Most people will say a few % over the average is what you should look for. SO if 12% get paid you would love to have 14 or 15% ITM. The problem is people with height in the money numbers are not necessarily winning money. Most people with high numbers get a lot of min cashes and while any cash is good you need to get more that the min cash Danial negreanu did a study on WPT cashes years ago and found one guy who cashed about 30% of the time but was a massive looser. Look it up as it was a great read. Think about it. The best in cashing was a massive loosing player.
ITM %
Couldn't agree more, a few years back I played multiple MTT low entries on PS and was ITM well over 30% but yes was not a big money maker..then I kinda changed my strategy with more emphasis on the top end and many times have folded AK to all ins at the final table and lately have been running a higher % of top 3 payouts, however, still only play Low or Micro buy ins.... In recent days playing on ACR Low buy in MTT a small sample 11 tourneys, I have been ITM 80% and first place 36%.. Play for fun enjoy the wins and use their $$$ to finance it al..🙂🙂🙂
Luvepoker said:
Couldn't agree more, a few years back I played multiple MTT low entries on PS and was ITM well over 30% but yes was not a big money maker..then I kinda changed my strategy with more emphasis on the top end and many times have folded AK to all ins at the final table and lately have been running a higher % of top 3 payouts, however, still only play Low or Micro buy ins.... In recent days playing on ACR Low buy in MTT a small sample 11 tourneys, I have been ITM 80% and first place 36%.. Play for fun enjoy the wins and use their $$$ to finance it al..🙂🙂🙂
Link to article
Hey thanks for you response, very useful. Do you have a link to the article? I couldn't find it!
I only really play 1 regular tourney which is the $3.30 Bounty Hunter on Party poker. My ITM is 50% and my ROI 65% but my profit is quite small. I've just started branching out to an $11 deepstack but only played 3 times, but cashed all 3 and made final table on 2. So my ROI is 500% but obviously over time my luck will fade there! ha.
Thanks for your help!
Luvepoker said:
Hey thanks for you response, very useful. Do you have a link to the article? I couldn't find it!
I only really play 1 regular tourney which is the $3.30 Bounty Hunter on Party poker. My ITM is 50% and my ROI 65% but my profit is quite small. I've just started branching out to an $11 deepstack but only played 3 times, but cashed all 3 and made final table on 2. So my ROI is 500% but obviously over time my luck will fade there! ha.
Thanks for your help!
Interesting conversation topic and good comments made by people talking about the difference of importance of ITM% vs ROI%. Personally haven't thought about or looked too deep into either number as a rec player, but as someone who sometimes favors an ITM cash over the long game of playing the best to get a top cash, this gets me to thinking about whether that's what I want to make my game to be or not.
In MTT, you should aim for the top 3! Imagine playing 100 SM tournaments and spending $ 21,500! If you entered the min cache at 50% , you will hardly repel the contributions! but if you make the top 3 in one tournament, you will be in a huge plus!
% ITM depends on the style of play and on our goals for the tournament, if you play TAG with an understanding of what is happening, then at low limits you can have about 20%. If you play only on ITM, then you can generally have high performance, but there won't be much sense from this. In general, this is not a defining indicator.pedro1590 said:
I like to think about this in terms of goals for each tournament.
Goal 1: double up
Goal 2: get 8x starting stack (this is likely near the average stack for a cash)
Goal 3: ITM
Goal 4: final table
Goal 5: win the darn thing
It is impossible to achieve goal #5 without first achieving goals 1-4. We can't win the tournament on the first hand and we can't cash by winning the first 10 hands. Every decision we make must be aligned to achieving our goals. While cashing is not the end result, it is a very important step. We need these min cashes to pay for our next attempt.
ROI is still a far better indication of our play than ITM%. Any +ROI means we are playing for free. That is the goal. Big finishes help us play for free longer.
Good Luck and God Bless
Goal 1: double up
Goal 2: get 8x starting stack (this is likely near the average stack for a cash)
Goal 3: ITM
Goal 4: final table
Goal 5: win the darn thing
It is impossible to achieve goal #5 without first achieving goals 1-4. We can't win the tournament on the first hand and we can't cash by winning the first 10 hands. Every decision we make must be aligned to achieving our goals. While cashing is not the end result, it is a very important step. We need these min cashes to pay for our next attempt.
ROI is still a far better indication of our play than ITM%. Any +ROI means we are playing for free. That is the goal. Big finishes help us play for free longer.
Good Luck and God Bless
