The top of the bottom third

When you play in 6 player tournaments, you want to be in the top half all the time. The trouble is, you want even more than that. You want to be above the bottom third of the top half, i.e. above third place. So, not only do you want to avoid the bottom of the tournament, you also want to avoid the bottom of the top.

This is an excerpt from my October 28, 2012 post, in the days when I was playing sit and gos. In order to have a good chance of making the money in a multi-table tournament, the strategy is significantly different from the sit and go strategy. Since there are many more players in MTTs than there are in sit and gos, you can afford to have a more modest goal, and to play more patiently. I've found that a good objective in an MTT is to be at the top of the bottom third of the remaining players in the tournament, when more than half of the overall number of entrants have already hit the rail. It doesn't matter if your current position is greater than the number of paid places; all that matters is that you maintain being at the top of the bottom third. If you can do this, the tournament will essentially melt itself down until you're in the money. It almost feels like cheating :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     416   99   108        0
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     242   63    46    90000

delta: $-10,000
2024 balance: $2,867,000
2024 blue distance: $428,000
balance: $15,676,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.49 (1231 of 2967)