MTT tourneys

I played two sit n go tourneys at pokerstars last night. $1 + $0.20 45 players. I placed 30th on the first and 9th on the second (payout to 7th, 1st place = $14). The first tourney was embarassing, but the second I feel i should have won the hand i got busted on... Anyways, I think I can place if not 1st, at least in the money after a few more trys at the same sit n go. What i want to know is, for those of you that play many MTT's: How often should i expect to place in the money? If i hit first, that gives me 10 more runs to do it again, and still be even (and thats if i don't place in the money all 10). I like these odds... Is there anything I should know before trying this? Before, I played mostly cash games, but I'm interested in trying these MTT sit n gos for a bit.

There is a few threads/posts about these $1 sit and go's at Stars floating about somewhere, try a search. Dont play them as much as i used to, i should really. At one stage i had 3 wins in a row !

The quality of the play in a lot of it is pure rubbish, and you should just wait for your hands, trust me youll get paid. Final table play is a lot different though. Have a read of Robs MTT guide as well, it has some exellent tips.

Well i tried a go at it again, and well... i placed 8th!!! Pays out to 7th...

OK Pokerstars is the best site for better tournament players to come out ahead for a reason, although I still see way too much horrid play get rewarded there but I digress... The reason Pokerstars rises above the competition online for tournaments is because of the number of starting chips you recieve and the relatively slowly increasing blind structure. That means a better player can generally absorb a bad decision or suckout and not be eliminated right away! The flip side of that is you MUST have patience!!!!!!!!!

I haven't given up yet on placing in this 45 plr sit n go, but I was pretty annoyed about placing one under the bubble... I'll keep this post updated on how I do on the next few trys if anyone is interested...

Your question about ITM (in the money) %...

It all depends...ITM is a good stat, but you need to play thousands of tournaments for this number really to be unaffected by variance (simply put: rushs and cold streaks factored out). Personally over around 100 MTT (over 150 players in all of them), my average ITM is 24-25%.

The most important stat is ROI (return on investment). My ROI is something around 200%. THis means I have gotten a 200% return on the money I have bought in for. So if my total buy-in amounts (including entry fees) were $500, with an ROI of 200%, I would currently have $1000.

For 45-person $1.20 SNGs its hard to determine what a good ITM or ROI is. Personally I would stay away from these tournaments because the rake is 20% of the buy-in, thus making it harder to obtain a high ROI...

Hope this helped some...

Thanks for your input chicubs, that is more of an exact answer i was looking for. So what is a good rake percentage?