Winning a Tournament - How Hard?

Let's say, for example, that you are doing fairly well in a tournament and gain chips in a few crucial spots. You got your money in ahead and won. In any given hand your percentages for winning are fairly obvious. But your chances of winning a big tournament are very slim even if you get your money in good every single time.

Let's say you get your money in good every single time and your percentage to win is 80%. This is very generous and is highly unlikely your percentage will be this high every time.

% to win 1 all-in hand = 80%
% to win 2 all-in hands = 64%
% to win 3 all-in hands = 51.2%
% to win 4 all-in hands = 40.9%
% to win 5 all-in hands = 32.7%
...
% to win 15 all-in hands = 3.5%

If you're in a tournament with 300+ people and are involved in 15 large pots throughout you have a 3.5% chance to win the tournament if you were an 80% favorite to win. There isn't even any need to account for skill because once you call an all-in or are all-in yourself only the math matters.

If your percentage to win drops even to 70% in the same situation after 15 hands you'll win the tournament 0.47% of the time. That's pretty tough.

When you look at it like that it makes it look pretty Grim doesn't it.

Picking your spots and pushing rather then calling will edge the odds in your direction some times.

This is why you don't win tourneys with a lot of regularity...especially ones with more entrants. I like the private ones with lower entry numbers. This will up your odds of winning. I have played many tourneys that I have had my chips in best every hand.... can't say that I won even most of those... so... you get your chips in best and hopefully when you get beat in a hand you were in best with.... you have em covered. That's why it's important to pick your spots and get into battles with players you have covered. Getting into battles with chip leaders will shorten your stay, so if you go after chip leaders...make it with very good hands and you will survive and give yourself a better chance to overcome the odds.