12/2/2010--Making money playing large multitable tournaments

Sometimes you know something, but things happen that make you, or those around you, doubt what you know to be true.  That has been the case with my switching my specialty to large MTTs (multitable) tournaments.  Large, in my case, means generally between 1,000 and 8,000 players.
I have not been getting the large cashes to make it viable, in other words, I'm not making any money.  But that's the nature of the beast.  In my former specialty, SNGs (sit 'n goes, usually a one-table tournament of 9 or 10 players) you make money by getting a lot of small cashes to add up. With MTTs, you have a  few very but very large cashes (even large $1 tournaments can have a first place prize of $1,000 or more) that can make your month or your year, with long breakeven periods or dry spells in between.

I know this.  I know it's normal.  I also know that good MTT players make a lot more money over the course of a year than good SNG players (the exceptions are some SNG players that can play 12, 24 or more simultaneous tables)..  Even so, when it's not going well, it's easy to loose confidence in your plan, and your playing.

I had a discussion on the twoplustwo.com poker forums with someone, a former SNG specialist who had made the switch, and he has gone through exactly the same things.  It's nice to know that in fact nothing is wrong, and that what I'm going through is completely normal.

Here are parts of that discussion:

Poker Clif

Posts: 2,430

Profitability of deepstacked tournaments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi. I am a former SNG specialist (14% ROI at $10) who is converting to MTTs as my specialty. I was very tight, even for a SNG/DON player, so I'm back in the micros while I get comfortable playing a lot more hands.

[Some questions about specific tournament types]All comments are appreciated.


Sinking Ship

Posts: 844 Re: profitability of deepstack tournaments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A while back I made a similar transition from mid-stake turbo SNGs to mid/high-stake MTTs. I've calculated that my hourly would be less than 1/5 of what it was when I grinded SNG's IF I omitted 2 big scores, which ultimately boosted my hourly above what it was previously.


Basically, the variance can be a gift and a curse. I also have not put in nearly as much volume in MTTs (even when measured in time spent playing), so my results are relatively unreliable.


Additionally, SNGs (especially turbos) where very much a mechanical undertaking for me. I find MTTs, deepstacked or turbos or not, to be more enjoyable and to have more subtleties, and to thus be more challenging (not having a fixed amount of chips at the table [as in a SNG] is one of the fundamental changes).


As far as your returns go, only you can predict with any accuracy. I'd say to just start playing and, if after a sufficiently large sample, you find your hourly is significantly less, then it is what it is. Just remember that 1 or 2 big scores (and by big score I don't mean taking down the 1Mil Garauntee, I mean placing top 3 in a few of your own stake MTTs) can drastically change your ROI and hourly.

Poker Clif

Posts: 2,430
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your response. Yeah, I'm definitely waiting for that big score. I'm getting in the top 5% of large fields (over 2,000 players) more than 10% of the time--which usually means playing for 4 hours and winnning 2 or 3 buy-ins. I'm not playing enough tables right now that my sample size is going to mean anything for quite a while, so I understand exactly what you mean about the big scores.

I remember a post by Pzhon, where he recounted a day where he played 19 MTTs and didn't cash. He cashed in his 20th and final tournament--which gave him a profit of almost exactly zero for the day.