To make a tournament +ev I have to be better than X% of the players?
 

I know this is a bad question that has no definitive answer, but I think it is interesting to consider. Obviously we have to consider everything in the longrun to make this worthwhile. But say I want to play in a tournament with a 10% rake (ie: $20+2), what percent of the players do I have to be better than to make the tournament profitable to play in? Beyond that, say I was in the top 10% or top 1%, what kind of ROI would I then expect.

I know so much of this depends on playing styles and other factors, but I think some sort of general math based answers can be had. I would just like to hear some thoughts about this. This is more something that I was thinking about and found interesting than something I have to know so that I can make decisions about what tournaments to play in.

Re: To make a tournament +ev I have to be better than X% of the player
 

Would depend on how much better/worse you are

If you're slightly better than 60% of the field, but the other 40% can crush you, it's probably -EV.

And if you're slightly worse than 60% of the field but can crush the other 40%, it's probably +EV.

IMO the math of this is going to be way too complicated to figure out.

Re: To make a tournament +ev I have to be better than X% of the player
 

Something along the lines of 75% of players have a -ve ROI, 25% of players have a +ve ROI, so you have to be in the top 25%

Re: To make a tournament +ev I have to be better than X% of the player
 

You could apply a tilted icm or tilted chip migration model to this sort of question. Of course, that's not necessarily going to provide any useful insight.