A question that many high-stakes poker players wrestle with is whether or not the preliminary events and/or satellites to the big events are worth their time. To answer the question best, you have to go back to the old economics principle of opportunity cost. If I was to play this $1,000 event, how much money would I be foregoing in cash games online or live. Of course, the decision isn't always about the money. I play $1,000 tournaments sometimes, knowing that they are a bad investment of my time. The money I will make online, on average, over the long term is a better idea. These tournaments can be a lot of fun, though, and there is something to be said about learning why players at that level of tournament poker make the plays that they do. You can use that information down the road if you run into players like that in the $10,000 events.
If one was to decide to play or not to play a tournament based strictly on his profitability compared to the same amount of time spent playing cash games, he first would have to determine his approximate hourly rate in cash games over the long term. Generally, the structures for preliminary events make it difficult for even the best tournament players to do well. The blinds escalate quickly, and I've determined that a very successful preliminary tournament player can perhaps - perhaps - have something as high as a 150 percent ROI (return on investment) in these types of tournaments over the course of five to 10 years. Let's take a $1,000 tournament, for example. Every time this player entered a $1,000 tournament, he would expect to get a gross payment of $2,500 back. That would be a $1,500 profit. One would then have to determine the average number of hours he plays in each of these tournaments. Almost always, tournaments like this take two days. You play down until the final two tables or the final table on the first day, and then play the final table on day two. The times that you make the final table, it will probably take you around 16 hours to win the tournament. Therefore, I'd estimate that the average time spent by a very good player over the long term in the $1,000 events is somewhere between four and six hours, when you consider the many number of times you'll go broke in the first hour. That being said, this player would have an hourly rate of somewhere between $250 and $375 in $1,000 tournaments. The 150 percent ROI estimate may even be a little high, too. I've heard that the online tournament grinders strive for 100 percent ROI over the long term. The player who makes $250-$375 per hour then has to determine if this is the most profitable use of his time. He would have to be playing (and playing well) for high stakes online and even higher in live cash games to say that the tournaments are a waste of time.
The same thing would apply to playing mega-satellites. A player who buys into a $1,000 mega-satellite is trying to win a seat in the $10,000 event. If he wins a seat, he makes a $9,000 profit. A good player wins a mega-seat probably one in five times, so he makes about $1,000 each time he plays. The hours it takes to win a mega-satellite can be very exhausting, and these satellites usually run deep into the night right before the tournament. If someone is going to buy into the $10,000 tournament regardless, he needs to decide if his time is better invested in playing the satellites on the day before the event or spending the day playing cash games.
It is important not to get too caught up in short-term wins or losses in tournament poker. Just because you're running at something like 400 percent in small tournaments over the course of a year doesn't mean that you're going to kill them forever, and you shouldn't expect to. Cashing in four out of six tournaments is nothing uncommon, and it would be perfectly normal for you not to cash in your next 20. I know firsthand that the swings can be deadly in tournaments. After having a stratospheric ROI in tournaments in 2006, I've slowed down quite a bit in the early going here in 2007.
Shannon Shorr is a professional poker player from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He finished fourth in the Card Player 2006 Player of the Year race. You can follow his progress at shannonshorr.com, or e-mail him with questions and comments at [email protected].
