when are you in the long run?

[derdo]

Hey all,
Since I was 18, I am used to lose some money in some form of gambling or other. My favourite was horseracing which is very widespread in Turkey (where I come from).
I used to play a strange form of poker with college friends in Turkey (5 card draw kings or better with 32 card deck and strangely trips beat straights) and I would think I was a overall loser in those games as well.
Anyways i started playing SNG NLHE tournaments 8 months ago and in the last 6 months I started making some money.
But my old instinct was always telling me "Cem, you are gambling, there is no way you can be consistent winner. Don't get carried away".
The main game I play is PP $11 20 player tournaments. In the last 6 months my records show me that I have played 333 of these games and here are the results.
place count
1 29
2 22
3 19
4 19
5 16
6 20
7 12
8 15
9 16
10 21
11 26
12 16
13 13
14 13
15 15
16 14
17 12
18 13
19 9
20 13
ITM: 26%
ROI: %30.4

Even though these numbers seem amazing for me and I feel so much more comfortable with my game, that doubt was still in my mind. 333 is not enough for sample size, "Cem, you are a loser!!!"
At last, to convince myself I created a simple spreadsheet simulation. I simulated 333 tournaments where I am equally likely to place at any place (average player) and replicated this simulation 10000 times.
The simulation estimate for the probability of an average player to have a profit over $1000 is only 0.09%.
Based on this analysis, I think, I can conclude that, I am an above avarage player on PP's $11 20 player SNG's.
This is a happy day for me I just wanted to share this with the people whose posts here helped me improve my game...

Cheers.
Cem

[J-Lo]

Well it seems u did take a long time to write all this. You shoulda been able to figure out an "average" player will lose $1 for every tourney he plays becasue that is the vig. So if you makin $3 for every tourney, that is a difference of $4 from the average player to you. At the 2-table SNG's i feel you need a larger sample size than the regular 1-table SNG's. Generally 1,000 1-table SNG's, will tell you a very rough estimate of your true ROI. So, you need 2500 to get an decent estimate as to what your true ROI is at the $10+1 level. Ex. I have had stretches of 250 SNG's played where i have broken even. There have been other winning players who have had streak of 1000 SNG's where they break even. So, sorry to tell ya, but 333 SNG's is not a very significant sample size to get your tru ROI. But it seems you are on the right track, and 300 SNG's is enough to tell you that you ARE a winning player-- i think.

[Maulik]

[ QUOTE ]
Well it seems u did take a long time to write all this. You shoulda been able to figure out an "average" player will lose $1 for every tourney he plays becasue that is the vig. So if you makin $3 for every tourney, that is a difference of $4 from the average player to you. At the 2-table SNG's i feel you need a larger sample size than the regular 1-table SNG's. Generally 1,000 1-table SNG's, will tell you a very rough estimate of your true ROI. So, you need 2500 to get an decent estimate as to what your true ROI is at the $10+1 level. Ex. I have had stretches of 250 SNG's played where i have broken even. There have been other winning players who have had streak of 1000 SNG's where they break even. So, sorry to tell ya, but 333 SNG's is not a very significant sample size to get your tru ROI. But it seems you are on the right track, and 300 SNG's is enough to tell you that you ARE a winning player-- i think.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm playing 1000 in 11 days and I can tell you from my experience and from statistics 500 may give you an idea if you are a winning player. But its really just not enough data.

Consider flipping a quarter 55/45 overcards v. pocket pair and the 55/45 distribution you should expect. Well if you do it 500 times you may find the distribution to be skewd one way or another, the more times you do it the close it will come to the expected values of 55/45.

Keep playing.

[Pokerscott]

[ QUOTE ]
Generally 1,000 1-table SNG's, will tell you a very rough estimate of your true ROI.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think he is just trying to figure out if his ROI > 0% not precisely estimate what it is.

To OP: Here are some tables I put together a while ago that you might find useful.

ROI confidence tables