Percentage In The Money?

[West]

I just saw below where someone claimed to be making the money 60% of the time at $30 SnGs, for 150 tourneys. I wonder if this claim is for PokerStars (9 man table) or Party/Empire/whatever (10 man table)? I definitely would find it hard to believe for a 10 man table. Even at a 9 man, this seems like a ridiculously high % to me. Hell, it makes me wonder if the play at $30 SnGs is significantly worse than at $50.

I play $50 SnGs at Empire, have kept track of close to my last 300 or so, and have cashed at just under 40%. I have to date had the same amount of 2nds and 3rds, with more 1sts than either. I have been undergoing a foul streak the last week and a half that is driving me crazy.

Regular SnG players, what is your typical ITM%? What $ level do you play? Do you generally have an even distribution of finishes within your cashes? How about your ups and downs from week to week? Do you find that things tend to even out by the end of the month, or do you have variance from month to month as well?

[Pitcher]

Hi West,

I have heard these claims before and listened to many comments (I started a well read thread about this a few months back and there have been many others). Not to brag, but my ITM% for 11 months of play (PP $50 NLHE) was 44.3%. I had slighly more firsts than seconds or thirds. My percentage of firsts went up in the latter part of this time. Anyway, I find any claim of much above that at other than 5 or 10 level pretty suspect. BTW, I also think you are doing very well. 40% in the money is very good and it took quite sometime to do that well...I played at the lower levels before moving to the $50's and at the beginning I would have been happy with 40%
/images/graemlins/cool.gif
Pitcher

[Cptkernow]

60% over the long term is totaly immpossible.

You can build on your game though a win rate anywhere upto 47% is achievable. Beyond that (higher than me) would obviously require intergalatic class poker ability

[West]

Thanks for the reply. Congratulations on your successful run - if I can boost the % the the low 40s over the long run, I would be very very happy.

About the other part of my question - since you've been tracking for 11 months, maybe you can tell me what kind of variance you have in terms of profit from week to week, and month to month. How often do you have weeks from hell vs. weeks from heaven? Have your results been pretty even from month to month, or do you have your better months and your not very good months?

[Pitcher]

Hi West,

One of the reasons I started playing SnG's was to attempt to reduce the variance. For the most part, it worked /images/graemlins/tongue.gif During the 11 months in question I did not have a losing month. I did have one of the worst streaks ever during a month, but it was offset by one of the best streaks. I have posted both of those. So, no losing months overall, but some months were $5000+, worst was $375.

I must thank all those whom posted hands and advice for making this nice 11 months possible. I posted some hands and read alot of good advice. This forum works and everyone shares in the success. You can and probably will do the same.

Pitcher

[Jonathan]

Hi West,

I remember recently reading the same post you did that claimed to place "around 60%". I remember thinking at the time that I read this that since the man does not quote an exact figure, he probably doesn't have an accurate database of results, and is probably deluding himself concerning his results. My own feeling is that anything approaching 50% is very difficult to maintain. I was around 48% in the PS $20 Sit n Go, but have since dropped back down after several very bad spells.

Anyway, here are my results based on a relatively small sample size.

Stake........# of games........%ITM
-----------------------------------
$5...........45............... 55.5
$10..........133...............43.6
$15..........88................37.5
$20..........65................38.4
$25..........15................33.3


Some observations based on an admitedly small sample size.

1) Although people lump 5, 10, and 20 together it seems each level is harder than the previous for me.

2) My results for 15 and 25 are quite a bit worse. Perhaps this is because I'm accustomed to the longer format and have not adjusted quickly enough to the new format?

3) Just a few weeks ago, my ITM% for $20 was 46.2% - higher than 10 - and it just took a beating after a losing streak of 14 games without a place. Even so, I suspect that the variance of the ITM% is fairly high and does not begin to converge until several hundered (mabey thousands) games.


Regards,
Jonathan

[West]

Thanks a lot for the info. This makes me feel a lot better, knowing that even month to month, I am going to see significant variance sometimes. The trick is being able to keep my head and my cool during the down periods.

[West]

I appreciate the post Jonathan. I play in $50 SnGs, and I am very curious about the level of play at $100 SnGs; is it a step up in the level of competition? Just a little bit? A lot? Eventually I plan on answering that question myself, but not in the near future.

Based on my own experience, I don't think I would even believe Howard Lederer if he told me he was cashing 50% of the time in the long run at 10 man tables.