ZeeJustin: A Case Study

[pfkaok]

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But it seemed like you were saying that $250 sats have lower variance than $250 MTTs. this isn't true.

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??????????

A 500 man tourney that gives 50 prizes of equal value has more variance than a 500 man tourney where half of the money goes to the top three? Wow.

A satellite can pay a significantly lower % of the field and still have lower variance.

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UGH...

IF you're playing the $250 sat. with the plan of selling the $2500 seat, then yes, you're correct. the $250 sat has less variance. That is obvious.

However, normally you're playing the sat in order to win a seat and play the larger event. this will be WAY more variance than a normal $250 buyin MTT.

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Not if you are rolled to play the 2500 and will buyin if you don't win in, an assumption which was stated throughout. If you're going to join a discussion late at least read and understand what's been said already.

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Um...

I did read the entire thread.

I understand that buying into $2500 tourneys is higher variance than using $250 sats to get in. I don't know why you seem to think i'm saying different. you should be listening to your own words, and reading the entire post of mine. How many times do i need to repeat myself.

My point is that buying into $250 MTTs has lower variance than the $250 sats. this is certainly true. think about it some before misreading something i said in order to be able to disagree.

Assume a BR requirement of 100 buyins. even if its low as ZJ says, it really doesn't matter for the example. Anyways. for $250 MTTs, you'd need a BR of $25,000. For $2500 MTTs, you'd need $250,000. To play sats, you'd need a BR of close to the bigger event, but maybe say 70-80%. That would be a $175-200,000 BR.

I'm not sure, my math degree is from a U.C. school, not some fancy Ivy league. But i'm still smart enough to be confident in the fact that 175,000 > 25,000.

To me, when tournament A requires a BR of 7 or 8 times the BR needed for tournament B... its pretty safe to say that tourney A has more variance than tourney B

[ZeeJustin]

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Please, be more condenscending next time, I didn't get enough of it in your last response.

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Haha, sorry. I just think the WSOP is a bad example since very few of those players are pros, and as I've already said, my comments only apply to pros.

[Exitonly]

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My point is that buying into $250 MTTs has lower variance than the $250 sats. this is certainly true. think about it some before misreading something i said in order to be able to disagree.

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What?


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To me, when tournament A requires a BR of 7 or 8 times the BR needed for tournament B... its pretty safe to say that tourney A has more variance than tourney B

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maybe i'm wrong, but this seems like a really bad comparison. Just because a tournament is 7 or 8x more expensive, does not mean it has 7 or 8x the variance. The variance is the same (measure in terms of buyins, not dollars).

[LearnedfromTV]

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My point is that buying into $250 MTTs has lower variance than the $250 sats. this is certainly true. think about it some before misreading something i said in order to be able to disagree.

Assume a BR requirement of 100 buyins. even if its low as ZJ says, it really doesn't matter for the example. Anyways. for $250 MTTs, you'd need a BR of $25,000. For $2500 MTTs, you'd need $250,000. To play sats, you'd need a BR of close to the bigger event, but maybe say 70-80%. That would be a $175-200,000 BR.

I'm not sure, my math degree is from a U.C. school, not some fancy Ivy league. But i'm still smart enough to be confident in the fact that 175,000 > 25,000.

To me, when tournament A requires a BR of 7 or 8 times the BR needed for tournament B... its pretty safe to say that tourney A has more variance than tourney B

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AHHHHHH! Of course satelliting into events over you bankroll that you would never play otherwise increases your variance! I've said this already, but it's not the point.

The premise is that we're dealing with someone who is bankrolled (or close to it) for the higher buyin. Same guy also plays lower buyin events (in the case of 2500's, it's because they don't run often enough). Because he plays the higher buyin events anyway, to him, every higher buyin ticket he wins is equivalent to cash. So on all those days when there is no higher buyin event avaliable, he can make his decision as to which type of lower buyin event to play without considering the variance of the higher buyin event. Any time he chooses to play the lower buyin event with lower variance, he lowers his overall variance.

To put it in terms of your bankroll requirements. We're talking about a guy with 175-200K who mostly only gets to play 200's. tThe question is which type of 200 is lower variance for him. Since tickets to 2500's are within his bankroll and thus as good as cash to him from a risk perspective, the answer is satellites. As I said elsewhere, granted this is the guy least concerned about variance in 200's, but that doesn't make it less true!

[pfkaok]

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If you're approaching it mathematically with the goal of making as much money as possible within the time you're willing to commit while not going broke, then I think it's a poor approach to do what you're doing. What you need to do is figure out where you're most profitable. For me, I've found it to be STTs on Party. I can 8 table them and maintain almost the same ROI as I achieve when I used to 2 table them. On the other hand, I'm a net loser in MTTs (doesn't necessarily say much, I haven't played that many) and I'm a streaky cash games player at any reasonable limit. Therefore, I play STTs when I want to make money playing poker because it's where I can make the most per hour and be fairly confident I'll never go broke. I play well below my bankroll.

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This is a very important concept that I think a lot of winning players either don't think about, or just don't apply enough.

I sure know that I was a fulltime pro for quite some time before I REALLY started thinking about this in a productive way, and i'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one.

Its really pretty simple. you just have to think about how much you expect to make per table hour of each different type of game, and how conducive that game is to multitabling.

For example, when i multitabled LHE, I had to decide whether to play 10/20 6m, or 15/30 full ring. I figured that 15/30 was about $30 per table hour (approx 1.5 BB/100). And 10/20 was about $40 per table hour (2 BB/100). however, I could only play 4-5 tables of 6max, vs. 6-8 of fullring, so my $$/hr was $180-240 vs. $160-200 in favor of 15/30. So it seemed that playing 15/30 was the clear choice.

however, after a few months it became clear that another factor was much more important if the EVs are close. Enjoying a game more is HUGE. its so much easier to log hours, and much easier to be constantly improving when you genuinely love to play. The long term benefits of this are quite obvious.

Another factor which is also very key is availability of larger games. When I first started playing I was a NL player, but I switched over to LHE b/c at the time Party had TONS of 15/30 LHE games, and very few decent sized NLHE cash games. And ironically, the newer large NL games (along with the fact that party's 30/60 is TOUGH) are the reason i've switched back to NLHE primarily. Also, its the main thing I don't like about STTs. Above $215's don't run all the time, and from what i've heard the competition is VERY, VERY tough in them. Thankfully MTTs have sats, so even in a 10k WPT event, I can be confident that i'll have +EV.

I know a lot of the $$ per table hour stuff sounds really trivial, and stupid, but I honestly believe that it is one of the more underrated attributes of maximizing earn. And, IMO, its also why GOOD WR and variance threads can be very helpful if a lot of expierienced, winning players contribute.

[LearnedfromTV]

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My point is that buying into $250 MTTs has lower variance than the $250 sats. this is certainly true. think about it some before misreading something i said in order to be able to disagree.

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What?


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To me, when tournament A requires a BR of 7 or 8 times the BR needed for tournament B... its pretty safe to say that tourney A has more variance than tourney B

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maybe i'm wrong, but this seems like a really bad comparison. Just because a tournament is 7 or 8x more expensive, does not mean it has 7 or 8x the variance. The variance is the same (measure in terms of buyins, not dollars).

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What he's saying is that if you are only rolled for the 200's, playing $200 satellites increases your variance because the prize forces you to play over your bankroll. That is, a ticket to a $2500 is not equivalent to cash to someone with $25000; it is significantly riskier than cash that he could wager at the proper levels. You are right that playing a higher buyin might have the same variance relative to the buyin (the roll for 2500's might just be a matter of scale compared to the roll for 200's), but relative to the bankroll of the player who is rolled for 200's, the variance per dollar of bankroll is obviously much higher. If you have 25000 and play events that you need 200000 for, you will experience greater variance in your bankroll than someone with 200000. This is common knowledge. Phrasing must be throwing you off.

This doesn't conflict with what I am saying and I can't figure why he thinks it does.

[shaniac]

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The exception of course would be if you're able to sell your buyin, and were just playing the sats to win $$.

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This is what I recommend all the time when low stakes players emailing me saying "omg, I won an entry into the 215, tell me how to win it!"

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I can't imagine why you would disuade a low-limit player from trying to parlay his satellite win into a good experience in the Sunday MTT.

Not everyone focuses on the minutae of bankroll management and constantly getting the best of it down to every last penny. If you're bankroll is $200 and you turn $27 of it into a seat in the Stars 500K, why the hell not take a shot at the real deal.

[Melchiades]

If your bankroll is 200 and you play a $27 sat you clearly don't give a [censored] about bankroll managment anyways, so I agree. Take a shot.

[pfkaok]

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AHHHHHH! Of course satelliting into events over you bankroll that you would never play otherwise increases your variance!

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YES!!! however, I think that this is one of the more common mistakes in BR management that TONS of winning players (myslef included) commit. I doubt many people on here could say that they've never played sats for events that they don't even have half the BR to buyin directly to. I know its considered "taking a shot" or whatever, but IMO its a very poor way to take your shot. say you've got a $25,000 BR. So playing $250 tourneys is within BR. a lot of people would assume that if they want to "take a shot" they should play a $250 buyin to a $2500 event. this is stupid. It would be much better to say, buyin to a few $500 tourneys, or maybe a $1000 tourney. It's WAAAAAY more effective.


And anyways, for the player with a $200k BR, yeah, playing the smaller sats might be a good idea if he's got good EV in them, but assuming he's not going to sell his seat, his variance WILL NOT decrease by playing $250 sats over $250 MTTs. He's not MAKING $2500 each time he wins. I'm not too up on expectations on these things, but i'll assume he's at least a pretty good winner and qualifies 1/6. So on average, he'll spend $1500 to get into the $2500 event. So you could say he ahs a pretty good EV in the sats, but the thing is, its still no different than him buying into the big tourney for a discounted $1500. Now, how is it that a $1500 MTT can have less variance than a $250 MTT.

Or, think about how often that $250 gets turned into a big score. we'll say top .5% is a big score. and lets say this player finishes in the top .5% double his share, since he's good. Well, entering into a $250 MTT, he'll obv get in there 1% of the time. and if he put that $250 to a sat, he's turn it into a big score, 1/6(1%), or .16% of the time. granted his scores will be much bigger when he turns his sat into a cash, but thats just the point. the variance is quite huge.

[pfkaok]

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maybe i'm wrong, but this seems like a really bad comparison. Just because a tournament is 7 or 8x more expensive, does not mean it has 7 or 8x the variance. The variance is the same (measure in terms of buyins, not dollars).

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well yeah. but i'm talking in sheer dollar amounts, b/c thats usually the most useful way to look at it since your BR isn't infinite.

He was saying, i thought, that $250 sats would decrease variance compared to $250 MTTs. This is untrue.

Say your BR is 100k. if you played only $250 sats into bigger events, your risk of ruin would be WAY higher than if you played only $250 MTTs with their 100k BR.