What is a realistic, and good, MTT ITM winrate?

nabmom

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This question was asked here almost 2 years ago, so I'd like to check if the information is still valid. What is a good ITM rate for playing MTTs?

A little while ago I was watching some TV show with Daniel Negreanu and in it he was showing some phone App he used to track his tourney buyins vs. cashes. It was just a brief blip on the screen but it looked like he placed ITM something like 30% of the time (don't hold me to that number, it was a while ago). But that got me thinking about what is a reasonable expectation for placing ITM in a tournament. I've seen several articles and read books on cash play and I have a sense of cash winrates but I'm not sure what is reasonable for tournament play. When I play well and place, I feel like I am somewhat good at the game but I know I don't cash way more often than I do. But maybe my rate isn't so bad after all. Just not sure.

What do you think? Is there any kind of acceptable "standard" for MTTs?

Thanks in advance for your input.
 
horizon12

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It depends what stakes and your level of play

200-300% ROI is very achievable in MTT's at low stakes if you are prepared to put in the volume.
 
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PapaC

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I play a lot of MTTs and my rate is about 20%. Wish I could do better, and I'm working a lot on my game to make that possible. I stick to the lower buy in and good pay outs. That way when I win one, I can get my money back and some. But either way, cash at 10nl or no more than $5.50 MTTs it is slow go. But I'm not in a hurry and I'm not moving up to try to build my BR faster. I think it would be a losing move until I have more experience.
 
therealslomo

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Win rate? Realistically about 10%. This is different than ITM rate or ROI.
 
Poker Orifice

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It depends what stakes and your level of play

200-300% ROI is very achievable in MTT's at low stakes if you are prepared to put in the volume.

I might be wrong but I think OP is referring to 'ITM' when they say 'winrate' (read through their entire post... if you haven't already).

As far as achieving an ROI of +200 to +300% over a large sample size.... I find that difficult to believe (possible I suppose?? (but doubt it), 'very achievable'... I don't think so)

I play a lot of MTTs and my rate is about 20%. Wish I could do better, and I'm working a lot on my game to make that possible.
20% is actually fairly decent. Top winning online tournament players are in the range of ~12 to 15% ITM. (micro stakes players may tend to have slightly higher ITM)

Win rate? Realistically about 10%. This is different than ITM rate or ROI.

Not sure what it'd mean (for MTT's) if it wasn't referring to ITM (or ROI).

Here's an example of the most winning online tournament player's stats. (on two sites). If you look in the lower right corner of the screenshots you'll see the ITM % ('in the money %'). This is for Chris Moorman.
 
Poker Orifice

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meh...
Anyways, it seems I'm unable to post screenshots (wtf?!?!).

On FTP he has ITM of 12%. On partypoker 15%
 
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As far as ITM% goes, a good par point would be the % of players paid out. For example, if the site you play on pays the top 10%, then that's a good base line. If you're ITM 10% of the time, you're on par.

However, another factor would be how you approach the money bubbles. If your goal is to sneak into the money, then you'll probably have a much higher ITM%, but a much lower ROI%. These are usually players who will fold and get chipped down and by the time they are ITM, they're down 10BBs or less and can't recover.

If your strategy is to take risks at the mid-late stages for a bigger stack in late stages/final table, but at the risk of not not finishing ITM, your ITM% will be much lower, but you'll have a better ROI% (assuming you're making FTs and winning).

A perfect example of this is Chris Moorman. His ITM% might look low at 12% on FTP, but his ROI% is very high because he's not trying to just min-cash. He sets himself up to win. Lets say he plays 50 MTTs, he might bust out of 49 MTTs right before the money take risk in 50-50, 40-60 situations, but on the 50th one, he wins and it propels him to take 1st, which is a much better ROI than just making 49 min-cashes.
 
teepack

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ITM 20% would be great! A 10% win rate (as in finishing first in an MTT) would be highly unlikely. If you can cash consistently 15% in MTTs, you should be doing okay.
 
toots babos

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personally i see ITM rate to be a bit redundant as there are players out there with a 30%+ ITM rate who aren't winning as much as certain players between the 10%-20% ITM rate as the ones with the lower ITM rate run deeper than those with higher rates as they take the risks needed along the way to gain such a nice stack in order to give themselves the best shot at running deep/making final tables.

as far as answering your question i'd have to say a rate between 15-20% would be a good ITM rate to have. my own ITM is 20% over just under 10k mtt's
 
nabmom

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I really appreciate the feedback so far. I also apologize for the misleading title of the thread.

I am specifically asking about ITM rates. I had considered that the stakes / type of game are going to play into that but hadn't really thought about the "goal" of just getting ITM vs. "big score."

I think for the purposes of this question, assuming that I'm playing with a goal of playing my "A" game and trying to take it down (which I assume is what serious players are aiming for), what is the percentage range. In other words, a range for decent reg vs. the cream of the crop (like a Negraneu).
 
theboss

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30% itm is too high. Not saying that noone could ever achieve but is not very likely to happen. Even at low stakes 20% itm is a high percentage. You can always check the players profile on OPR and you can see their itm % to get an idea. Itm though is not always the point since there are many players in high stakes with low itm % (like 10%) but are still profitable because they make deep runs in tourneys, final tables and top 3. Their low itm percentage is justified because they risk a bit more on some spots in order to have a deep stack or bust since they dont really care about a min cash. GL
 
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