Another look at skill vs. luck in MTTs

[1p0kerb0y]

And here are some of my personal opinions on the subject at matter...

Let's look at how many different forms of poker there are. Many. 7 card stud. Razz. Texas Hold 'Em. Triple Draw. Duece to seven lowball. Omaha. Omaha Hi/Lo split. 7 card stud Hi/Lo split. Furthermore, how many different ways are these games spread? We have no limit, pot limit, limit, spread limit, multi-table tournaments, sit 'n go tournaments, ring games. These are a lot of different variations of different games, and I have to say that they all offer different variations of a luck/skill ratio. This difference is NOT MINUTE but rather DRASTIC.

Since everybody seems to be referring to NLH MTTs(including Paul Phillips), I'll start there. What everybody has to realize is that the prize pool in nearly ALL of these tournaments is HEAVILY WEIGHTED towards the top three positions, meaning that if you want to make money playing these games, your going to have to finish in those spots. Keeping that point in mind, I'll continue.

How good is the average player? Using a scale of 1-10, of ALL the players in the world, let's say a 5.5 is average. For the purpose of this example, we will say that you, the reader, are a very good player and rate you a 9. Now let's say you are playing a 200 player tournament. Your tournament is stacked with the following players:

10 dead money(3)
25 below average (4)
50 average (5.5)
50 (6)
35 (7)
20 (8)
15 (9)

As you can see in the example, you are one of the TOP PLAYERS in the tournament. Should be easy for you to make money, right? Now if you all were equal players, you would have a 1/67 chance to make the "good money" (top 3 spots... remember?) But you're not all evenly matched- remember you have an edge! By adding everybody's "skill points" we end up with a total of 1245. Take your 9 and multiply by 3(because there are 3 spots you can finish in to make the "good money"). 9*3= 27. To find your odds of making the good money, 1245/27 = 1/46. You have cut down the odds a bit with your skill. But the fact remains that you are only going to place in the "good money" one out of every 46 times. How many tournaments would it take to even out the variance? MANY. I could go perhaps over 200 tournaments without making the "good money", or I may make the "good money" 4 out of my first 100! Try this. Take a deck of cards. Take out 6 cards. Shuffle the rest. Your card is the king of clubs(make sure you do not take it out) Flip up the top card. What is it? Mine was the eight of spades. Put it back. Reshuffle. Ten of hearts. My point is that you have better odds of finishing in the "good money" than other players, but you are still a long shot and could potentially go a long time without making it. Yes, in the long run you will make more money, but the long run on a series of multi-table tournaments could take well more than a lifetime to achieve. Furthermore, many tournaments, including the ones that Paul Phillips plays, don't have as many average to below average players. This could well have you sifting through the whole deck for the king of clubs.

[Tom Bayes]

I think my personal experience in online MTTs over the past year speak volumes about the role of luck and how the "long-term" is going to being several hundred or maybe even thousands of tournaments.

I play on several sites (mostly Stars, UB, and Planet) in a variety of games from NL holdem to omaha/8 and stud/8 to draw and razz. I play poker as a hobby and can afford the stakes at which I play-it's more fun when I win at my hobby. I concentrate on MTTs because I enjoy them; if I was trying to build a bankroll or be a "pro", I'd grind at limit ring games and SNGs, but that is not as much "fun". I play mostly low buy-in tourneys (freeroll to $10), although I have played a small number of $100 and $200 tourneys when I had won the buy-in in a satellite.

I tend to be a fairly tight player (tight-aggressive when I'm playing well). Over the last year, I have played about 300 MTTs online and have been ITM about 18% of the time-not bad considering most of these tournaments pay out to about 7-12% of the field. Of course, the more relevant statistic is your ROI.

My current ROI is 202%. This absurdly large number is due almost entirely to 2 wins in $100 events on UB, both of which I entered with a TEC that I won in a $3/rebuy satellite. Without those two event, I'm barely more than break-even for the year, about 15% for ROI. Obviously the 200% is not sustainable-the "true" value for the ROI parameter is probably between 15% and 200% for me, although it is possible I'm just a fish who had a lucky year and I'm a negative long-term ROI.

The sobering thought is that in both of my major tourney wins, if a couple of key hands had gone the other way (i.e. if I had gotten knocked out before the money when somebody hit a river card, or in the case of one tourney, had I not hit a 2-outer to keep me alive), I'd be essentially a break-even player right now.

Obviously, the great MTT players, people like teecoy and TheBeat and gank online or like the upper echelon in person (including posters like Phillips, Duke, Greenstein, etc.) are much better than I and play much higher stakes. In the case of the online tournament specialists, these guys probably play several hundred tournaments (maybe over 1000 in some cases) per year, so if they have a sufficient bankroll they can weather out the inevitable dry spells. It strikes me that making a living solely off of high-stakes B&M tournaments is an extremely difficult and risky proposition. I'm sure this is why many of the successful players either: (1) are also successful cash game players and make their real money there, (2) are already wealthy and can afford tournament poker as a hobby, (3) are using their poker "celebrity" to make money from books, apperances, online sites, etc. (I don't blame them one bit, especially those with kids to feed like Annie), or (4) are rumored to be broke (go to RGP to see who is "busted" this week, although this must be true about some players).

Even if I had the talent, I don't think I'd want to put myself through the rollercoaster being a tournament pro unless I had millions from elsewhere (ala Phillips, Gordon).