Generic Tournament Question

You're in the ME of the WSOP, $10k buy-in. First hand of the tournament it's folded to the SB who open shoves and accidentally flips over AKs. You look down in the BB and see QQ. You have a 53.8% to win here. Do you call?

I see this possibly getting ugly....

I'm scared! I see dead people!

I voted for **** tournaments but seriously I think I might fold here. ME filled with donks and I'm sure you can find better spots than this. Even though it may be mathematically incorrect to fold, I think your tournament life in this situation is much more important.

fold, no matter the tourny surely, even though i sucketh at tournies, it's survival > chip accumulation, taking a coin flip first hand is not survival, and your only going to double your stack which you can do later on by outplaying the tables and using bigger edges to your advantage

But what if you are the donk?

in the main even there are thousands of donks so i would expect there to be numerous opportunities to double up later


and i voted for fold

I'm folding - only because I'm a chicken and it would really suck to go out on the first hand. I might have folded even if I handn't seen his cards - YES, I'd be that big of a chicken on the first hand of the tourney.

Im folding because I didnt pay 10K and travel 2000 miles to play one hand.

As per the bigger edges comment:

ME had a few thousand people right? Let's use 4096 because it's a power of 2. It will take winning 12 of these in a row for stacks preflop to win:

.53^12 = 0.049% chance of winning
1/4096 = 0.024% chance of winning

Thus taking this "small" edge actually increases odds of winning tournament by just over twice. So two people with exactly the same skill set apart from this play the same tournament. One player takes the 53% edges, other doesn't. The one who does has twice as much chance of winning the tournament.

Granted that's nowhere near complicated enough because we have to factor either player losing in the money, but due to the top heavy nature of mtt payouts we should be shooting for #1 anyway right?

The one argument against it would be say you are basically like anyone in the forum. This is simplified but say you had a strategy that would win the $12 million 1% of the time. There is another strategy that will never win and always barely make the money giving say 20k 30% of the time.

Obviously 120k > 6k by a ton. Yet this would be a tough choice for me. If I had millions and millions it would be the easiest choice in the world. As it is now I'd probably lean towards 30% of 20k although I'm not sure. If it was something like 30% at 100k (which still makes 120k > 30k) I'd take the 30% at 100k no question about it even though I'm literally giving up 90k in ev every tournament I play.

Basically I've been watching a few MTT videos over at Stox and this came up in one of the videos. He said that even thinking of folding here would be silly because first off what I said above and second off while you're sitting there waiting for a better edge, over half the time the other guy has twice the chips and is using those to exploit all edges including the big ones you're going to exploit. So you could wait another few hours and finally get that bigger edge and meanwhile he's found a few edges and has doubled up 2-3 times again.

Anyway just curious question, although I still think I'd take the flip. I figure no matter what I do I'm not cashing more than 50% of the time anyway so having less than 50% of busting isn't the end of the world.

But on the other hand for purely entertainment value I'd like to play more than one hand in the WSOP ME.

So I'm pretty sure from a game theory standpoint and pure ev the call is a no brainer. Just curious as to other opinions on this. Also note that if you fold and refuse to take an edge that's not big enough sooner or later you could have like 10 big blinds and be forced to take the 40%.

For those who say fold, what threshold would you need to call? I'm assuming most would insta-call AA vs. AK. Would you call KK vs. AK? AK vs. 78?

edit: fwiw I voted **** tournaments even though I think playing the WSOP ME would be awesome .

Truth be told, I guess I'd call with AA or KK - and that's about it. Remeber, we've already established I'm a chicken. Everything you say about it being the right decision to call makes sense, but I have SUCH a mental block against getting all my chips into the middle pre-flop on the first hand of ANY MTT (not just the WSOP ME). Yes, it's stupid I know, but for some reason I just can't stand the thought of buying in, sitting down, and racing off all my chips on the first hand. It makes no logical sense, because if we're talking about the second hand I might happily race for it all with QQ against AK.

Clearly, this is a mental block I need to get over

This is a coin flip decision on taking a coin flip. Do you feel lucky?

I'd take it because I'm not confident enough in my ability to outplay enough people at the ME to make the money anyway, and if I bust out first hand then I can head to the local casinos for more profitable games.

I actually voted for call before reading the rest of the thread...
... thinking about this from the standpoint of what if I didn't see his cards:

Without seeing his cards, I can't possibly put this guy on KK or AA playing at the WSOP... in a Ultimatebet 0.50 SnG? You bet there are those out there... but WHY would he push here? Isn't he really telling me "I don't want a call. If I did, I'd raise enough to get you into the hand so I can take more than just your blind"... but that line of thinking might just make me an easy sucker to put out of a SnG 1st hand!

I voted call before reading the thread. And I still say call. And not just on what zach posted. We all watch the ME and see the edited hands broadcast on TV. Alot of those hands are coin flips or even dominating hands where someone hits a 2 outter on the river. And alot of those hands happen throughout the tourney. Especially getting closer to the bubble. Finishing 667th out of 6800+ is the same as finishing 6800/6800. Yet almost anyone would take that coin flip on the bubble in a heartbeat.

If you'd be willing to do it later in the tourney, you have to be willing to do it in the beginning.

This is another pretty good thought. If you bust first hand you have a few days free. If you just play tight and bubble you've wasted all that time. Low-stakes buy-in I take a coin flip first hand in a heartbeat (yep, even if it's 50-50). I'd rather have 50% chance of double up and 50% of losing anyway. Isn't that why we rebuy first hand of a rebuy? The extra chips are worth the buy-in. Only problem would be the variance and it being a 10k tourney (with huge payout differences) I'd probably be a bitch and fold too.

fold; all ur math doesn't take into account the fact that the ME has the most amazing structure ever and you can wait much longer for better spots

If you put me in this situation tonight, I would fold easily. The education from playing more hands with the competition for a few hours would far outweigh doubling up my chips in the first hand.

However, assuming I had the BR to be playing in $10k tourneys, I would call no question.

If I was getting my entry staked, I would probably fold. I don't think your sponsor would be too happy if you went out your first hand. Unless you got extra coverage for being, "The guy who went all in the first hand of the WSOP and lost."

In any everyday tournament, I would cheerfully take the coinflip.

If I win, I am chipleader at the table right from the off and that is an edge I can exploit. A double stack this early more than doubles my winning prospects.

If I lose, there will be another chance tomorrow.

In the WSOP ME, I`m folding. Whatever the logic, my heart says I can`t travel this far to this great tourney and go home again after just one hand.

If it happened on a bad beat, it would be horrid but bearable (just). To do it to myself with a risky play is just unthinkable.

Turbo call ME fold... I'm not voting cuz bastard is not a choice!

In tournament stay away from coinflips, Especially in the early stages. U have to be careful and two overs is crazy. If ur lucky enuff to see ak i say drop it.

**** Tournaments is Bastardish ...

I voted call although it's such a great tourny with great structure I still think you can't play scared money. Although a 53% chance of winning may not be all that great, I do feel if you say I insta call this in any other tourny but fold in the ME you're logic is kind of flawed.

Does that mean you're playing different poker because it's the ME ? What else are we changing then..

I voted call..... you have to take the edge when you got it and if you do lose you can at least say you went in with the best hand pre-flop and he got lucky.............

tough... you wouldn't call all in with 77 vs K-Q... so I shouldn't see why with this situation.

at this stage of my life no because it would be a big chuck of my bankroll to enter the tourny but say i was like phil ivey or top pro with plenty of money think i would call seeing im favrioute

I would fold 100%. Can't see how anyone could spend $10k to flip a coin on the first hand of a tournament, which has little to no effect on your chances of making the final table. I believe I read something that said that in the wsop ME, not one player that was chip leader on day one ever made it to the final table.

Didn't read any responses but I'd call. Profiting in MTTs is all about being able to go deep occasionally because the payouts are so top heavy. And to go deep you have to get lucky, plain and simple. It isn't like you aren't going to be in plenty of flips for all or most of your stack in a large MTT anyways. Cautious players who aren't able to realise that you must get lucky to go deep simply aren't going to ever have a chance of going deep in a tournament like this. If winning 3 coin flips for your stack GREATLY increases the chance of you going deep, then 1/8 times you have a real chance of making some serious money, while somebody who isn't willing to risk it is probably never going to gain enough chips to go deep.

And richyl, doubling your stack basically doubles your chances of winning a tournament, so it significantly affects your chances of making a FT.

But i'd never be in this situation since **** tournaments.

Dont really know a whole lot about the maths of tourneys to be honest, if doubling up early will double your chance of final tabling, that would be a higher number than what I expected. I just cant see why you would take a coinflip for 1000bbs or what ever the starting stacks work out to be, unless you have no edge whatsoever, and will take even the slightest edge you can get in order to stand any chance at all.

I had voted to fold.
If I had seen his hand I still would have played it as if I hadn't seen it.
Reasoning: I paid $10k and will not go out in the first hand, but then again, if I had been following proper BRM, then I could afford the coinflip because $10k would only be a small % of my overall BR.
What I mean is, If I can afford to play in this tourney, then I can let the maths help me dictate my next move which would be to call.
Can I change my answer to call?

lol vanq is sooo right.

Seriously.

Zach you dont take into account all the time you make mid cash range of like 90-120k when you fold which would be a fair chunk say 25% of the times you cash. EDIT: thinking about it its probably greater than 50% IMO

This exact senario was brought up in a cardplayer article a few years back. The consensus if your going for a final table/win, then to take all of these flips. I would like to think its an easy call for me, but the structure of the ME being so deep, i think that i would fold here, we have DAYS to wait for a better spot.

the math also doesnt take into account that the tourny is a once a year 7 day event, so you want to lower variance as much as possible in a 1 off game

The psycological element here is strong I think.

Question: Are you at the WSOP for the kudos, life experience and sheer thrill of being in the chase? Or are you out to just win some money?

If your sole aim is to make money I would think that getting a steady job would be a far better strategy, the money will roll in consistently every month, no gambles involved and u will progress slowly and steadily upwards if you do a good job.

I would expect that most people in the WSOP will be immensely pleased to be there, to be a part of it and to experience it to the full. You certainly want to recoup your 10K buy-in and anything above that is a nice bonus but honestly, you'd be happy to make back the buy-in and have lived through hours of great poker play, maybe met some big names along the way and be able to say "I was there" in years to come.

So frankly I don't think the stats matter here. What counts is being IN the match not being out of it. An ALL-IN call is the ONLY way you can leave the competition so it should be avoided unless absolutely necessary like in later stages where the blinds have risen and maybe your "M" value is getting low and you need to steal a few pots.

This is the first hand, the blinds are totally inconsequential. I don't care if the guy holds 72o or AA, if he wants to jeopardise his tourny that quickly give the fool his little blinds. He'll be out of the match soon enough with all-in calls and a few bad beats.

You miss the opportunity to make a quick double up of course but the plus side is you are most definitely in the match living the dream. You're aiming to work hard, grind away with good play, well timed raises, good folds and hopefully make a steady stack as you head towards the bubble.

Its a clear fold for me.

zach, i'm about to blow your mind.

there's something your math doesn't take into account. since it folded around to the blinds, there is a much greater than normal chance of there being more As and Ks left in the dealer's deck, since hands that people like to play or raise (especially live players ) is skewed towards those which contain either of these cards. factoring this in, you could easily have 0 edge at all here, if not be a slight underdog

oh and on the other side of things, there's time equity. if, upon busting, you can go play some cash games that you're very +EV in, then you should be much more likely to take an early flip from a purely financial perspective (henceforth known as the phil ivey theorem)

bastard is always a choice....


I fold.
I won't bust in a tourney in first hand after travelling around the world to take part.
If I had AA I'd call.