We are all familiar with the poker concept of leakage, the mistakes and technical errors that leak your chips away during a game. In this article though, we are going to examine a different kind of leakage, tournament leakage. Not leakage of chips during a tournament, but rather, the leakage of tournaments.
Yep, you heard right, the leakage of tournaments. Bet you have not thought of losing tournaments as a form of leakage. But, just as leaking chips is the result of simple little things done wrong, so is the leakage of tournaments.
And, especially so in a Turbo STT, or for that matter any Sit n Go, where you can be in and out of the tournament as quickly as it takes to play a hand of Hold'em. Meaning, of course, that just as you can indiscriminately leak away chips in a ring game, you can also indiscriminately leak away tournaments.
To help understand this concept, think this way about all of the Sit n Go tournaments you have ever played. Let us say your win-loss results for all of those tournaments breaks down something like this:
- Won with luck, 15%.
- Won with skill, 25%.
- Lost for lack of skill, 20%.
- Lost for various other reasons, 10%.
- Lost, but played great, 15%.
- Lost to bad luck, 15%.
Notice that there are, at either end of this continuum, a somewhat set number of wins and losses that you can normally expect to experience. In this example, 40% wins and 30% losses. The tournament leakage then, are those 10% losses in the middle, the ones that are lost for various other reasons. They are the lost tournaments that are candidate for relatively easy coaxing into the winner's circle. They represent the tournament leaks that can be plugged.
The task of plugging tournament leaks will require some game analysis, lots of introspection, and the desire and discipline to make the necessary changes and improvements. And, that is the only path towards improvement.
In the category of 'various other reasons', here are a few common reasons you might be leaking some tournaments:
- playing while tired,
- playing in a hurry,
- playing while distracted,
- playing too much,
- playing without commitment,
- playing without adequate bankroll, and
- playing without a plan.
These and many more reasons could be factors contributing to your tournament leakage. So, here is the challenge. Identify your reasons, then invest whatever is required to make the necessary changes and improvements to plug the leaks.
For example, if you know that some of your tournament losses were on account of playing while too tired, then change your rest or play schedule. Or, just do not start a tournament if you do not feel fully refreshed.
Perhaps then, you can improve your in-the-money finishes by some small percentage. Then, attack the next problem, and the next, and so on. Before long, you could be finishing in-the-money in many more tournaments.
The point is this: we leak a lot of tournaments, and we can plug those leaks.
And, here is the incentive: big money.
Let's say that with the elimination of several of your reasons for tournament leaks, you can increase your win rate by 5%. Thus, over your next 1,000 tournaments at an entry of $10 each, you will have not only stopped losing $500. But, you will have also started winning approximately $1,000. This represents approximately a $1,500 swing for your bottom line.
Think about it. With so much money at stake, clearly we should not be playing until we have first addressed our reasons for tournament leakage.
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Read my Article Review of this article, Leakage, Sit 'n' Go Tournament Style.
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Copyright 2009 R. Steve McCollum
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