I am a Stats Geek Like No Other

It’s one of the key reasons that a solid satellite system is essential for any live tour to be successful. Without smaller feeder tournaments, the cost of playing is too big. Now, I love the WPT, but I think one of the biggest mistakes they’ve made is not focusing more on a feeder system involving online satellites. It’s essential. In my spreadsheet, I only included players who played a minimum of 30 events. Even at 30 events, it’s not a large sample by any stretch of the imagination, but I had to cut it off somewhere and 176 players qualified. Since I did it all by myself, I wasn’t about to include anymore than that. There are several categories: Player Name
Events Played
Total Earnings
Cashes
Final Tables
Earnings Per Event
Cash Percentage
Final Table Percentage You’ll be able to access the entire spreadsheet if you’d like at Spreadsheet
Top 10 Players in Earnings Per Event: 1. Carlos Mortensen $107,354.29
2. Jonathan Little $93,077.19
3. Martin deKnijff $92,130.72
4. David Chiu$91,053.53
5. Gus Hansen $90,816.93
6. Tuan Le $90,781.26
7. Nick Schulman $77,838.60
8. Michael Mizrachi $69,479.43
9. Daniel Negreanu $68,591.79
10. Alan Goehring $59,936.17 Bottom Ten Players in Earnings Per Event: Don Barton $2,056.33
Matt Glanttz $1,794.71
Jean-Roberte Bellande $1,792.57
John Esposito $1,678.67
Yosh Nakano $1,547.50
Jason Lester $1,010.52
Robert Williamson III $1,000.00
Alan Schien $938.45
Dan Alspach$728.47
Frank Kassela $606.29
Essentially what that means, is that for every $10,000 on average that these players put into an event, they get back what’s listed. This list is going to make it SO much easier for me to turn people down when they ask me to stake them in an event, lol.
Top 10 Players Based on Cashing Percentage: 1. Casey Kastle 30.0%
2. Stan Goldstien 26.7%
3. Nenand Medic 25.9%
4. Dave Ulliot 25.8%
5. Can Kim Hua 25.7%
6. David Oppenhiem 25.6%
7. CHris Bell 25.5%
8. David Chiu 25.0%
8. Dteve Sung25.0%
8. Lee Markholt 25.0% The most amazing thing about this list is that Casey Kastle, who cashes at an astounding 30%, is actually LOSING money on the WPT with an ROI of $7092. If you are going to make it on the WPT, the most crucial stages come late. You can’t waste opportunities and you need to raise your game at the late stages. You don’t get tons of opportunities, but when you do, you just have to get to that final table in order to make any money.
Top Ten Players Based on Final Table Percentage: 1. Gus Hansen 15.6
2. Scotty Nguyen 11.1
3. Jonathan Little 10.8
4. Phil Ivey 10.5
5. Ted Forrest 08.8
6. Daniel Negreanu 08.6
6. Can Kim Hua 08.6
6. Humberto Brenes 08.6
9. David Pham 08.4
10. Steve Sung 08.3
10. Hoyt Corkins 08.3
Gus makes the most of his opportunities for sure, he’s that kind of player. When he gets deep he’ll usually have a healthy stack of chips in front of him. His FT is the best, but his cash percentage isn’t in the top 10, but still respectable at 20.0%. Women’s Earnings per event including all women who have played 30 events: 1. J.J Liu $29,222..86 (35th overall) out of 176 tabulated
2. Kathy Liebert $19,610.25 (58th overall)
3. Jennifer Harman $18,222.49 (61st overall)
4. Mimi Tran $11,174.64 (86th overall)
5. Vanessa Rousso $10,088.00 (90th overall)
6. Annie Duke $6,503.27 (119th)
7. Clonie Gowan $6,340.26 (122nd)
8. Kristi Gazes $5,238.10 (128th)
9. Jennifer Tilly $5,204.71 (130th)
10.Isabelle Mercier $5,061.45 (134th)
11. Evelyn Ng $4,639.54 (141st)
12. Cyndy Violette $3,012.00 (159th) Of the 12 women who qualify, only three are showing a profit, with Vanessa and Mimi right on the borderline when you factor in expenses and taxes.
Of the 176 players eligible with enough events played, only 56 of those have an ROI of $20,000 or more. Shockingly, of the 176 eligibly, only 90 of those actually have an ROI of over $10,000. That means there are 86 people out there who have played 30 or more events and are overall losers to the investment. A lot of the players between $10,000 and $20,000 are alos likely losers. What does that tell you? You better be playing satellites if you want to be able to afford the tour. Either that, or grind it out in the cash games.
When I started out, I grinded in cash games and satellites in order to be able to afford the expensive buy ins in order to play the tour. I’m afraid I don’t think enough people really think about how they are managing their money when it comes to deciding whether to play an event. If your ROI is at $10,000, but you are playing satellites on a regular basis and getting into events, for say, $3500, then you ARE making an overall profit.
On that note, good luck to you all if you are playing the WPT tomorrow! I am playing, for sure and looking forward to it. I’ve spent way too many hours on this thing, but it was fun, because I am a full on stats geek. I got all of my numbers from the www.worldpokertour.com site, and will be updating the numbers every once in a while. ]]>