally irrelevant.

There are only four possible results: +4, +2, +1, -1 (ignoring rake).

It takes a very long time for such a data series to converge. 5000 is a start for estimating ROI to +-5%.

This has been discussed to death on the STT forum, with both theoretical models and simulations. When you see sim after sim of a 20% true ROI player ending up down after 1000 tournaments, you begin to appreciate the variance involved.

Benal

11-07-2005, 09:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Your profit is then coming from your sats, not the supers.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol Good point.

HoldingFolding

11-07-2005, 09:28 PM

In STT Sats to MTTs you often see the lottery mentality. They can't afford to buy into the MTT directly and they are not experienced STT players but they are after a stab at the big cash. This makes these STTs significantly softer than, say, the 55s (and ring games perhaps although I don't play them). Of course, even given this Pat Southern point is still valid.

johnnybeef

11-07-2005, 09:29 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Most NL cash game players can win easily at tournaments, while the opposite is not true.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe my wording wasnt clear, but this is exactly what I meant.

AceHiStation

11-07-2005, 09:41 PM

Winning 1 out of 200 supers to me is awful. I've played in a very small sample size of about 30 of them but have already cashed 7 times. I can't imagine playing 199 supers without even getting cracked just inside the bubble. And 200 supers, does anyone realize how many that is? If I played 200 supers I would hope for 5-6 final tables at least. Can't wait till I get ripped on for this one.
-Ace

ZeeJustin

11-07-2005, 09:49 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Most NL cash game players can win easily at tournaments, while the opposite is not true.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe my wording wasnt clear, but this is exactly what I meant.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your wording was clear. I was just agreeing with you.

scott8

11-07-2005, 09:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A lot of players can win in the cash games and don't realize what a major leak MTT play is for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmm, I have always thought it was the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless he is talking LHE cash game players losing at MTT's, you are right.

Most NL cash game players can win easily at tournaments, while the opposite is not true.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was speaking of LHE players, as that is what the majority of cash game players are. Obviously a good NL cash game player should be able to employ many of the same tactics in a NL tournament.

MicroBob

11-07-2005, 10:02 PM

I play the single-table satellites to the major-tourney sat's (PPM cruise, Aussie Millions, etc) as well as those for the super's sometimes.

I find the field AND pay-out structure to be advantageous to regular SNG's. Smallish sample-size in both....but it's natural to feel like you are doing better in a certain format and then to stick with that format.

If I thought it was more profitable to win the amount of the entry-fee via the regular SNG's then I would go that route instead.

I was playing a lot of the Stars sats for T$ and W$ for a time and didn't have much interest playing in the Sunday $215 tourney or whatever. The fields were weak enough that I found them still to be profitable even if I wanted to sell my T$ or W$ for cash.
I used them for various major-tourney satellites though.
and have since run extremely cold in them (AA keeps getting beat...arrgh).

ZeeJustin

11-07-2005, 10:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A lot of players can win in the cash games and don't realize what a major leak MTT play is for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmm, I have always thought it was the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless he is talking LHE cash game players losing at MTT's, you are right.

Most NL cash game players can win easily at tournaments, while the opposite is not true.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was speaking of LHE players, as that is what the majority of cash game players are. Obviously a good NL cash game player should be able to employ many of the same tactics in a NL tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

That doesn't sound correct to me. I thought NL was more popular these days. What data are you basing your statement on?

N 82 50 24

11-07-2005, 10:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A lot of players can win in the cash games and don't realize what a major leak MTT play is for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmm, I have always thought it was the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless he is talking LHE cash game players losing at MTT's, you are right.

Most NL cash game players can win easily at tournaments, while the opposite is not true.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was speaking of LHE players, as that is what the majority of cash game players are. Obviously a good NL cash game player should be able to employ many of the same tactics in a NL tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

That doesn't sound correct to me. I thought NL was more popular these days. What data are you basing your statement on?

[/ QUOTE ]

That seems to be more of a historical statement.

CardSharpCook

11-07-2005, 10:19 PM

Shane, this is my problem with MTTs. I mean, cashes don't even matter if you don't finish in the top 3. I mean, sure, you can't simply rely on one #1 finish, but all those cashes mean [censored]. It's just so stupid. Whatever.

scott8

11-07-2005, 10:32 PM

You know, I'm caught red-handed. I have never been to a casino where there aren't at least twice as many limit games spread as NL. And I can observe obviously how many limit games are going on at a given time on any internet site, but that only led to my assumption that there are less NL games going on.

You very well may be correct that NL is played more, as a quick survey of the # of tables going on currently at Party surprised me.

Pat Southern

11-07-2005, 10:33 PM

This is true in just about every 1000 person tournament, I dont really see anything profound in this realization. Obviously if you play 200 touranments you're going to have a lot more cashes than just one win, although one win in 200 is probably an unrealistic expectation. But if you can expect to make 4 FT with each finish the same probablility, that alone will make you a profitable player. Scatter in 20 other cashes along the way and you'll make a pretty solid profit in this single tournament.

locutus2002

11-08-2005, 12:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
No, finish position is totally irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just wrong. You either aren't explaining some assumptions or you don't know what you're talking about.

You need to make some assumptions about the underlying distribution. And the distribution of 4th place finishes is going to be a lot higher for a winning player than 10th place finishes.

I'd be interested to know if most winning players distribution of finishes (position) is normal.

N 82 50 24

11-08-2005, 02:06 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No, finish position is totally irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just wrong. You either aren't explaining some assumptions or you don't know what you're talking about.

You need to make some assumptions about the underlying distribution. And the distribution of 4th place finishes is going to be a lot higher for a winning player than 10th place finishes.

I'd be interested to know if most winning players distribution of finishes (position) is normal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, I have the tool to attempt to answer this question... Name a few PokerStars players who have played enough in the last 16 months and I'll make some graphs. I need enough so we can compare them...

BTW, I should make the graph as a % of field finish, not absolute, correct?

N 82 50 24

11-08-2005, 03:18 AM

Since he started this whole thread, I just picked shaniac.

This is Shane's last 644 tournament on PokerStars. Each bar represents a 5% band in terms of finish in relation to the field. So anytime he finished in the top 5%, it will be in the first bar. He finished dead last twice and those will be all the way on the right. It's actually a bit of pain to aggregate these into 5% bars, so I doubt I want to do another one....

http://www.thepokerdb.com/shaniac.JPG

curtains

11-08-2005, 03:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]
If you played the Party "Super" Weekday tournaments 4 times a week, 50 weeks out of the year, you'd need to win one (or an equivalent amount in smaller cashes) just to break even.

Discuss.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol, I saw this quote and thought "Wow sounds like a good deal!"

shaniac

11-08-2005, 03:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Since he started this whole thread, I just picked shaniac.

This is Shane's last 644 tournament on PokerStars. Each bar represents a 5% band in terms of finish in relation to the field. So anytime he finished in the top 5%, it will be in the first bar. He finished dead last twice and those will be all the way on the right. It's actually a bit of pain to aggregate these into 5% bars, so I doubt I want to do another one....

http://www.thepokerdb.com/shaniac.JPG

[/ QUOTE ]

What does this graph represent?

N 82 50 24

11-08-2005, 04:11 AM

Hrmm, thought I explained it. But you've played 644 tournaments in my database. I assigned 5-percentage-point bands. So your 1sts will be in the left-most band. Something where you got 7% of the field (7th out of a 100 person field) would be in the 2nd band. And the height of the band represents the number of tournies.

Pat Southern

11-08-2005, 04:15 AM

Cool graph, but there's a huge difference between 1st in a 1001 person tournament and 5th in a 1001 person tournament or 1st in a 201 person tournament.

N 82 50 24

11-08-2005, 04:23 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Cool graph, but there's a huge difference between 1st in a 1001 person tournament and 5th in a 1001 person tournament or 1st in a 201 person tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea, I tried making it with 100 bars, but it looked terrible... data wasn't coherent at all. As it is, I don't think it's that useful. Just that someone asked for it, so I did one...

CardSharpCook

11-08-2005, 04:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I tried making it with 100 bars, but it looked terrible... data wasn't coherent at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is the problem of variance in MTTs. Need to play 100s of 1000s before the data will look sexy. That said, nice work on the Shaniac graph. Seems he's a good player. He may need to address the fact that his 3rd most likely finish (based on 20 groupings) is in the 95th-100th percentile. But you can clearly see that he finishes well. When he gets to the top 10%, he is likely to make it to the top 5%. Also, just look at the graph, he finishes in the top 50% much more than in the bottom 50%.

Jason Strasser

11-08-2005, 06:42 AM

Damnit Shaniac work on that incredibly low 12th percentile.

This graph is useless lol, but pretty. Just like if you let Jenna Jameson run a fortune 500 company.

locutus2002

11-08-2005, 12:18 PM

Wow, this is great work and fascinating.

I might have asked Shaniac before I posted for the world to see though.

Here are my observations:

Shaniac is gambling hard until 1/2 the field is eliminated. (More erratic results >55%)

It's amazing that his chances of going out in the middle of the tournament are the same as the 90% range and every other range inbetween. He must be playing alot of rebuys (deep stack), because short stacked play would reflect alot of coin tosses and show decreasing survival rates no matter how good you were. He is also maintaining a healthy stack to reflect those rates and must be winning lots of small pots.

Shaniac is by far the strongest at the end of the tournament, when stacks are short, and big money is figuing into everyone's considerations.

Clearly a world-class online player.