Is this why FTP has half as many players than PokerStars?

[grimReaper]

Is it FTP's tournament structure?

In FTP you only start 1500 chips and levels are 10 minutes. I feel my tournament life is too heavily weighted with my luck in the early levels. For example, suppose blinds are 20/40, I raise pf to 120, button calls and BB calls, pot is now, 380, and flop comes say K 8 5 and I miss, and I make a standard cbet of 260, and if I get called and eventually lose the pot, I lose 260+120 = 380, and assuming I had 1500 chips to begin w/, I now have 1140. Even though mathematically I still have 28BB currently and will have 19BB by the next level, whenever my stack is under 1200, I feel psychologically short-stacked, and I just played one hand! Don't need to do the math to know how I feel if I lose my first two pots! I feel FTP's normal structure is completely unplayble. Even if you play limit HORSE, 1500 starting chips isn't enough! In fact you only get the double stacked HORSE tournaments at the $26 buy-in minimum.

Now compare this to PokerStars. In PokerStars, the majority of tournaments start you out w/ 3000 chips and levels are 10-15 minutes. The only exception is micro stakes HORSE, where you start w/ 1800 chips and levels increase every 12 minutes (still better than FTP), and some NL Holdem tournaments where you start off 1500 chips, but levels increase every 15 minutes.

I haven't done any research on why Pokerstars has such a commanding market share over FTP, but tournament structure has to be a factor. IMO FTP has a better and unique interface and promotes/presents their tournaments better, has better rakeback, and all Pokerstars has aside from better tournament structure is better customer support. Excluding structure, it seems like FTP>Pokerstars, but adding in structure, FTP<<<Pokerstars.


Btw, FTP's double stacked tournaments are playable.

Thoughts? Agree/Disagree?

[travz21]

Is it FTP's tournament structure?

In FTP you only start 1500 chips and levels are 10 minutes. I feel my tournament life is too heavily weighted with my luck in the early levels. For example, suppose blinds are 20/40, I raise pf to 120, button calls and BB calls, pot is now, 380, and flop comes say K 8 5 and I miss, and I make a standard cbet of 260, and if I get called and eventually lose the pot, I lose 260+120 = 380, and assuming I had 1500 chips to begin w/, I now have 1140. Even though mathematically I still have 28BB currently and will have 19BB by the next level, whenever my stack is under 1200, I feel psychologically short-stacked, and I just played one hand! Don't need to do the math to know how I feel if I lose my first two pots! I feel FTP's normal structure is completely unplayble. Even if you play limit HORSE, 1500 starting chips isn't enough! In fact you only get the double stacked HORSE tournaments at the $26 buy-in minimum.

Now compare this to PokerStars. In PokerStars, the majority of tournaments start you out w/ 3000 chips and levels are 10-15 minutes. The only exception is micro stakes HORSE, where you start w/ 1800 chips and levels increase every 12 minutes (still better than FTP), and some NL Holdem tournaments where you start off 1500 chips, but levels increase every 15 minutes.

I haven't done any research on why Pokerstars has such a commanding market share over FTP, but tournament structure has to be a factor. IMO FTP has a better and unique interface and promotes/presents their tournaments better, has better rakeback, and all Pokerstars has aside from better tournament structure is better customer support. Excluding structure, it seems like FTP>Pokerstars, but adding in structure, FTP<<<Pokerstars.


Btw, FTP's double stacked tournaments are playable.

Thoughts? Agree/Disagree?

You explained pretty well why tournaments suck.

[C8H10N4O2]

Not sure, but of the two, I prefer Stars. I just wish I could get the same rakeback deal I have with FTP over at Stars.

[grimReaper]

Dew-
Why Stars? Tournament structure?

travz21-
IMO tournaments are where the money is at. Sure even if you finish in the top 5%, you're only getting 4-5 buy-ins back, but inevitably if you're a good player you will win and make a fortune. The reason I don't like cash games is that wins are very small relative to bankroll, and that's *if* you win that session. And a good portion of your bankroll is subject to risk if you go on tilt.

Here's some motivation: from brief research on decent players, you should generally cash 1-2 times out of 10 (doable), and for every 10 cashes, decent players make a final table at least twice. So that amounts to a 3% chance of making a final table!

P(make final table) = P(make final table|ITM)*P(ITM) = (2/10)(1.5/10) = 0.03

And I define a decent player as >30% ROI, and profits exceeding $40k, and players that have enough tournaments (data).

Now for some brief EV calculations

Probabilities based on data:
P(ITM) = 0.12 (made it 12% to be a little conservative)
P(final table) = 0.02 (made it 2% " ")
P(ITM and not final table) = 0.10

Just picked a random $5+$0.50 NL Holdem tourney on Stars.
Interesting stats
5728 players, 858 paid.
Prize pool: $28640
Total money at final table = $14996 (average = 1666, like finishing 4th)
Total money out of final table = $13644 (average = 16.07 like finishing 198th)

Very conservative assumptions:
Let's say on average you finish 7th when you make a final table, good for 630.08
And let's say when your ITM but not at the final table, on average you get just $8.59 (finishing 720th, while ITM starts at 858)

EV = (0.02)(630.08-5.5) + (0.10)(8.59-5.5) - (0.88)(5.5) = $7.96, 45% ROI!

W/ these ultra conservative assumptions 45% ROI is a great figure!


Implied P(final table) w/ ROI = 20%

20% ROI --> win 6.6 on average

P(final table)*(630.08-5.5) + (0.12 - P(final table))(8.59-5.5) - (0.88)(5.5) = 6.6
P*624.58 + 0.371 - P*3.09 - 4.84 = 6.6

P(final table) = 1.78%
i.e to get just 20% ROI (keeping ultra conservative assumptions in mind), you should make it at the final table just 2 times out of 100. Doable.


Btw, I was wanting to do these calculations for a while, I finally did them....

[C8H10N4O2]

Dew-
Why Stars? Tournament structure?

Nope, micro stakes cash is cheaper. But when I do play an occasional tournament, I have a really higher success rate at stars.

EV = (0.02)(630.08-5.5) + (0.10)(8.59-5.5) - (0.88)(5.5) = $7.96, 45% ROI!

W/ these ultra conservative assumptions 45% ROI is a great figure!

1-5 hours+ (depending on how deep you go on average) for the "great" figure of $2.475 for an amazing rate of $0.495-$2.475/hour with ridiculously higher variance than other forms of poker, no thanks.

i.e to get just 20% ROI (keeping ultra conservative assumptions in mind), you should make it at the final table just 2 times out of 100. Doable.

2 out of 100 final tabling doable? What kind of volume have you put into these things, and what field sizes are you playing?

[grimReaper]

1-5 hours+ (depending on how deep you go on average) for the "great" figure of $2.475 for an amazing rate of $0.495-$2.475/hour with ridiculously higher variance than other forms of poker, no thanks.

2 out of 100 final tabling doable? What kind of volume have you put into these things, and what field sizes are you playing?

I think you missed the point Dew. In absolute terms, sure $2.50 is nothing to get excited about, but if you consider $5 as an investment, which it is, you are getting a 45% return, which is very significant. Put $5 in any stock/asset for 5 hours and see how much you make. Bottom line: play higher stakes, and you'll higher returns in absolute terms.

As for higher variance, this makes playing tournaments more profitable b/c you're covered on the downside to just losing your buy-in. Think of it as an option, options are worth a lot for more for volatile stocks than those that are not volatile.

What do you mean by volume? Field size large, 3k+. And 100 tournaments is a lot tournaments if you think about it for a minute, you should final table at least once. I'll do some simple comparative statics tomorrow, got to sleep.

Btw, I think you're also ignoring how conservative my assumptions are. I said when you final table you never finish better than 7th, even though *so much* money is concentrated in 1st-3rd place. And for low stakes P(ITM) should be around 0.20, the 0.12 figure is for those that play tough high stakes fields.

[C8H10N4O2]

I think you missed the point Dew. In absolute terms, sure $2.50 is nothing to get excited about, but if you consider $5 as an investment, which it is, you are getting a 45% return, which is very significant. Put $5 in any stock/asset for 5 hours and see how much you make. Bottom line: play higher stakes, and you'll higher returns in absolute terms.

As for higher variance, this makes playing tournaments more profitable b/c you're covered on the downside to just losing your buy-in. Think of it as an option, options are worth a lot for more for volatile stocks than those that are not volatile.

What do you mean by volume? Field size large, 3k+. And 100 tournaments is a lot tournaments if you think about it for a minute, you should final table at least once. I'll do some simple comparative statics tomorrow, got to sleep.

Btw, I think you're also ignoring how conservative my assumptions are. I said when you final table you never finish better than 7th, even though *so much* money is concentrated in 1st-3rd place. And for low stakes P(ITM) should be around 0.20, the 0.12 figure is for those that play tough high stakes fields.

No I completely understood your misconceptions. By volume, I mean how many tournaments are you basing these "doable" figures on? 100 tournaments is not a lot. Variance is crazy high in MTT's, and you seem to not understand that at all. Sure when you occasionally win you'll have won a ton, but what are you going to do when you hit a 40-50 buy-in downswing? Even at $5 tournaments this equates to $220-$275 that you've lost only playing $5.50 games. Sure $5 in the stock market is going to take a long time to earn a return, but I don't have to do ANYTHING with it. Online poker is time investment too. If I could buy into MTT's and then walk away and still earn a 45% return without spending hours upon hours at the computer, then it'd be completely worth it. $2.50 isn't anything to get excited about when your average tournament duration is 2-3 hours, unless you start 10-12 tabling MTT's, it's just not a feasible way to make money at lower stakes. Now on to how your calculations are not really feasible for most players.

Check this guy out. He was the "online poker player of the year" for 2009 according to Card Player Magazine. He plays on a few different sites, but he has the most volume at Poker Stars so that's what I'm showing you here.




If you'll notice, this guy falls in the top 0.01% of players. His overall rank is 35th out of 1,727,304 ranked online poker players. Needless to say, this guy is ridiculously solid.

Note his in the money finishes. Including 10th place (usually not a final table), he has finished in the top 10 358 times. This is out of 6413 tournaments. This equates down to 5.6% of the time, or roughly 5.6 times out of 100. Also note his ROI. He has a 90% ROI. Again, obviously ridiculously solid of a tournament player... so much, that he was considered the best player in 2009. So are your figures possible, sure. But again, right now we are examining one of the absolute best online multi-table tournament poker players. When one of the best MTT grinders in online poker only has obtained roughly double what you are calculating, the possibility of most people obtaining even your figures is really low. I don't think you realize how generous your calculations are.

[grimReaper]

No I completely understood your misconceptions. By volume, I mean how many tournaments are you basing these "doable" figures on? 100 tournaments is not a lot. Variance is crazy high in MTT's, and you seem to not understand that at all. Sure when you occasionally win you'll have won a ton, but what are you going to do when you hit a 40-50 buy-in downswing? Even at $5 tournaments this equates to $220-$275 that you've lost only playing $5.50 games. Sure $5 in the stock market is going to take a long time to earn a return, but I don't have to do ANYTHING with it. Online poker is time investment too. If I could buy into MTT's and then walk away and still earn a 45% return without spending hours upon hours at the computer, then it'd be completely worth it. $2.50 isn't anything to get excited about when your average tournament duration is 2-3 hours, unless you start 10-12 tabling MTT's, it's just not a feasible way to make money at lower stakes. Now on to how your calculations are not really feasible for most players.

Check this guy out. He was the "online poker player of the year" for 2009 according to Card Player Magazine. He plays on a few different sites, but he has the most volume at Poker Stars so that's what I'm showing you here.




If you'll notice, this guy falls in the top 0.01% of players. His overall rank is 35th out of 1,727,304 ranked online poker players. Needless to say, this guy is ridiculously solid.

Note his in the money finishes. Including 10th place (usually not a final table), he has finished in the top 10 358 times. This is out of 6413 tournaments. This equates down to 5.6% of the time, or roughly 5.6 times out of 100. Also note his ROI. He has a 90% ROI. Again, obviously ridiculously solid of a tournament player... so much, that he was considered the best player in 2009. So are your figures possible, sure. But again, right now we are examining one of the absolute best online multi-table tournament poker players. When one of the best MTT grinders in online poker only has obtained roughly double what you are calculating, the possibility of most people obtaining even your figures is really low. I don't think you realize how generous your calculations are.

No, I didn't base that off 100 tournaments (lol), I was verbally expressing my percent figures, x tournaments out of 100. A lot of the players that I've examined on the same database you show have at least 800 tournaments.

As for the 40-50 downswing, I wouldn't expect you saying that, given I've read your other posts on different threads and you emphasize the importance of bankroll management - key is bankroll management, don't play a MTT more than 1% of bankroll. Second of all, if you check another database (I'll pm if interested) it shows all profit as a graph, and you will notice that successful players' graphs have a downward hill (combination of ITM finishes not compensating for all tournament entries) for a period of 50-100 games or so, then a huge SPIKE when they win/final table, then a downward hill, then SPIKE, and it continues, each spike dominating any downward interval. That's the life a tournament player, according to the data.

Investing in the market takes a long time too, with so many investments to choose from, you have do your homework. I wasn't implying you can make a living $5.50 tournaments (lol), the entire point of the post, which I think you're missing, is the return, as a percent. I understand Stars has different payout structure for different buy ins, so for you all rerun calculations for higher stake tournament later. Point being if you spend say $4k/week and 30 hrs/week on tournaments, which translates spending $200k/yr (taking 2 weeks off), and expect to get 45% return, you get $90k profit. Many players do play multiple (3-5) tournaments simultaneously.

What are you trying to prove w/ gboro780. You say someone who has stats that are twice as good as the assumptions I made has made double the predicted ROI. How is that surprising? How does that logically imply that decent/avg player can't play *half* as good as gboro780? Anyway, I invite you and anyone else reading to go to FTP/Stars, go to any tournament of any buy-in, find a successful player (>30% ROI, +700 tournaments), and check their stats. You'll see the assumptions I make are very reasonable.

[pokerbucket]

Attention I have the answer.....

More people play on pokerstars because they know Chris Moneymaker is the best poker player that ever lived and everyone watches him so they can learn how to improve their game.

[C8H10N4O2]

I'm saying that gboro780 is in the top 0.01% of poker players, and he only does double of your stats. He's a huge outlier. Of course you wouldn't play on less than 100BI roll for MTT's... I'm saying, it takes one heck of a player to not get phased by dropping 40-50 buy-ins. I just don't think the typical MTT grinder is going to successfully pull 45% roi over a large sample.

[travz21]

travz21-
IMO tournaments are where the money is at. Sure even if you finish in the top 5%, you're only getting 4-5 buy-ins back, but inevitably if you're a good player you will win and make a fortune. The reason I don't like cash games is that wins are very small relative to bankroll, and that's *if* you win that session. And a good portion of your bankroll is subject to risk if you go on tilt.

You do know that if you're a really good cash game player who mass-multitables you can, on average, make 4-5 buyins over the same period a deep tourney run would take (6 hours)? Making 2/3rds a buyin per hour plus rakeback seems much better than having an ROI of around 50%.

[grimReaper]

I'm saying that gboro780 is in the top 0.01% of poker players, and he only does double of your stats. He's a huge outlier. Of course you wouldn't play on less than 100BI roll for MTT's... I'm saying, it takes one heck of a player to not get phased by dropping 40-50 buy-ins. I just don't think the typical MTT grinder is going to successfully pull 45% roi over a large sample.

edit: I spotted a small error, here's the calculations w/ corrections:

Here's some comparative statics I said I'd mention:

Keep in mind ultra conservative assumptions. ITM but not final table means you finish 721/5.6k where ITM starts at 815ish, and final table means finishing 7th.

p = P(final table)

Note:
P(ITM) = 0.12 - p (by ITM I mean ITM but not final table)
P(final table) = p
P(Out of money) = 0.88

Exected value (profit) as a function of p:

EV(p)= p*(630.08-5.5) + (0.12-p)(8.59-5.5) - (0.88)(5.5)
= p*624.58 + 0.3708 - 3.09p - 4.84
= p*621.49 - 4.4692

You can see some properties:

1) To break even, just make finish at the final table 0.7% of the time.

2)

[d/dp(EV)]/100 = 621.49/100 = 6.2149

As your chance of making the final table goes up by 1%, you're expected to make $6.21 more profit.

3)

Now here's the fascinating part:

Your expected value as tournament player is extremely sensitive to your P(final table). Like I said, as P(final table) goes up by 1%, your expected profit goes up by $6.21, but that's $6.21/5.5 = 113% ROI! You must always fight for the final table.

4)
Variance

So suppose your P(final table) = 1.5%, but by chance after playing 1000 tournaments, you only finaled 10 rather than the expected 15. Then you only made $1.75/tournament or 32% ROI, vs if you finaled 20 rather than 15, you made $7.96/tournament, or 145% ROI, vs your expected $4.85/tournament or 88% ROI. Huge 56% difference both ways.

[grimReaper]

EV = (0.02)(630.08-5.5) + (0.10)(8.59-5.5) - (0.88)(5.5) = $7.96, 45% ROI!

Noticed an error, the EV is expected value of profit (which subtracts out buyin), not expected value of prizes. So in fact expected profit is $7.96 for P(final table) = 2%, which is 145% ROI!

Anyway, even if you go by say P(final table) = 1%

Going by equation in post above,
EV(0.01) = 0.01*621.49 - 4.4692 32% ROI

The 145% vs 32% emphasizes the difference 1% can make, which I pointed out in the post above.

[C8H10N4O2]

This has become even more laughable. Enjoy your MTT grind. Hopefully you'll run really hot.

[grimReaper]

This has become even more laughable. Enjoy your MTT grind. Hopefully you'll run really hot.

This is the deductive mathematical conclusion given the assumptions:

P(out of $) = 0.88
P(final table) = p
P(ITM and not final table) = 0.12 - p
Final table = 7th place winning $630
ITM = counted as 721th/5600 winning $8.59, where ITM starts 815

You set p=1%, you get 32% ROI, set it to 2% you 145%.

If you had any intellectual curiosity on the issue, I would've expected some comment on the sensitivity of p, but apparently there's something funny I missed. Or you that desperate to prove me "wrong?"

[CallifyouDare]

Sorry to barge in, but when did this comparison between PStars & FTP tournament structures changed into calculations of ROI if you get ITM/Final Table ??

I'm not going into the maths war here but how can you set p (chances of getting at the final table) to 1% ?? This is extremely HIGH !! In the MTT you described for your example, you took 5k+ opponents. Making it to the final 7 people won't occur that much unless, as Dew pointed out, you run extremely hot or you really are a MTT pro... which isn't an ideal situation for the casual player/grinder if you want to make a lot of profit like it seems you're assuming.

Even if you can achieve 1% chances of getting in the final table on a regular basis (meaning with a large volume of played MTTs), let's say out of 100 MTTs you got in the final table once, you dropped 5500$ in buy-ins. Are you sure your final table finish is able to cover that ? I don't know the exact payout structure since I don't play these myself but I saw a $5.50 short-handed (6-max) MTT of 2700+ players on PStars and 4th place paid $700ish.... (And it took 8 hours to complete by the way)

Another thing I noted is the P(out fo $)=0.88. This again looks like your underestimating the field and the level of the competition. IMHO it should be set above 0.90...

Getting back on the original post and topic now, aka why PStars has twice more players than FTP. I don't play at PStars so I can't really compare. But I've loaded a lot of SNG at FTP and I feel pretty confident the tournament structure isn't as decisive a factor you seem to say. Sure, occasionally you get card dead for 5 round of blinds and you get in "Push or Fold" mode but eventhough it's still playable. I think people like that speed factor due to the blinds increasing quickly.

If you were talking about MTTs, well I can't really say for sure because I don't play MTTs (except the casual weekly Rakeback freeroll) since it takes too much time. If you're a good player, you have an edge on a majority of the other players. Then, when you get their chips (because you're THAT good) isn't it better for you if the blinds were higher, forcing them to put a little more into the pot ?

Tournaments structure probably is a factor in why PStars has more players than FTP but I can see others like :
- Time of establishment
- Differences in marketing strategies
- European market coverage
- etc

[grimReaper]

Sorry to barge in, but when did this comparison between PStars & FTP tournament structures changed into calculations of ROI if you get ITM/Final Table ??

I'm not going into the maths war here but how can you set p (chances of getting at the final table) to 1% ?? This is extremely HIGH !! In the MTT you described for your example, you took 5k+ opponents. Making it to the final 7 people won't occur that much unless, as Dew pointed out, you run extremely hot or you really are a MTT pro... which isn't an ideal situation for the casual player/grinder if you want to make a lot of profit like it seems you're assuming.

Even if you can achieve 1% chances of getting in the final table on a regular basis (meaning with a large volume of played MTTs), let's say out of 100 MTTs you got in the final table once, you dropped 5500$ in buy-ins. Are you sure your final table finish is able to cover that ? I don't know the exact payout structure since I don't play these myself but I saw a $5.50 short-handed (6-max) MTT of 2700+ players on PStars and 4th place paid $700ish.... (And it took 8 hours to complete by the way)

Another thing I noted is the P(out fo $)=0.88. This again looks like your underestimating the field and the level of the competition. IMHO it should be set above 0.90...

Getting back on the original post and topic now, aka why PStars has twice more players than FTP. I don't play at PStars so I can't really compare. But I've loaded a lot of SNG at FTP and I feel pretty confident the tournament structure isn't as decisive a factor you seem to say. Sure, occasionally you get card dead for 5 round of blinds and you get in "Push or Fold" mode but eventhough it's still playable. I think people like that speed factor due to the blinds increasing quickly.

If you were talking about MTTs, well I can't really say for sure because I don't play MTTs (except the casual weekly Rakeback freeroll) since it takes too much time. If you're a good player, you have an edge on a majority of the other players. Then, when you get their chips (because you're THAT good) isn't it better for you if the blinds were higher, forcing them to put a little more into the pot ?

Tournaments structure probably is a factor in why PStars has more players than FTP but I can see others like :
- Time of establishment
- Differences in marketing strategies
- European market coverage
- etc

No, I hijacked my own thread talking about tournament EV (lol) from the main point of tournament structure . Given how much weight is given to finishing the final table to tournament player's success, structure shouldn't play a huge roll, though I find FTP's normal structure very unenjoyable.

I wrote EV of profit as a function p, which is the probability of final table:
EV(p) = p*621.49 - 4.4692

This equation incorporates:
P(out of $) = .88
P(ITM and not final table) = 0.12 - p
P(final table) = p

If you don't cash in 100 tournaments straight, that would be -$550, nor -$5500, but that's very unlikely, considering your ITM cashes will offset some of the losses, until you final table a tournament which is when you'll be in the green. As for cover losses, the EV function is taking care of all of that. And IMHO, playing low stakes P(ITM) should be at least 15-18%, but I went w/ 12%, which is 2% less than the average higher stakes players make in tough fields. P(ITM) = 1% is probably not conservative, but imo i realistic. At least good players (yes I know, I'm mentioning good players, i.e ROI > 20% and 700+ tournaments) final anywhere from 2%-4%, and a 1% difference is a huge! And by final I also include 10th place, just b/c that's how the data is given.

As for blinds being high when you have chips, that's IF you have chips. What I mean is if blinds are high for everyone, you increase variance, which means sacrifice skill to luck (as an extreme example, consider final table where you can lose a big chunk of your chips in just one hand). Plus in the first two levels I'm figuring out my opponents. I'm not going be calling too many large bets until I know opponents better.

[grimReaper]

While I'm at it, I'll also be a little formal about variance.

First: basic probability theory. Random variables are variables that spit out numbers at random based on their distribution. A Bernoulli (p) distribution will spit out 0 for fail w/ probability 1-p or 1 for success w/ probability p. So one tournament is like a Bernoulli (0.01) random variable. If you add together n identical and independent Bernoullis, you get a binomial(n,p) distribution, which spits out how many successes in n trials, where each trial had p probability of success. That's like asking how many final tables will I make if I play 1000 tournaments?

And the variance of a binomial random variable is p(1-p)n, and it's SD is just the square root of that. So if p = P(final table) = 0.01 and you play 1000 tournaments, the SD is
sqrt{0.99*0.01*1000} = 3.15, let's say 3. So you're expected to make 1000*0.01= 10 final tables if you play 1000 tournaments, and the margin of error is 3, meaning:

W/ 68% probability you will finish 7-13 final tables (+/- 1 SD)
W/ 95% probability you will finish 4-16 final tables (+/- 2 SD)
W/ 99.7% probability you will finish 1-19 final tables (+/- 3 SD)

And I got the probabilities from the normal approximation, which is justified b/c A) you can use normal approximations to calculate probabilities for binomial distributions provided n is large (>50), and B) by the Central Limit Theorem, adding up a large amount of any identically distributed and independent arbitrary random variables converges to the normal distribution.

I mentioned variance in one post, but just wanted to be a little more rigorous than I was before.

[C8H10N4O2]

At least good players (yes I know, I'm mentioning good players, i.e ROI > 20% and 700+ tournaments)

No, you are talking about outstanding MTT'ers.

[grimReaper]

No, you are talking about outstanding MTT'ers.

Define outstanding. If gboro outstanding, then hell no. But anyway, that was just a side comment, that many good (but not gboro good) players make it 2-4%, look for yourself. Regardless, I'm still going by the conservative 1%.