Cashing in Tournaments

I have recently been playing in a lot of MTT's on pokerstars and have been cashing regularly. I would say I cash 1 out of 3 tournaments, which I think is reasonably good. The problem however is I have not made one single final table, even the last 18/27 of lets say 400/500/600 seater tournaments. I keep just cashing and getting back 3/4 times my buyin. My bankroll is slowly building but not at a rate I would like. Is there a reason I am perhaps always going out soo early at the cashing stage?? if anyone can help me that would be great!!!

How could anyone possibly surmise anything from the info. you've provided here? If they did it'd be pure speculation.

Either you're just not good enough, in which case you have to get better or you're unlucky in which case there is nothing you can do (pray if you're religious). So study! Get some strategy from books and training sites. Work on your game. And post some hand history if you wanna get help in here.

abuse the bubble, you are likely tightening up too much towards the money, and not taking flips in the money. (At a massive guess)

First off, you need to keep accurate records. Estimating, e.g. "I would say I cash 1 out of 3 tournaments" isn't good enough. A key reason, although not the only one, is that most people err on the positive side. If you think you cash 1/3 of the time in fields of 400+, you're either looking at a small sample where you simply ran well, or you're deluding yourself.

You should track all your games and cashes so that know your exact ITM% on an ongoing basis, and can also look at selected periods e.g. last 100 tournaments, so far this month, etc.

How can I track all my results? is there a specific website I can go o?

Tom Goldberg said:

How can I track all my results? is there a specific website I can go o?

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Try officialpokerrankings.com . Register there and it should give your ITM stats at least. If you want more important stats (EV on your hands, bb/hour etc); you need to get a pokertracker.

I'll speculate - you are not shifting gears according to the blinds and are instead playing the bubble game (just hang on until the bubble breaks then I'll go for it - oops, too late). You need more than two gears for these.

I had a problem with not playing my same game when it gets down to like 27. It's about not slowing down or getting too crazy. Once the bubble comes around raise a lot. Try not to bluff too much. One of my problems was feeling the need to bluff as I got farther.

Yep, gonna speculate, too. I'd guess you're focussing a little too much on just getting ITM and not playing enough to win/place highly. As a very rough guideline, you should be willing to sacrifice some % of ITM finishes, for a lower % ITM, but more higher finishes.

Again, purely a guess, but I'd say you're getting abused as the bubble approaches instead of abusing others. At/near the bubble is a great time to build your stack for a potential deep run--- with the realization that at times this will mean that you miss out on that min-cash you could have otherwise gotten.

Tom Goldberg said:

How can I track all my results? is there a specific website I can go o?

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database, spreadsheet, word processing doc, pencil and paper, etc., etc.

We're talking about a few seconds per tournament. If your first reaction is to look for a shortcut, which it seems to be, I can't help but wonder if you have a similar attitude toward improving your game.

although i'm certainly no expert, and when you combine that with the limited information provided I would guess you're too keen to maximise the amount of times you cash. It's far more profitable to play with agression around the bubble to build up your stack for a deeper run. With a significantly lower rate of cashes whilst putting yourself in the position to run deep, it will be a far more profitable venture long term.
ps- hope this is in the right place, first time posting...

Definitely need more info, but one theory could be that you play tight around the bubble (to avoid getting eliminated) and then once everybody gets in the money you don't have a lot of chips, and end up with a minimum payout.
One of my problems as well...

doomasiggy said:

. If you want more important stats (EV on your hands, bb/hour etc); .

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How is this even remotely relevant to MTT play?

PO - I see you are closing in on 10,000 posts. I hope you are working on some brilliant Mark Twain shit to share when that comes up

MediaBLITZ said:

PO - I see you are closing in on 10,000 posts. I hope you are working on some brilliant Mark Twain shit to share when that comes up

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I had been considering giving away some 'free moniezz' along with some free micro/Low buyin MTT coaching. (but jury is still out on that.... )

Poker Orifice said:

I had been considering giving away some 'free moniezz' along with some free micro/Low buyin MTT coaching. (but jury is still out on that.... )

Click to expand...

"The Poker Orifice Free Roll Open"
*Yes you could win $1,000.00 worth of free poker coaching!


*PO charges $1,000 per session

hi, sorry to intrude here,

Poker Orifice said:

I had been considering giving away some 'free moniezz' along with some free micro/Low buyin MTT coaching. (but jury is still out on that.... )

Click to expand...

was it just for fun or did you actually meen it?

e:
just seeing 1k per session, that was quite cheap! lol

seqas said:

hi, sorry to intrude here,



was it just for fun or did you actually meen it?

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Yes. And can we please not derail this thread any more than it already has been.
tks

The above responders seem to have hit the nail on the head. If your "1 in 3" number for cashing is even close to right, this shows that your focus is on making it into the money, not winning tournaments. By design MTTs are top heavy - generally the top 3- 5 places will contain 50%+ of the prizepool. This is your land of opportunity, your chosen realm ... one top 3 is worth dozens of mincashes.

Your goal is to find the best way to get there.

Its obvious you are playing to min cash and not playing to win which is a habit you will need to break if you want to be successful at MTTs. We can assume you are playing way to nitty especially around the bubble which is something you want to be avoiding . If this means you crash out before your ITM at a chance of building a stack and going deep so be it. A good MTT player will average an ITM of around 13% to 20% and does not play to min cash!.

MTTGOD57 said:

. A good MTT player will average an ITM of around 13% to 20% and does not play to min cash!.

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a bit less than this ^ imo (micros a bit higher ITM is typical, but LowStakes+ more like 9-13% )

Big_Rudy said:

Yep, gonna speculate, too. I'd guess you're focussing a little too much on just getting ITM and not playing enough to win/place highly. As a very rough guideline, you should be willing to sacrifice some % of ITM finishes, for a lower % ITM, but more higher finishes.

Again, purely a guess, but I'd say you're getting abused as the bubble approaches instead of abusing others. At/near the bubble is a great time to build your stack for a potential deep run--- with the realization that at times this will mean that you miss out on that min-cash you could have otherwise gotten.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Most people tighten up around the bubble just to make a min cash. Don't be one of these people; this is the land of opportunity. Knowing people are going to play tight around the bubble means your steals will work more of the time but you will still have to win some races. Just be aggressive and set yourself up to with the tournament, not just a min cash. Like the prev. poster said, one high payout is worth multiple times a min cash. Play to win.

Like I have said before - most leaks are about your thought process - what's in your head. And this is kind of a tough one to break - from my personal experience. I too was cashing about 30% - but a lot of 4th and 5th (6th, 7th, bubbles too) place finishes made the graph a slow and plodding climb.

It's very tough to give this up because the graph is indeed climbing. And there is a great deal of personal pride to have a long string of final tables.

So you have got to be willing to change that graph from a nice, fairly smooth incline to Mr.Toads Wild Ride! Go from cashing over 30% to only cashing like 15% (with higher finishes like 1st and 2nd).

Let's like at a sample (fictional) of 100 tournaments.
$5.50 45 man on Carbon Poker

30% cashes - one third 4th place, one third 5th place and one third 6th place.

Entries = $550
Cashes = $618.70
Profit = $68.70

Now the same 100 tournaments at
15% cashes- one third 1st, one third 2nd and one third 3rd

Entries = $550
Cashes = $776.30
Profit = $226.30 (over 3 times as much)

These figures are totally fictional and have more to do with accommodating my limited math skills than anything, but hopefully it paints a picture that your brain can wrestle with in order to provoke replacing some success with greater success.

Like I said it can be a wild ride. I had a stretch of 17 tourney's without a cash. Very discouraging. But then 3 out of 5 cashes hit and evened all that out. Yup - variance is a bitch.

Just keep trying to make the best decisions possible. Those final tables will take care of themselves.