$20 Tourneys. Whats a good sample size?

[Oddchild]

Hi all.

Everyone seemed to be doing these '100 tourney challenge' things so I thought I'd give one a go. I knew I was a decent player, but had never really studied it so I got poker tracker.

After 59 $20+2 online tourneys, my results are:-

1sts 16
2nds 7
3rds 6
4ths 4
5ths 4
6ths 7
7ths 4
8ths 3
9ths 6
10ths 2

In the money 49.15%
Total profit $962

Seeing this has got me mulling over several conclusions ranging from

'Is it a very lucky spell?'
to
'Can I stick at this level and go pro?'

with other questions like

'Why are PP players so crap?',
and
'should I move up limits?'


Any thought guys? Is this a reliable sample size?


Good cards to all!

[Tosh]

Probably 400 is necessary to get a decent idea of your win rate.

[Oddchild]

thanks tosh. im fully expecting a bad run soon!

[Lori]

'Is it a very lucky spell?'

Possibly, but those figures are not utterly crazy (except the high number of 1sts

'Can I stick at this level and go pro?'

Play another 250 or so and then see how it looks, if it looks okay, play another 250 then decide what to do.
Going pro at low limits is more about what you need from your life than the money you can earn.
When playing huge amounts of SNGs, burnout is a large factor I'm afraid.

with other questions like

'Why are PP players so crap?',

One of life's great mysteries, although I do significantly better at another site than I do on Party personally (Im an exception to the rule and have no idea why)

and
'should I move up limits?'

Maybe the occasional foray to see how you get on, IMO there's no need to hurry, but others will tell you to push for every last cent.

Lori

[JayCo]

There are a couple of spreadsheets floating around in the single table tournaments forum that have calculators to determine confidence intervals on your results.

AleoMagus spreadsheet (from One Table Tournaments forum)

http://www.tilthappens.com/files/2Plus2SNG.zip

I plugged your #s into the first spreadsheet and it spit out a 99.6% confidence level that your avg $ profit/tournament is positive. I'm no stats guy, so you may need a greater sample size to make these calcs statistically valid. But it sure looks like you can handle the $20s just fine, though- congrats.

If you do get the itch to go up, my advice would be to go slow and maybe set aside a small fixed chunk of change for the $30s. Also, the idea of playing just 1 table at a time to focus & accelerate your learning is a good one.

FWIW, I think there's a much bigger jump from the $30s to the $50s SNGs on Party than from the $20s to the $30s (one cause being the 1000 starting chips vs 800). I'm trying to scoot quickly up the SNG ladder for fun and currently stuck on the $50s: SNG Ladder Challege update