$11 STT SNG Campaign

Well things could be better. I am up to 150 tournaments and my ROI is down to 4%! Holy Moses.

Not sure why but I have been losing 3/4 tournaments. Lately that one ITM has been 3rd mostly and sometimes second. My 2nd place ITM is now higher than my 1st place. Sheesh!

Well last night I played 4 $11 tournaments. I placed 3rd in one and out of the money in the other 3. I really need to rethink my 5-6 handed strategy. I seem to get taken out in 4-6 place.

I did play two $22 heads up matches. I won both and ended the day profitable. I think I made $12.

I did the same thing yesterday. After losing overall in my $11 SNG's I played a few $11 & $22 heads up matches and ended ahead by $10 for the day.

I seem to do well in Heads up matches. Mostly though I use them to chase my losses (usually successfully). I don't know how successful I would be at them long term. Would be a nice campaign one day.

Well as bad as my ROI is with the $11 SNG tournaments, it only takes a profit of say $120 to be back in the 12% ROI. Really I have just been on a downswing. I have heard people playing 150 tournaments in a month and ending up in the negative. It happens.

This is why I like to have a 50 Buy-In bankroll.

Ironically, my bankroll has more than doubled this month - but of course not due to my $11 SnG campaign. I made $200 on a $22 Buy-In 27 Man MTT and I won several other $22 Buy-In SnG's.

Had I stuck just to my $11 tournaments my bankroll would sit a a palsy $250 instead of $555.

But I will continue my $11 campaign until I hit the 12% ROI at least. I need to know I can beat the $11 before I move up.

I also cannot really move up until I hit 50 Buy-Ins for the next level.

Now I can choose to move up to the $16's instead of the $22's. But for some reason I prefer to jump straight to the $22's. I have always played well at the $22's and I have never played the $16's much.

Of course I also have a desire to play MTT's - but my complaint is they do not fill up as fast and the ITM is less. I have always done very well at the 27 man tournaments.

There are really two main goals with my $11 campaign.

1. I need to know I can beat the game at some level! I have played over 5 years and have no idea if I really am beating any particular style of play or level.

2. Assuming I can beat the level with an ROI in the positive over several hundred games, I need to figure out how profitable they are. I want to make at least $15 an hour. I need to know how much I make per game on average and how many games I can play at once and still maintain at least $15 an hour.

These two goals requires hundreds of tournaments to get any dependable statistics. Preferably probably 2000 tournaments would suffice.

I am at 150 so far. That really only gives me a 12% reliability factor. Hardly dependable.

Although after playing with the statistics after 150 tournaments I can see where certain things are important. I have always been a numbers guy.

I used to keep track of every cent when I was a food server. I had my averages down for every table, every day of the week, every month. I knew how much I made as a food server over the long haul. As you may know, a food servers income is 90% tips - which fluctuate daily.

So calculating statistics in poker comes second nature for me.

I have noticed that even a 1% ITM can greatly effect your overall ROI after hundreds of games. Additionally, your ROI can change dramatically with the same ITM% if you win more 1st places or second places than third places.

For example - After 150 tournaments my average winnings $ for an ITM is higher than average. To get the average winning $ you take the total prize pool and divide it by the places it pays. For a $11 STT you have $90 in prize money divided by 3 paying places = $30 average. Generally speaking a winning player will average at least $30 per ITM. You win some third places, more seconds, and hopefully even more 1sts. But they all average out to about equal.

For a $11 STT the average is 33% of the prize pool. So far I am averaging 36% or $32.40 per ITM. That number is important because it can increase or decrease your ROI even with the same ITM %.

Basically a key is you can increase your ROI by either having a higher ITM % or by having a higher prize pool percentage through winning more 1st and 2nd's.

Lately my prize percentage has been going down. My Target ITM% is 40%. My target ITM is:

1st = 45%
2nd = 35%
3rd = 20%

This means that for 100 tournaments, I will place ITM in 40 of them. Of those 40:

1st = 18 = $810
2nd = 14 = $378
3rd = 8 = $144

Total Prize = $1332
Total Cost = $11 X 100 = $1100

Profit = $232
ROI = $232 / 1100 = 21%

What is interesting is if you increased your ITM from 40% to 50% but only placed 3rd in all 50 tournaments, you would make less money and your ROI would be less.

If you placed in 3rd place in 50 out of 100 tournaments:

3rd - 50 = $900

Total Prize = $900
Total Cost = $1100

Profit = $200
ROI = 18%

So those 1st and 2nd place finishes really make a huge difference.