making the money

What percentage of tournaments that a good player enters will he or she make the money. I just wonder how many times players that sometimes win will get knocked out. The really good players. Thanks!

I don't believe there is a definite answer for that question. Reason being, although you are experienced, the cards may not always go the way you want it. If you look at some online tournaments that have professionals in them, sometimes none of them make the money.

For MTT's 10% cashing is pretty solid

Probably ought to keep in mind that in MTT's the money is at the final table & playing to make the money is self defeating. Making the final table & occasionally taking down a tourney is what makes them ROI +.

Another part of the problem is how big a tournament? The more OPP's the harder it is to win $$ consistently...more variance/luck/decisions. I also would be interested to see the stats/%. Doesn't the WSOP keep stats,
# of bracelet winners, $ won, and number of cashes? could they have the info your looking for?

Unless you are cashing consistently closer to the final table.

That is true, it also depends on the size of the tournament. Even what type of poker. Maybe there can be stats made, but they wouldn't accurately gauge the probability of a professional winning.

Pick a few players you like and put them into pokerdb to find out. Most of the MTT regs that I consider to be winning full-time players are in-the-money around 15% of the time, and make the final table between 5-10% of the time depending on the buy-in level they play at.

i.e. here are lilholdem's stats:
Wins: 40 0.88%
Top 3 Rate: 90 1.98%
Average Field Size: 752
Final Tables: 217 4.77%
Cashes: 650 14.28%
Total Played: 4552

if u wanna make money over long run in mtts you should play for survival not with 1st place goal in mind. check mike caros page where he explaines this in detail.

here is the exact link:http://http://www.poker1.com/absolut...id=60&zoneid=3

I would think it would be closer to 20% if you were a really good player.

Somewhere in my mind I think I have seen the number 7 somewhere, basicially mean that in 1 of 7 tournament you should be in the moneyfor very good players.

However the way to do tournaments is of couse with bankroll management say play like 50 -100 tournaments and you should end up with adding to your bankroll, but tournament plays can have huge swings.

hmm I don't understand that Kankiller post ...maybe I am just on tilt :-(

I think a goodplayer should maket he money 90% of the time. A good player will sit back and just play big hands (A-K, suited connectors, and poket pairs,till all the noobs knock themselves out.

You obviously have never heard of "variance". Even if you wait for big hands, let's say AA, KK - Someone calls you with 99 - You are a 80% favourite to win the hand, so one in 5 times you will lose.
This situation comes up 8-10 times in a MTT, now what do you think your odds are?
I consider myself a very tight MTT player during the early stages of a tournament and I make the money 20% of the time. You can check out my stats here: http://www.officialpokerrankings.com...E7349.html?t=2

Oh, and my ranking puts me in the top 5% of all online players tracked.

Really good players do not play to make the money...
They play to win the tournement!

That stat is very interesting if you look for the year 2008 you were in the money 18% of the time but did have a roi of -30% you wern't enough in the money with 18%

But in 2009 you have improved and managed to get in the money 21% of the time now that 3% means you actually start to earn money as you roi is now +39% that's a huge difference for 3%

so the figure must be around 20% to have a +EV return

and btw nice to se that practices pays off... . I hope you will be able improve even more :-)

Stats in MTT's are NOT relevant to anything nor can they be equated to -/+ev. Check my stats on OPR for - nicklong on Stars.

I do not deposit online (never have) at any site and play more for fun online than for serious profit. BUT, I DO take my play seriously, live and online. I save my profit play for live tables since I live in Nevada.

OPR will show that I am ITM 34%, 28 of 82 MTT's for 2009 to date, with an average field size of 2,456. I do not play SnG's, ever. I also do better on the online cash stud tables and that is where I keep building and re-building BR's that I have on 4 sites, all started from FR winnings. So .... 34% ITM doesn't really mean a thing, since I am currently -50% ROI.

Players also need to look at what stakes are being tracked. My ROI is down because of the $2.20 MTT's that I play when I join the Fri or Sat CC MTT Invasions. I cash regularly in the micro stakes 10c/25c'ers, but less frequently in the $2.20 games. The 'up' side is that any ONE higher ITM finish in a $2.20 game will rocket me back into a +ROI. That's the nature of MTT's, especially those with large fields.

Think about it... someone who plays 1 $5.50 MTT and wins $110 has about a 2,000% +ROI. They can lose the next 19 MTT's, never cash, and still be at a 0% ROI. When it comes to MTT's, there is NO magic stat formula that will make you a winning player.

Welcome to the forum! Sadly I must disagree with you here. If your goal isn't first place you need to ask yourself why you are even playing the MTT imo.

Besides, like someone said earlier in this thread, you become a winning MTT player from the times you make it to the Final Table/or win one. If your only able to cash in 20% of MTT's (a very solid percentage) but never go deep then MTT's aren't going to make much money for you

What does this have to do with anything in this thread??

Maybe wrong forum???

I have an ITM rating of 25% i think out of 140 or tournaments. however until recently i realised my figure is so high because i was playing to "make the money" but i realised what is adding a couple of dollers to my bankroll really going to achieve so ive started playin to win. that meant crashing out about 150 before the money last night with JJ to K8 who hit trip 8's but as robbed as i was it was the right decision to make against the table chip leader who was very loose because if i hadn't been sucked out i would have had a very healthy stack of around 30'k average 18k. trying to go deep is the only answer

Yes, you are absolutely right!!! With these big MTT's the money is loaded all at the top. Just trying to cash isn't going to grow the BR. You are better off playing ring if you are worried about just cashing.

And that leads me to my poker BR strategy. While playing with proper BRM rules. I believe that ring is the "Bread and Butter" of ones BR. That is where you will make the steady increase in your BR. Use tournaments as a BR turbo boost!!! (Michael Knight would be proud ) Playing to simply cash in an MTT is worthless in the long run. And when you look at how much time it takes to just double your buyin or make a dollar in the lower buyins, you can make more playing ring in that amount of time.

Now, things can happen or go wrong near the bubble, so I'm not saying if you are at the bubble, screw it and not cash. But if you are playing the tournament correctly you should be above the chip average for the tournament and using this time to pick on the middle sized stacks. They don't want a big pot with you because you can take them out of the tournament. The bubble is near and they want to cash as well. You need to be careful with the short stacks, some of them will try to fold to the money and some of them will try to use this to build their stack.

So this brings me to my next point. You want to be aggressive, but don't call a SS with a wide range of hands. There is a difference between calling and pushing and at the micro levels the players don't get this. Don't call a SS all in with A 10 or AJ or QK. Call with AK, maybe AQ or any pp 88 and up. When a SS pushes and you call, you can't out play him after the flop, he's already all in. So you want the best possible chance that you are ahead of the all in.

If you have a huge stack compared to the rest of the table and are close to the chip lead, you can call with a lot wider range, because you have more chips at your disposal.

Lets talk about using the stack to bully the table. You don't want to bully stacks that can cause major harm to your stack with a wide range. However if there is a med stack in the SB and a SS in the BB, I'm going to raise enough to pot commit the SS or enough just to put the SS all in. Also if a med stack or a SS raises and I'm in position I will three bet with a wider range and depending on the situation I might be three bet shoving, making them choose to call for their tournament life or not. It takes a lot of practice with a large stack to do this effectively. There is a huge difference between what I do and what the donkey with a huge stack does. You need to pick your spots and they need to make sense. If you are three betting everyone and pushing all in all the time you lose credibility and it's obvious what you are doing.

I hope this helps, I don't have time to reread this to see if it makes sense. If you have any questions just post them and I will answer them.

This is real interesting reading - lots of good points and shows different attitudes which is what poker is all about.

Well, i have an ITM% of 28 but only over 80 or so MTT's because i mostly play sit'n gos.
I go for the win if i have an above average chip stack, But i just try to cash if i have less than average chip stack.

Thats style works for me because i know how to loosen up and tighten up based on my stack compared to the blinds.

some say first goal is always to make the money, however its seems alot of pros play to win by being super agressive, getting knocked out early or building a big stack.

If you aren't playing to win a tourney then you are dead money, end of story. The top prize money is so much bigger than merely cashing it's imperative to play for win if you plan to win money in MTT's. I have 2 decent tourney wins that make my ROI about 200% in MTT's. Without those wins my ROI would be pretty sad even though I make the money 15% of the time.

One win was for $4100 where just in the money was about $20
the other win was $5300 where just in the money was about $30

You still want to play to just to reach the money?

Take the WSOP main event. Cashing will give you about 20K and winning will give you 5 million or so. I think we all agree that 5 million is a bit more life changing than 20K for most people.

Again, if you aren't playing to win you are dead money end of story.

I still go with making decisions as the conditions and situation dictate. It's not 'end of story'.

If you progress through the levels with a decent chip count, yes, you play to win. When you get close to the bubble and (as you point to WSOP) you have $10,000 invested and your cards have sucked, you can't hit s***, but you could survive to make it ITM for a $20k return, I say you play for the $20k.

From time to time, if you survive making the bubble, the poker gods smile and grant you a couple of double-ups or BB walks. Then you go back again to playing to win.

Everything in poker is situational and positional ... at least it is imo.

My main goal is to be ITM and after that I try to win because I feel free to play aggressivly and I have nothinig to lose.
David Shoval.

Some people may disagree with this, but i consider the small sized rebuy tournaments one of your best bets.. because u can buy-in for twice the amount and fold ever blind (unless ofcourse u catch a premium hand) and then add-on 2000 chips during the break and you'll be settin at or above average in chips almost every time.. and then play from there like its a whole new tournament because the rebuy stage is over.. more people end up gettin paid and the prize pool goes up with a smaller playing field.....

..I hope ive been of some help...

I dont cash as much as most, but when I do its usually really deep. I'm of the thinking that its 1st or nothing. All the bubble means is that I can push people around and build some chips for a while. Once it pops I instantly slow down. Everyone is waiting for the money so they can go nuts, so doing the same is insane to me. You push a hand with the money coming up, you get blinds, if you wait until the money to play(like everyone else) you'll get called because everyone is thinking "screw it, I made the money, now lets try to double up".

basically, money aproching means nothing more than that other people at the table will play differently, if you know this, you can capitalize on it.

I'm not playing for hours to double my money, I'm playing for the big prize

I hear ya. I do tend to play in stages though - survive for the first hour mainly, but try to build my chip stack as much as possible. Then make it to the money, but try to take advantage of the bubble. Once ITM, survive the next wave of all-ins, then go for the win.

Even if just cashing is significant money to you say like the WSOP Main Event you are dead money if that's what you are playing for. I say this because the bulk of the money is at the final table and the top three spots especially. From the point of view of someone aiming for 1st place anyone just looking to cash for any reason whatsoever is dead money, not in the race, insignificant, not even worth worrying about because they won't be playing optimally to win.

You need plenty of luck as it is to win a large field tourney so it's not a good idea to play scared because you might bust out on the bubble. That's just going to drastically reduce your chances of a big payout. Even if you only have 4 or 5 BB's left in your stack you should play to win at all times especially on the bubble. It only takes 2 double ups to have a 20BB stack (more if there's a multiway pot)which will allow you to pick your spots a bit better. Get a decent run of cards and suddenly you're within reach of the chip leaders. Never give up and never play scared.

I once played a 27 man sng and got short stacked after losing a flip early. I had 1 bb left so I was about as short stacked as it gets. 10 minutes later I was the chip leader and finished 2nd. Yeah I got lucky but I never gave up and always play to win rather than cash. One double up missed near the bubble can mean a lot later on in tourney when you only get half of someones stack because you played to cash rather than win. That's not even taking into account all the opportunities to steal you didn't take.

Yeah, for some reason, i do better starting off short stacked. For example, i just played a "face the ace" round 1 freeroll of 180 people. Where rank 1 and 2 move on winning 100 ftp. I started off losing horribly and ended up winning in 1st. Some luck some skill can win you the game.