Making a living with online poker tournaments.

If you want to get a living with MTT"s you need to play a lot of games with in mind the variance is huge and I expect only a few can life with playing those game, but they play most likely around 10 hours per days and sometimes even more with playing more than 10 games at the same time. If you have a daily job it's impossible to do this.

Don't forget for most grinders $109 is 1 of the highest buy-inn tournaments they play and it's likely they play for example between the $11 and $109 every time to play enough games to keep the variance undercontrol.

Cheers,
SDK1987

Originally posted by NextLevel
Professional poker player will have ITM around 15%.
So how can anyone become long term winner ?
If you play same buy-in tournaments with the same field and same prices over and over you will mathematically lose money in the long run with only 15% ITM, right ?
How can anyone be long term winner with positive ROI and Net-Worth with only 15% ITM ???
You play 100 tournaments 109$ dollars each = 109 000$
You cash 15 tournaments for ~200$ average = 3000$
Even cashing 3000$ on averega (wich is a lot) you will have = 45 000$
That is losing a lot of money in the long term.
How can you make profit with only 15% ITM ?
Seems not possible.
Only way i see it possible is taking bigger and bigger shots once you score and then start again from the bottom.
Is it really like that ?
Can anyone explain ? WTF ?

Hi NextLevel,
In the marked section the total should be $10,900

Here are the payouts from the 1st $109 I found today

This is a bounty tournament, so binking this one with decent bounty haul would put you half-way there.
If you look at last Sunday's Sunday Million, any place higher than 9th covers all 100 entries.

If you play 100 similar tournaments, and place > 107th more than 10 times you're ahead also.

I don't play at this level, and I don't play Hold'em much, but almost every day I play a $3.30 NL 2-7 Single Draw PKO.
I cash maybe once a week, FT maybe once a month and occasionally win it. I'm in profit for that tournament (I'm pretty sure) -- not by a lot but enough -- I'll see if I can find out.

If you include major series in the mix -- especially MicroMillions -- then the prize pools and payouts are much much higher.
I have won one, and Final-tabled another. The two of them combined represent about $2,000 times the average BI for the tournaments I play.

I am not a pro, so I imagine the pros do much, much better.
Follow some of the major poker streamers on twitch, and they cash quite frequently, and often final-table and even win outright.

So my conclusion is that winning long term is most definitely possible.

Best of luck!
VS

Originally posted by SDK1987
If you want to get a living with MTT"s you need to play a lot of games with in mind the variance is huge and I expect only a few can life with playing those game, but they play most likely around 10 hours per days and sometimes even more with playing more than 10 games at the same time. If you have a daily job it's impossible to do this.

Don't forget for most grinders $109 is 1 of the highest buy-inn tournaments they play and it's likely they play for example between the $11 and $109 every time to play enough games to keep the variance undercontrol.

Cheers,
SDK1987

What is this?

Edited my post so now numbers are right.
I still however dont have answer how can one make money/profit from tournaments long term with only 15%ITM ?
Take sunday million for example. If you play only sunday million and only sunday million, then how can you make profit with it with only 15% ITM long term ? (other than that you get lucky enough and manage to take 1st place).
And as vorpal sayd. You need to get at least 10 times better place than 107 from 100 tournament (sunday million) to make a profit.
Now, tell me, how realistic is that, really ?
And the same goes with all other tournaments. Playing constantly same tournament with same field and prices. With 15% ITM seems impossible to make profit in long term.
How can one make profit in long run other than get lucky and get 1st place? That doesnt happen quite often.
15% ITM? Wtf ?

The short answer is, MTT pros don't make their money by cashing often, but by cashing big, as Vorpal already alluded to. This is why ITM% is not a very good gauge of an MTT player's success, ROI (return on investment) is much more important.

This is an old article which actually takes a rather pessimistic look at grinding MTTs, but the math should be accurate nonetheless. In the first example, it uses Shaun Deeb's results from January 2009, who had an ROI of 81% and an ITM of 11.5% (even lower than the 15% you mentioned) over that time period. As you can see, he had six figure earnings.

If you're interested, there is also a follow-up article, which crunches some more numbers.

As it turns out, I can't rightly say I'm in profit in the 2-7 tournaments.
These are bounty tournaments, and my database doesn't properly record the bounties.
So my winnings would be quite a bit more than the record shows.
On the other hand, these tournaments allow a re-entry, and I have done that several times.
My ITM is 16%, but my ROI is negative.
Looking at only this year, my ROI is nearly 20%, but still my ROI is negative.
Later I'll get a report from PokerStars to determine exactly what the payouts really were

So.
If someone start want to make a challenge to profit 100 buy-ins from 1 specific tournament, it means that this is simply impossible over the long term ?
What i mean is, lets take an example of 109$ buy in tournament. If someone wants to make 100 buy-in profit from 109$ tournament wich would be 10900$, is simply not possible in the long run ? Because of the 10-15% ITM.
That means every tournament you play, must cover your loses if you hit big?
What i mean is if you start out poker from 0 overall tournament history. And lets say that after 500 tournaments(109$) you end up with the result -10000$ lost.
So at this point, it is pointless, useless, waste of time playing any tournament where 1st place gets less than 10000$, simply because does not cover your overall losts ?
So challenge to make 100 buy-in profit from 1 specific tournament is simply impossible in the long run ?
And playing any tournament where 1st place money amount cant cover your loses, is simply waste of time ?
And playing satellites is even more waste of time ?

Well no - it is not impossible.

Let's look at some specific points...

Originally posted by NextLevel
If someone start want to make a challenge to profit 100 buy-ins from 1 specific tournament, it means that this is simply impossible over the long term ?

Some people do profit, therefore it is possible.

Originally posted by NextLevel
What i mean is, lets take an example of 109$ buy in tournament. If someone wants to make 100 buy-in profit from 109$ tournament which would be 10900$, is simply not possible in the long run ? Because of the 10-15% ITM.
That means every tournament you play, must cover your loses if you hit big?

You could still profit at a 15% ITM if you cash high enough each time. You don't need to recover all your losses at once. You could recover 1/4 of them in 4 separate tournaments, for example.

Originally posted by NextLevel
And playing satellites is even more waste of time ?

Nope. My biggest win ever came as the result of winning my buy-in.
I only entered the satellite to warm up for the tournament, but won my ticket.
I was quite prepared to pay the full buy-in.

I suggest that one of the things to consider is Bankroll Management.
A common rule of thumb is that you don't play large-field MTTs with buy-ins that are more than 1% of your bankroll.
If you are considering a $109, then you'll need a bankroll of $10K to comfortably play such a tournament.
Alternatively, you could sell some of your action, but you would need to have a decent win record before anyone would buy any.

All the best,
VS

Ok. Maybe it is prossible to make 100 buy-in profit from 1 specific tournament in long term as a challenge.
Maybe.

Still however i think its not possible in long term, and yes people do make profit from tournaments, but they also play many different tournaments. Yes you will win more than 100 buy-in if you get 1st, therefore ending up 100 buy-in+ from tournament/s, but the tournament/s which from they win is randomized. And the overall net worth profit comes simply because that random tournament people win, covers up all your loses, if they had any, if not, then its just pure profit.

I dont really see, that if someone would set up a challenge for an example to win 100 buy-ins from each tournament level, 0.55$, 1.1$, 2.2$, 3.3$, 4.4$, 5.5$ and so on and so on, is really possible in the long run.
Or is it ? What you think ?
According to mathematics and poker skills, would that really be possible ?

And i think playing any tournament what cant cover up your loses, seems waste of time for me. And i really think it is.
How it can not be waste of time ? If your history is -200$, and you play tournament with 1st place giving you 100$, with 15%ITM , seems so much waste of time.
Trying to cover your loses with many separate tournaments which give you less than you have lost, is it even possible ? Is it not -EV ?

Also, satellites seems waste of time. You grind 5 sattelites, put 5 hours to get the ticket, end up in tournament way out of your skill level, get busto. So much time wasted. Only if you get lucky, and only if, then it rarely will be worth it.
We all know this satellite stories, how someone won. Starting from chris moneymaker.
But we also know how every day/week people win jackpots from lottery. That does not make it profitable.
So lets be honest and realistic. Are they profitable in the long run ? If yes, then why and how ?

Originally posted by NextLevel
So lets be honest and realistic. Are they profitable in the long run ? If yes, then why and how ?

It's quite simple, you just win more money than you lose.

You are way too hung up on that ITM% thing. As I said before, you should look at the ROI instead. MTTs have a top-heavy payout, so most of the profit comes from not necessarily 1st places, but at least from deep runs. Pros know this, and therefore deliberately take risks to go for a top spot, rather than aiming for ITM only. Their ITM% may often be even lower than the one of a less profitable player.

Let's go back to that Shaun Deeb example I linked to earlier. He played tournaments with an average buy-in of $119.72, and achieved an ITM% of 11.5%, and an average ROI of 81%. Rather than tying ourselves in knots by pounding on the fact that he only cashed in a little over 1 out of 10 tournaments, let's focus on what really matters for his profits: He had an average return on investment of 81% on his average buy-in of $119.72, resulting in average winnings of about $95.78 per tournament, despite his many bust-outs.

That's how you make a long-term profit in MTTs. Forget about ITM%, it's all but irrelevant.

Huh, interesting.

Very interesting

Wow... I can't even.

Originally posted by nsavov
Wow... I can't even.

If you can't even, then you must odd

I don't understand if he is trolling or what? Of course if you only min cash 15% of the tournaments you play you wont be a profitable MTT player. Also nobody play's one specific buy in tournament only, pros are playing several tournaments from 11$-109$ on daily basis. Most of them also play satellites for the bigger tournaments. For example if you play a 11$ satellite to win 109$ ticket, you're almost freerolling that tournament. Cause even a min cash will give you very high ROI%. However, most pros don't play for min cashes, they rather bust early than stall to min cash. The whole point of grinding MTT's is to make a deep stack and that will require to take risks, but they are totally worth it. The profit comes from Deep runs where you make top 20/final table. Take a look at Sunday million for example. It's literally better for you to final table once than min cash 20 times. You will make significantly more profit just from one Final table appearance.
That's why BRM is very important in MTT's, you can go months without any profit, but then you can make it up for entire year in just one day. Variance is huge factor, hence why it's only profitable in long term.
TLDR: Focus on deep run over min cash, I personally prefer to bust early than be a short stack for majority of tournament just to make it ITM.

Originally posted by greatpk
TLDR: Focus on deep run over min cash, I personally prefer to bust early than be a short stack for majority of tournament just to make it ITM.

Yeah, but some days it is tough to find decent opportunities.
What then?

There is a lot of advice out there on how to play when you're card dead, but most of it involves punting.

Imo you complicate stuff. Just use you hourly as starting point and calculate from there. 80% is sick on 100% games. Shawn Deep crushes any fomat including mixed games so this data fits him. I would argue that most highstakes guys don't have 100% of their games after all.