should i focus on quantity over quality?

[ph_il]

i struggle a lot with my poker confidence, especially with mtts and my mtt results. or, at least, the lack of big results. in recent months, i have been feeling a bit down due to the fact that i've never had a big mtt win and i've been playing online mtts on and off for over 10 years, possibly longer. so, there is a bit of jealousy involved when other players have had huge scores and i haven't. not just with cardschat members. it's cool that cc members are able to pull it off huge wins and make huge profits. even though there is a bit of jealousy, i'm always happy for them. but then, i do hold cc members to much higher standard that random players at a table, so i wouldn't expect any less.

if it's a random player from a random mtt, it's a bit worse. i feel a bit worse than usual about my ability and skill as player. especially if they have some crazy stats like a negative roi with -$5k profits in 1000 mtts, avg buy-in: $2, and they have 1 mtt win for $900 just randomly thrown in with their downward graph. then it's like "ok, what am i doing wrong here? why/how is this player so much better than i am that allowed them their 1 buy mtt win?"

of course, i want a big mtt win, not because of the profit but also the bragging rights. i want know what that's like to post a huge score in the brags section or be part of the elite club of members in the 'record of little wins' thread. i want to feel worthy, especially as a member of cc because i don't feel that way. and to clarify, this is just how i feel about myself. you might agree, you might disagree and that's cool.

now i'm wondering, am i putting to much thought into a single mtt win? even though i've never had a single, solid mtt win, i've had a number of mtt wins over the years of playing. i recently collected all my mtt results from over the years from as many sources as i could. a lot of stuff was missing, but i did my best and out of ~7000 mtts, i averaged a final table ~1/15 mtts, had ~18% top 3 finishes with 30 mtt wins, finish in top half of final tables over 65% of time, and only finish a final table in last place 8 times. so, ok results, right? i'm not positive and don't want to put too much thought into it because these could be terrible results overall. i don't know but, maybe, there is something worth focusing on here? like, okay, maybe i'll never be good enough for 1 big mtt win, but i can do well enough to make 5-10 smaller mtt wins that'll add up to the same value. that's something, right?

of course, i lose out on the cool bragging rights i would get with a $500 mtt win and i'm certainly not going to brag about 10 * $50 mtt wins, but maybe i just have to accept that this is as good as it's going to be for me.

 

[darthjewel]

The quantity.
I try to play each game better than yesterday, a week, or a month ago.
And the more money I have, the more often I see the final table ( and so on )
the better.
Then I suppose you should pursuit your target, but for me it is not
THE target but A target only.

 

[mina271]

i would say quality is more important when it comes to performance in poker. But you shouldn't make yourself smaller either because I think you'll be a very good poker player you actually made more gains than losses even if you haven't reached the big goal yet, but I am sure that you will achieve them one day. And you don't need to be jealous of someone who was once lucky and made a big profit because that doesn't mean that he was better even if he won so or so much more than you. I think it's much more important that you keep believing in yourself and keep doing your best in poker. But of course I would like to read it from you if you should make a big profit but until then continue as you have played so far and remember if you run after the money it can end badly in the end that you lose everything instead of you makes a profit. As long as you are making a profit you shouldn't worry too much about it and yes, playing more tournaments and winning makes more sense to me than that you do a big tournament and win it even if you can then get a big profit, but once winning and otherwise being a looser doesn't show you are a good poker player.

 

[Zapahlohotrona]

MTT is such a thing that you can play all your life and still not take the first place. What is better to play for quality or for quantity? You need to understand how many tables you can play without making gross mistakes

 

[ph_il]

it is not THE target but A target only.

i like this approach.

 

[infonazar]

Small victories form great success.
First of all, you need to define a real goal, create a plan and step by step, work hard every day to achieve your goal. Time and patience are all you need.

 

[ph_il]

MTT is such a thing that you can play all your life and still not take the first place. What is better to play for quality or for quantity? You need to understand how many tables you can play without making gross mistakes

i usually only play 1 table. 2 tables if the games happen to run close together.

in my post, though, i was referring to quality as have 1 big mtt win and quantity as have a lot of smaller, mtt wins.

 

[ph_il]

Small victories form great success.
First of all, you need to define a real goal, create a plan and step by step, work hard every day to achieve your goal. Time and patience are all you need.

well, my goal is earn my bragging rights with a big mtt win. the plan is to play mtts until it happens, i guess. i work at it every time i play an mtt. and i've been working at it for over 10 years.

i'll keep trying, though.

 

[MAGICUZ]

My advice to you! Do you want to win? Play MTT with the maximum entry to the tournament, for example (500-1000 players)The fewer people there are, the more likely you are to win or at least make it to the final table.Getting to the final table I think is already a success)))With a large number of players, I think it is unlikely that something will work out(even in 20 years)

 

[foran]

there are players who collect good prizes in mtt, but they are not good, do not think about the prizes, think about playing well, and keep improving, and the results come by themselves.

 

[Jon Poker]

These two go hand in hand and I'm surprised no one has really touched on it yet.

To beat MTTs you will need to put in proper volume - this means if you want to potentially have a profitable month you need to play 100 - 125 games MINIMUM per month on average to help fade variance. It's not my golden rule, just math. Coupled with this you will need good discipline, a good solid winning strategy which you can derive using a tracker program (like pt4) to look over your results and plug your leaks - and last but never least, good bankroll management so we don't go broke.

If you are putting in proper volume then it's time to practice good game selection - what am I talking about? Play games within your buy in range that you stand a good chance of winning.

For example, instead of playing the ACR $2.75/2500 gtd with 800+ players in the field, play the ACR $3.3/$1500 gtd with 350 players in the field. It's the same relative stakes, first place payouts will be VERY similar in amounts, and the field is only half the size as the 2500 gtd. What this amounts to is lesser variance - it is much more difficult to win longer tournaments simply because you will be subjecting yourself to certain spots throughout a tournament run that will naturally incur variance. So in summary - good game selection = playing smaller fields with good structures and decent payouts within your respective buy in range.

Play good poker - use good game selection - put in proper volume - win long term, easy peasy.

MTT poker isn't for everyone, it's very mentally challenging and the grind for many hours just to find a min cash can be a rough one - the main thing about MTT poker is do NOT be results oriented. Focus on proper play and your long term result. Today doesn't matter, tomorrow, this week - hell this month in general can be a loser profit wise, and yet you could still be winning 12bb/100.

Focus on the correct aspects, keep your head straight, and good luck to you!

 

[fundiver199]

As Jon Poker say, variance in MTTs can be rather brutal. Last year I made a quite decent profit playing MTTs on 888 Poker, but for 2021 so far I down 50 bucks playing 769 events. Also OP has apparently not had a "big" MTT win, but what exactly does he mean by that? Has he never won an MTT, or was it just not for a price, which he consider "big"? In the latter case that will obviously depend on, how high he play. You are not going to win 10.000$ in a single MTT, if you are playing the micros. That should be fairly obvious. To me, what matter at the end of the day is ROI, so this is, what I would choose to focus on.