Goal setting

Think you validate that claim with something back of the envelope:

4% of the time a top3 finish

N entrants per event, assume random chance then likelihood of finishing 3rd or above is 3/N I think. Im feeling dumb rn, youll have to check that.

4% a top3 finish seems pretty reasonable fot N=100 You got elite baseball players who can hit >=33% more effectively than an average pro, adjust that in different ways for the fact poker has little to no physical skill but many entrants are noobs

Idk about big field events though? 4% top 3 finish when N=500? Thats 667% better than random chance. No way imo.

Even N=150 that number starts to seem dubious.

Idk. Just dont set expectations too high--thats where all the disappointment in the world comes from, unfulfilled and unreasonable expectations.

I think top X% finish is a better metric since its invariant to field size. Feel like if you get Top 10% 12% of the time you should be feeling extremely proud.

Ive done sims where Ive found roi scales linearly with that "multiple"

like finishing top 3 4% of the time in a 100 person field-->multiple is 133%-->roi is 33%

In reality i imagine its nonlinear in the endgame cuz icm enters the picture so thats another domain of skill for an eliter player to flex in.

I would love to see some mass data analysis comparing these numbers by winrate.

I think what McBluffin was getting at with the "nonlinear endgame" comment is that the players with the highest winrates likely win first place less than other decent winners due to the best players being ICM aware and playing appropriately to ladder.

Personally I don't think ITM results are appropriate for goal setting though. You don't have any control over how you run. It's better to set process-oriented goals that you have control over.

Agree 100%.

Outcome goals are pointless in poker. You have no control over the outcome.

I was kinda guessing the opposite.

The later you get, the more distorted and ****ed up strategies get due to ICM, weird stack sizes that people play more exploitably, stuff like that.

Added psychological pressure as prizes rise and sessions get late.

Possibly some advantages for more judicious use of time banks.

These would all favor the most elite players. I'd guess their "multiple above average" is higher for this low percentage finishes than for the mincash type stuff. The later the game gets the more these elite, differentiated skills matter IMO. That means more exploitability to take advantage of.

Thanks for your answers!

And

what do you mean with "process oriented goals"

I agree that the best players will likely play best during the end game of a tournament. It's just the correct ICM strategy for everyone but the biggest stack typically involves sacrificing some chip EV in order to make real money gains/ ladder more often. This tends to result in making it further in the tournament (more deep runs vs min cashes, etc), but often at the expense of winning less.

At least that's what I'm thinking.

I just mean setting a goal that is not results-oriented. A simple example would be setting a goal to study X hours and play X hours each week.

Or possibly if you want something measurable you could set a goal to improve your accuracy/ plug leaks as measured by a HUD. That kind of thing.

If you set a goal to finish in the top X% some percentage of the time you're kind of setting yourself up for disappointment. In poker you can do absolutely everything right and fail to reach your goal simply because you run bad.

Tournaments are stupid. If you play them like I do because we are stupid then its 90% luck and 10% skill.

Focus on the 10% skill and hope for the best.

yeah pretty much lmao

Don't focus on results. Focus on process. For example:

I am going to play 65 live events. 25 Sunday online events. 100 week day online events.

Going to loose weight and maintain a gluten free vegan diet and refrain from drugs and alcohol.