tourney EV discussion

[BowToYourSensei]

buddy wanted me to cross-post this in 2+2 so here it is:


i have 2 goals for this post:
1. to find an EV prediction for tournaments
2. to compare the EV of tourneys in an hourly rate to the EV of cash games


here are my tournament numbers for this year (i've been lucky enough to be a winner both in cash games and in tournies long-term; thus i don't buy into the notion that if you're good in one you're likely bad in the other):

54 tournaments, 15 cashes, 6 final tables. +$22,857


i'd like to make a long story short here and summarize a lengthy conversation i had with Sensei. we determined that for a good player, the EV of the tourney can be represented as a function of the buy-in.

the gross return of all tourneys over time for a good player should be somewhere around 1.5x to 2.5x the buy-in. so the EV should be somewhere around .5x the buy-in to 1.5x the buy-in.

looking at the top 70 tournament players on Stars we feel this is a pretty accurate range for the good player.

the good player it seems to us should cash about 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 tournaments and when they cash, they should make the final table 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 times.

all the money is at the final table and so in terms of final tables, the good player should final table a tournament 1/15 to 1/24 times.

it seems at the final table, over time, there is only a slightly upward distribution of cash finishes (based on tourney data we looked at). our numbers go something like:

in 1000 tournaments, the good player should be somewhere in the range of 7 wins, 7 2nds, 7 3rds, 7 4ths, 7 5ths, 5 7ths, 4 8ths, and 3 9ths (this determination i think was with fairly ideal numbers, i didn't write down EVERY number from the conversation). an even distribution would give you 6 finishes in every slot and less money overall. you could also weight the final table finishes toward the middle like a bell curve and check your results

my personal numbers (over the past few years) are much more top weighted than what's suggested in the previous paragraph, but those are the numbers we came up with based on our data. i mention this because i'm not sure what to think about final table distributions for the 'good player'. what is listed above is based on actual data from the top 70 tourney players at stars. (i think that i might have a greater advantage the fewer players remain because of my style and because of my experience short-handed, 3-handed, HU, etc).


there is also a unique benefit of tournies to consider and that is the possibility to hit the home run. 1 win might be enough to boost your bankroll to the point you can move up a level. so there might be some hidden EV there if it allows you to make more money, indirectly, in your cash games. tournies are also fun which doesn't have a measurable EV value but it certainly is a factor that must be considered. (i don't think the reverse is true, that is, that tournies could harm your bankroll enough to make you drop a level at your cash games. this is because you're only playing tournaments you can afford and keeping good BR management at all times. if you go nuts with tournies without BR management, it's a money issue and not a tourney issue)

in terms of dollars per hour, we thought an average of 2 hours per tourney was a fair average. if that's the case, then your typical $100+9 tourney would be, in terms of $/hr for the good player, ~$25/hr (at 1.5xbuy-in gross) up to $75/hr (at 2.5xbuy-in gross). for a $200+15 it would be ~$50/hr up to $150/hr. certainly very solid numbers that would outearn the equivalent cash games even with a rakeback deal. (if 2 hours per tourney average is not a good number, simply adjust it and compare your cash game hourly rate)




has anybody else done an evaluation like this? if so, what have you found? are my numbers realistic/accurate? in one of harrington's tournament books he mentions that tourneys can have an EV of 4x the buy-in. whatever way we spun the numbers we think that, except for short-term stuff, there is no way you can maintain a 4x buy-in average over time. maybe before the big poker boom when more people had no clue what they were doing this could be true. i dunno... i think 4x the buy-in EV is impossible to achieve long-term.


EDIT i should also say what we had in mind were tournaments of a size of 200-500 people. i don't know what to think about the 1,000 player+ tournaments - that would be something worth discussing as well

[Exitonly]

i think your being too general, field size, competition, and structure are important variables that you're ignoring. For the field size you specified, i guess the numbers look accurate. Comparing houly to cash games is hard/impossible because with cash games you can open as many tables as you want, and play and stop whenever. With tournaments it's much harder to schedule and maintain a high multi-table average -- while maintaining a high avg buyin.

[Bonified]

Interesting stuff and probably not too far off. Where I would personally disagree is in the distribution of finishes for a good player. IMO the best players won't cash as much as 1 in 5 (assuming 10% of the field cash) but their final table finishes will definitely be skewed towards the top three. This is consistent with their aggressive play around the FT bubble.

[Erudis]

bump

[TravestyFund]

LOL