How much does late regging boost your winrate?

Dara O'Kearmey explains why late regging means you can play, and bust, more MTTs, which is good for your overall hourly.

If you have followed my writing you’ll know I am a fan of max late regging tournaments, except for PKOs. 

A student recently asked me how much my winrate has increased since I adopted a max late reg strategy. It’s a difficult question to answer definitively because like most professionals I have seen my winrate decrease as the standard of the fields in general has increased, so it’s hard to measure.

My biggest winrate was at the start of my career when I used to register at the start of tournaments. It wasn’t big because I registered early, it was big because the average player was terrible.

The question reminded me of when I first started max late regging and would advise students and stables that I worked with to do the same. They would often complain that they were busting everything early, which is to be expected but it didn’t make it any less profitable.

Think hourly, not winrate

I would advise that busting MTTs early is actually a good thing online, because it means you can register for another. When you are a winning MTT grinder you have an expectation that you will win, for example, 30% of your buy-in on average every tournament. When you max late reg this percentage will be higher, plus it means you can play more of them.

My winrate has increased slightly but my hourly rate has increased significantly.

I estimate that max late regging gives me a 10% equity boost but more importantly it means I can play twice as many tournaments. So let’s say my winrate per tournament has gone from 30% to 40% by max late regging, but I can play twice as many so that is effectively increasing my hourly from 30% to 80%.

The hardest thing about max late regging is the mental game aspect, especially at the start, when you are busting all your MTTs early. There is a frequency bias that is hard to overcome. But once you have put enough volume in (which will be easier because you are max late regging) you will see the benefits, even if they are hard to measure.

Dara O'Kearney's new book Endgame Poker Strategy: The ICM Book is out now.