First MTT NLHE three bagger

Last night, I had two more easy money MTT NLHEs. On the strength of them, I registered the first three bagger of my young MTT NLHE career. Even though I'm playing these tournaments strictly for fun (and believe me, they are fun), I'm still kind of curious about their profit potential. Let's take a look at the $900 buy in level, which has a $100 entry fee. The first scenario I'll consider is one where I only ever make a min cash when I make the money. How frequently would I have to min cash in order to break even? Let's use the min cash payout from last night's first MTT NLHE as a guide. There were 1,082 entries, and 264 places were paid. The payout for a min cash was $1,412. To break even playing such tournaments, and only min cashing, I'd have to make the money 70.82% of the time. Friends and neighbors, that just ain't gonna happen. So far, my making the money percentage is a comparatively lowly 36.11. Assuming (and this is a big assumption) that I can increase that to 50%, how much better than min cashing would I have to do in order to break even? Here's the full pay table from the tournament:

1         $43,504
2         $36,274
3         $31,405
4         $27,509
5         $23,614
6         $20,693
7         $17,771
8         $14,850
9         $12,092
10-12     $10,955
13-15      $9,494
16-18      $8,033
19-24      $7,060
25-30      $6,086
31-36      $5,112
37-42      $4,430
43-48      $3,943
49-60      $3,651
61-72      $3,359
73-84      $3,164
85-96      $2,970
97-114     $2,775
115-132    $2,580
133-150    $2,385
151-168    $2,191
169-192    $1,996
193-216    $1,801
217-240    $1,606
241-264    $1,412

If I made the money exactly 50% of the time, and every time I made the money, I were able to hit the payout which is three slots up from a min cash, I still wouldn't quite break even! This shows how unbelievably difficult it is to make a profit playing this type of tournament. However, it's a wonderful challenge, and I'm here to tell you that I'm picking up the gauntlet these numbers have thrown down :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       6    39   253     1412
MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    38   106     2485

delta: $1,897
MTT NLHE balance: $-28,500
balance: $7,420,544