How many final tables before first place?

Hey all

So I'm curious. I was playing a live $100 buy in with rebuys and add on tournament as I do most Mondays and ended up cashing 8th for $525 (1st was 5k+) out of around 190 people. I haven't been playing poker for very long (maybe just under a year) and was wondering how many times you guys cashed or made the final table before actually winning?

I am yet to win live, my best is 3rd but have cashed and made the final table a few times. I just want the satisfaction of winning dammit

I think 9-max and 6-max SnG's are good practice for the final table. If you've played a lot of these, you'll find yourself in 1st place in no time.

well, most of my early play was in the type of live tournaments that start at 7:00 pm and end up chopping 3 or 4 ways by about 3:00 am.

It was my 3rd ever tournament that I cashed in and I also "won" because we chopped 2 ways.

The next one I played, 1 week later I also chopped 3 ways...and I was hooked.

Looking back, I was just extremely lucky because I have since gone on to play hundreds and hundreds of live tourneys and have only outright won it twice and have chopped 3 or 4 ways about 20 more times. But usually I bust out around the bubble (usually before the bubble, sometimes after the bubble.)

Online is the place to practice if you're trying to build experience at taking it down. Live tourneys frequently chop. I can tell you that in SnGs I am 1st place more than any other place, but even so I bust out a fair amount.

I've only played in one live tournament my whole life. My three 3's were beat out by three 10's costing me my tournament survival. Living in New York, casinos that offered these kinds of games were not very easy to get to.

By no means do I consider myself ready for LIVE tournametn play. I make some money here and there and cash out a few hundred dollars at a time from certain online poker skins (more because I fear leaving too much money in a site that is not regulated in any way) but I never delude myself into thinking I am a consistently profitable player. After all, I've only been playing since September 2013. I have SO MUCH to learn despite the fact that I've played over 120,000 tournametn hands since september 2013.

I am currently trying to master SnG's myself. Consistently beating these will give me the heads up experience I need to increase my chances of getting a 1st place when i do make MTT final tables.

I won my first ever real money tournament this was before I ever played online.
Truth is I understood nothing of the game I was only interested in how I was going to win the next pot and who was going to give it to me

(I can't play like that anymore) Now I understand how horrendous and out of sync some of my bets and plays were.

I won a few tournaments back then also online, nothing huge just 3 figure payouts etc.

blatent, arrogant, crazy aggression seems to work in live tournaments in weak fields. lol
just keep betting and raising until they fold.
(again I can't play like that anymore I know too much poker theory)

Maybe I should try

Well, my first win in an MTT took around 3 months of diligent play on a daily basis, then I showed my wife the joys of poker playing and she not only placed in her first MTT but won it. I felt a mixture of joy and embarrassment lol

sandal_hat said:

Well, my first win in an MTT took around 3 months of diligent play on a daily basis, then I showed my wife the joys of poker playing and she not only placed in her first MTT but won it. I felt a mixture of joy and embarrassment lol

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I was going to say something similar to this experience.. I think it is player dependent. It will be different for everyone. Some players win their first MTT they ever play, some take weeks/ months/ years. And some simply never win. It also has a lot to do with field size. Theoretically, if someone played MTT's with avg. field sizes of 100 players and another played avg. field sizes of 500 players, the player playing smaller fields should book a win prior to the other player. Variance will also be a big factor. More important is ROI%. You don't have to win every tournament to make good money playing them.

I think its funny, I had been posting my Final Table finishes earlier this year and was fighting for that first big W - but I also work long hours and need to budget my time adequately between family and other responsibilities. So this year alone my fist win took me over 6 months.

I have been playing online for about 4-5 years. I finally played my first live tourney about a month ago. Placed 6th out of 89 players. I was pretty happy as I was worried about being a live poker virgin lol. casino's are not very close, so I will prob stick with online. Keep playing and your win will come.

i play every wekend live just tournaments wit smool bu yn 10 or 20 euro first i finish 4 place ather 6 place ,11 place afther 4 tournament i win 1 place its about 60 /90 players its very good for practice i wait to win som pakage to ept or wsop so gl to all

Another Monday night tournament just finished, cashed again coming 12th. Was having such a good run thought I was going to make the top 5 until my KK runs into QQ 6 handed. All in pre flop and he hits the 4 card flush haha. My stack was 100k the average was around 70k and he had me covered. I will never win at this rate.

Poker involves luck and cant control much the outcome. The beauty of it is anyone can win/ be a champion.

Just keep reading. Just keep playing.

The more you play the more likely that you will win. It happen that someone wins for the first time and someone will not be able to win by playing it more than 10

maybe for me it is 10:1

i had 2225 finishes in the top 10 of tourneys
but only 225 Victories

but a lot of it was 180mans and 45mans

Just be patient. If your making final tables often, it will come. Things like winning tend to come in small packages, so when you win your first you will probably win your next one fairly quickly as well.