A severe challenge

I've been thinking a lot lately about whether it's possible to make a profit playing these $80,000 tournaments. My conclusion is that it's a severe challenge, but is possible. In order to do it, every 6 tournaments, you have to do one of the following three things:

1. win one of them, and come in second in two others
2. win two of them
3. come in second in three of them

If you manage to do the first thing, you wind up with a profit of $162,000 for the six tournaments. If you manage to do the second thing, you wind up with a profit of $138,000. If you manage to do the third thing, you wind up with a profit of $18,000. Imagine how hard that third result is to achieve, and look how poor its reward is.

To further illustrate how tough this challenge is, consider your reward for winning one tournament and coming in second in another - surely a great result. You end up losing $6,000. Not coincidentally, that's the sum of the entry fees.

What makes the challenge so much harder is that luck plays a much larger role in tournaments than in cash games. The increasing blinds force you into actions you would never take in a cash game, and force your opponents likewise to take risks they wouldn't otherwise take. That leads to more action, which in turn increases the likelihood of bad beats occurring.

My conclusion is that these tournaments are a fool's paradise, but the strange part is that I really enjoy them! They're definitely the most challenging form of poker I've ever played. Since I've built up a significant bankroll, I'm going to allow myself to lose up to a million play dollars playing these tournaments. If and when I slide all the way back down to 4 million (and it's highly likely that I will) I'll go back to the cash games. Until then, I'm going to be highly entertained!

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 80000      1000           6        22     6        0
 80000      1000           6        78     2   168000
 80000      1000           6        52     4        0
 80000      1000           6        56     3        0

delta: $-156,000
balance: $5,125,536