What is ROI in poker and how to evaluate the effectiveness of your game

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Very often, poker players are faced with the need to evaluate the results of their activities. Someone has faced a decrease in profits and does not understand why this is happening. Someone is trying to climb the limits, but I'm not sure if he is ready to do it now. And someone, winning at home games, thinks about a career as a professional, and calculates whether he can make a living playing poker. What should you focus on when evaluating your game? Here ROI (ROI) comes to our aid - a statistical indicator that most accurately reflects the success (that is, profit!) of a player in MTT and SNGtournaments. ROI can be used to assess both your own strategy and the rank of your opponents, as well as to make plans for participation in tournaments.

1. What is ROI in poker

ROI is an abbreviation of the English term "Return on Investment". The ROI is expressed as a percentage and shows how many dollars (or other currency) a player receives for each dollar spent on buy-ins for participating in tournaments.

2. How to find out ROI

The ROI is calculated by the formula:

ROI = ((win / invest) - 1) * 100%,

where Win is the amount of winnings in tournaments, and Invest is all the buy-ins made to participate in these tournaments. To express the obtained value as a percentage, it is multiplied by 100%.

EXAMPLE: A player participated in 300 tournaments of different limits for a month and spent $1,500 on buy-ins. At the same time, the winnings amounted to $2,400.
ROI = ((2400 / 1500) - 1) * 100% = 60%

However, such a manual calculation of the ROI is the most difficult and inconvenient way. It is faster and more convenient to find it in the database of your poker tracker: this opportunity is provided by Holdem Manager 3 or Hand2Note. The disadvantage of this approach is that the tracker will show only your personal ROI, but you will not be able to find out information about rivals, because the sample for them will be too small. The more tournaments are counted, the more representative (i.e. accurate) the indicator will be. Therefore, the most popular way to find out the ROI (both your own and other players) is to contact special Internet services that keep tournament statistics of online players. The most common  is SharkScope, where you can specify the nickname of the participant in the poker room to find out the profitability of his game.

3. What is ROI for?

To determine the level of your game.
ROI tells you how profitable our chosen strategy is. If the the long run ROI is above average, our game can be considered successful. In this case, it is worth raising the ABI and moving on to more expensive tournaments (not forgetting bankroll management!). If the ROI is below average, then it is worth devoting more time to training and training, actively looking for mistakes in the game and eliminating them (by yourself or with the help of a coach).

To determine the level of opponents.
Since poker is a game with incomplete information, we always want to know as much as possible about our opponents. Therefore, we learn to use poker statistics programs and (sometimes) write notes on our opponents. Any information becomes especially valuable in the late stages of the tournament, in the game at the final table, where the biggest prizes are played, and the price of an error is especially high. Knowing the opponent's ROI, his performance, you can roughly assess his strength, as well as assume what strategic techniques he can use in the game. For example, a player with a high ROI is big likely to be a dangerous opponent that needs to be handled with caution.

To increase their profits. 
The ROI of different poker players can vary significantly depending on both the discipline played (for example, some participants perform better in MTT, but play worse in SNG) and the size of the buy-in. It is better to give up playing in the least profitable disciplines and individual tournaments, and concentrate on those that bring you the most profit.

4. What affects ROI

The real level of the game.
The more qualified the player, the more strategic techniques he owns, the greater his psychological stability, the higher the ROI will be.

Playable Limit:
Low limit players may have a high ROI due to weak opponents. However, a high ROI does not guarantee a large profit. For example, the ROI of ABI-1000 reg players may be significantly lower than the ROI of ABI-10 players, but the income of the former will be significantly higher. Therefore, moving up the limits is the right direction!

Multitabling.
When playing on many tables at the same time, the ROI inevitably decreases due to lower concentration. However, the total earnings increase, so the ability to play 6-10-12 tables at the same time is a useful skill that must be developed. The quality of the game during multitabling is improved by systematic training, constant acquisition of new knowledge, strategic techniques and concepts and their transfer to the category of proven skills (unconscious competence).

Poker room.
The fewer players participate in the tournament (low AFS) and the weaker the "field" of opponents, the more often the player will get into the prize zone, go far in tournaments, get to the final tables and win. That is why it is so important to choose a poker room for the game and to load it correctly. Rumas with a small number of participants and a weak "field" - Chico, RedStar, PokerKing or 888Poker - will always give a larger ROI than untwisted large rooms (PokerOK or PokerStars).

Tournament structure:
In tournaments with a deep structure and a smooth increase in blinds, the influence of randomness decreases and the importance of game knowledge and skills increases. Therefore, the ROI in such tournaments will be higher than in turbo and hyper-turbo tournaments, where blinds increase rapidly, which quickly leads to a reduction in the average stack of participants and the transition of the tournament to the "push-fold" stage. The presence of prizes in tournaments for knocking out participants (so-called "knockout tournaments") also has a positive effect on ROI.

The long run.
It must be remembered that in a short segment the player's results will not be indicative, since the deviation in both plus and minus from the middle values (i.e. the effect of variance) can be very large. The most representative (i.e. accurate) will be the ROI obtained when calculating 1000 tournaments or more.

5. How to increase your ROI in tournament poker

Constantly improve your level of play through:

• self-study, as well as individual or group training (in the latter case, you can consider joining a poker fund);
• elimination of psychological problems, the fight against tilt and its manifestations;
• communication with like-minded people within poker funds, websites, Telegram channels and other communities.

Approach loading professionally.
Choose rooms with a weak "field" and low AFS (a small number of tournament participants) for the game.

Flexible approach to game limits.
It is necessary to periodically analyze the success of your strategy and remove from the download those tournaments in which the game is clearly negative. If the minus tournaments are the maximum limit for the player, perhaps the knowledge and skills for playing in a stronger "field" are not enough yet, and you need to first work more on the game (with a coach or on your own).

Reduce the number of tables played at the same time.
This tip is more likely to suit novice players, for whom playing at many tables automatically leads to a significant decrease in the quality of the game.

Refuse turbo tournaments (or significantly reduce their number in the load).
Turbocharged (with rapid growth of blinds) tournaments usually reduce the potential return on investment, as they often have to make dispersion decisions.

6. What ROI to aim for

There is no consensus on what the ROI should be. The higher the bet, the stronger the оpponents, and winning is more difficult. The profitability in this case necessarily decreases. But at micro and middle limits, ROI can be 50, 100 or more percent. 

We will give approximate values that you can focus on:

7. Conclusion

ROI in poker is an important statistical value that shows the return on investment of a tournament player. The most accurate assessment will be at a big the long run. Continuous training, raise personal efficiency and a professional approach to the organization of the poker player's work allow to increase ROI.