Getting "priced in"

Starting a tournament in the blinds or on the button is everyones favorite place to start for obvious reasons. However, for me there is another reason. I am more likley to get priced into a hand even if position one raises. My rule of thumb is (and this can change depending on who is at my table) from BB SB or the Button, I will call up to 20% of my chips with ANY TWO CARDS. That is if I can get 5 to 1 or more on my money. Here is why. If I hit I can make take alot of chips and give the impression that I am a fish or very loose with my calls and that can make me even more money later. If I don't hit I can fold and still have 4/5ths of my chips. I do not recommend calling 20% of your chips with out a hand if you have more than 2 players behind you.

Hmmmmmm lol, starts of tournaments can be very random, it is where all the donks go all in. I don't really care where i start on the table because it doesn't change the players. You have to be careful when playing starting hands aggressivley and calling a lot because its likely you will get caught out.

RK

I think this is way too much to risk on the come. You don't get paid off enough to make this worthwhile. At any rate that's my two cents.

well keep in mind there are alot fewer "all in charlies" in real money live tables than there are online freeroll. True enough I would not recommend this in an on line free roll game. People tend to not be as push happy when others can see them and there isnt another tournament starting in 15 min than can run jump into

Why not just play according to the situation? Call if you have the hand, the pot odds and the position to warrant a call. Going into a tourney with a pre-baked scheme or strategy is not such a great idea. Do you think other players are really going to notice and remember your initial looseness? Take time to establish your table image. But heck, if you want to take a stab on the very first hand - it's your game. I just don't think it will make that much difference.

So you're willing to lose 20% of your chips on a meaningless play? Early wins aren't that consequential since pots are much bigger later on. But early losses can be cumulative. You've lost that 20% in the first hand. Those are chips you WON'T have later when you get the hand to take down two opponents - so that's a 40% loss. Then you won't have those 40% chips the next time you're ready to bite into somebody's stack.

Your chips are your bullets. Why waste them?

plus I agree with Razor. I don't care where I start. I'm going to be doing a lot of observing and note taking early on, not trying to win the tourny on the first hand.

your missing the point, if you are invited into a hand, by 5 or more callers, you call, it doesnt matter if you have 2 7 off, if you have no one acting behind you you call. PROVIDED its less that 20% of your chips

eh?

So you start with 1500 chips and you're in the BB. Blinds are 10/20 and UTG raises to 300. There's 3 other callers. You're now going to call off a further 280 of your stack with something like 72o because you're priced in?

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 22.391% 20.96% 01.43% 1924243 131255.92 { random }
Hand 1: 22.426% 21.00% 01.43% 1927429 131264.17 { random }
Hand 2: 22.453% 21.03% 01.43% 1930009 131134.17 { random }
Hand 3: 22.385% 20.96% 01.43% 1923745 131178.92 { random }
Hand 4: 10.346% 09.18% 01.17% 842598 107139.83 { 72o }
(numbers aren't exact cos it was a monte carlo evaluation, my pc can't evaluate every possible combination here )

And hell, even that 10% of the time it wins it probably won't be a playable hand anyway.

No, you call with 27o when 5 people have called the 300, thats 280 to you to get into and 1800 chip pot, you will know on the flop if you are going any farther. and if you are not willing to risk 280 for 1800 or 5 to 1 on your money, you are in the wrong game....my humble opinon of course ;-)

But as my stats just show, you're getting 5 to 1 on your money, but you're only 10 to 1 to win. How is that possibly a profitable call?

As far as I remember the chance of flopping 2 pair or better is around the 30 to 1 mark, so unless you hit that you'll be playing at best on the flop with a pair of 2s or 7s, of which the chance with someone with an overpair is massive. So what do you do when you flop a pair, and have to play the hand out of position?

Hey Cowboy,
It seems like you don't want advice. You're just posting a tip about a little trick you like to do in poker. That's OK. I do some weird little things myself. I went through a phase where I liked to mini-raise every hand pre-flop. I'd convinced myself that it gave me an aggressive table image, a richer pot should I hit something, and the occasional blind steals. Of course it's just a weird little play with no real value, but I was hooked on it for awhile.

You post your tip, you get a couple people telling you why it doesn't make sense, then you just say we don't get the point.

Try again.

In the first place, it's a very unlikely scenario. Say you start with the typical 1500 chips with 10/20 blinds. An initial raise to 300 is non-standard and just doesn't make much sense at all. Who would be doing that? Somebody that doesn't want action? Who would be calling it? Somebody with a big hand? If the bet to you gets up to 300, chances are there were re-raises along the way; therefore it's unlikely that the scenario meets your condition of two people or less calling behind you - since the early raisers will have to respond to the re-raises. There aren't many situations where five people are going to be calling that big of raise.

So let's say somebody makes a more reasonable 4XBB raise to 100. There are four players in the pot by the time it gets to you on the button. Should you call? Possibly. But 100 is not 20% of your stack.

Let's say that you make your call with Any Two Cards as you state. Well, then you might as well play them blind. A random hand. Let's say all five hands are random. What is your eV? Absolutely neutral! You'd lose $300 four times and win $1200 once provided subsequent streets are checked down. If they're contested, you're probably only going to win with a monster. How often does that happen?

So you're throwing in 20% of our chips with neutral eV. Do you really think that makes sense?

But it's worse than that. Although your ATC hand is random, the other four really aren't. The other four hands are hands that active thinking players have decided are worthy of a raise, a re-raise or a call with lower pot odds than being offered you. There is more value to a raising hand than to your random calling hand. CfPoker showed you the stats on a poor hand against four random hands. Now give those other hands some value by putting the raiser on reasonable hands like pairs, broadways, SC, etc and your eV drops even lower. Your play just makes no sense at all. None.

But you're sticking to it because once out of five times, you'll nearly double up (or more) against four random hands. But that's ONLY if you play the hand to the river - which you might not. And ONLY if the board matches your hand and ONLY if your miracle hand doesn't get sucked out on. Keep track of your stats. I think you're going to have a hard time finding many situations where you have 20% of your stack in a pot with four other players pre-flop. And when you do - your eV is at best neutral pre-flop but in reality much worse.

If your little scheme works out, it could be great for you. Not only do you have great cards and hit a miracle flop - you get a couple other players all in and really cash in on the hand. Great when it works, but it doesn't work very often. It's a lottery play.

You don't seem to be bothered by the prospect of starting 80% of your tourneys with a 20% (or more because some hands invite a chase) chip loss on the first hand. You talk like 20% is nothing. You ignore the fact that those chips WON'T be there to leverage a bigger pot when you do get a hand. And they WON'T be there to assure your survival when you're all-in and you unexpectedly lose a draw. So you'll be playing from behind more often, be out altogether more often. And WHY? Because you have visions of a jackpot score - which is not even going to happen the 20% of the time you have the best pre-flop random hand because, as I said, you're not up against truly random hands and because you're unlikely to play most of your draws to the river.

I sincerely appreciate you sharing your approach. I don't know everything, but I've carefully considered your scenario and am responding based on breaking your chances down analytically. I might be wrong - in which case I welcome proof to the contrary. I don't mind being wrong; that's how I learn.

But I just gotta say you just don't seem to be considering the evidence. You put your play out there. I thought you were asking for some analysis. But then, when you get it from a couple people - all you say is we're missing the point.

It's your game. It's up to you. I really appreciate the fact hat people on CardsChat share their secrets and do their best to share reasoned answers. But they can only help if we're interested in being open enough to examine our own barriers.

I wish you luck.
Gary

yea this is dumb. it is obviously standard with a hand like a pp or a s/c, because those hands can hit big flops (ie hands that are way ahead of a person's range)...not marginal situatinos where you hit tpnk and have no idea whether your hand is good or not.

Ok, are you guys seriously saying you dont think that a 280 chip investment is worth it when the pot is 1800 chips? Is that what I am hearing? If it is I would strongly suggest you put away the calculators and dig out your poker for dummies books and do a bit of reading

LOL, thread of the year imo

Excellent advice, IMO. This guy obv has the best sharkscope graph evar.

Notes taken. Now my game will surely improve.

Thanks, Cowboy!

Man, you're stuck on being right and just not listening. Yep, good pot odds - no doubt. But pre-flop, from the blinds, with so many yet to act? You're just looking to flop a miracle. Low low low eV. You state glibly you'll know when to get away on the flop. Will you? With this big pot, you're likely to have drawing odds like crazy. You'll draw yourself to oblivion.

Once in awhile you'll hit that monster and have a big early stack. But most of the time you're just buying a loser.

Rather than address these concerns, you're kind of condescending and telling us to go back to the books. If you don't want to have a serious discussion, then don't.

No, I think what people are saying is that there are situations where no matter the pot odds a call of 20% of your stack early in a tournament is just a bad idea. To summarize what glworden said, the few times you will win a monster pot in your scenario do not justify the fact that you will start the overwhelming percentage of your tournaments short-stacked. And the greatest tournament poker player in the world is going to lose big over time starting 80% of his tournaments short. There's a lot more to it than calculators and "Poker for Dummies."

The point I am trying to make, and I dont mean to sound condescending at all, these are the kinds of discussions I look for, is that from the bb, at any point of the tournyment if it will cost you less that 20% of your chips to get into a pot that has 5 or more people in it, you should call. no matter what your cards are

Wrong. We've demonstrated quite clearly that with a bad hand, it is not worth it to call with 5:1 odds. 5 opponents means 5 people that probably have better hands (unless of course you have a good hand which is a separate scenario) and so your chances of winning are probably somewhere around 10-15%, so you do not have pot odds.

We all realize the point you are trying to make; we just all disagree.
glworden, very nice post above there, I agree with everything you said. And the part about recognizing our barriers is very important

well, you can disagree all you want. If everyone played the same way tournaments would NEVER end. as for me, I will put my money in the pot everytime I am invited in

Don't even know where to start with this post.............

Darn it, someone set up a CC game. Plz.
Even better, set up a CC game and we'll always give Cowboy the perfect scenario to call off 20% of his stack each time.

Brilliant!

Thats not a bad idea, Lets set of a game. play money. and Ill show you how the threads I make work in a real time situation

No UB account here... have PS or FT...?

I think I have both

yep, full tilt? are there 9 or 10 of us on?

Im down.

We should do 6 handed so you're always getting your 5:1.

Wrong again, Cowboy. Tournaments would inevitably end because of the escalating blind structure. Nobody's saying everybody has to play the same. Creativity is good. But in the specific scenario you mention, we've given overwhelming evidence that it's simply a negative eV play - therefore a bad play. You don't agree, although you provide no cogent argument to the contrary, and say you want to do it anyway. So do it.

Do you track your stats? You could change a few minds if you could show some evidence that over the long term you're making money in this situation. I suspect you're using selective memory. You've had a time or two where this has really worked out for you so you're convinced it's the way to go.

But like I said, I think the 20% scenario itself is pretty darned rare. I doubt if there are many hands in your database that correspond to this scenario. And if it's a much smaller call - like a limpers' pot or a blind completion with five players - that's a different scenario. Still probably an overall loser for the same statistical reasons, although the smaller risks might justify the big implied odds. I'd probably call $50 or maybe $80 in this situation, but that's not the same as calling $300.

It's a strange situation here. You have person after person trying to help you see the flaws in your reasoning (I'm pretty sure even your supporters are being sarcastic). But you just don't want to budge.

The great thing about it is you have the right to do whatever the hell you want, so keep shipping that 20% whenever you think it's a good investment.

I went to your website. Do I have to buy a whole package of meat or can I just buy some bacon? Looks like you have a good operation. Does all bacon have nitrates? My wife's had cancer twice and we're trying to stay away from all that stuff.

Gary

I think it sounds like youre just trying to get lucky too much. Call it what you want but thats how it looks. As someone else said 300 preflop raise to start a tourney is not a normal raise, that looks like someone who has AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010 that does not want to get sucked out on. You want to call that with 27o???

Come sit at my table any day..........

Gary,
You are hung up on the 20% thing way too much re read the post. 20% is the MAX I would risk. I am not suggesting you put 20% of your chips into the 1st hand of every tournament if you start on the BB. I stand firm on this, if you are in position and at least 5 people have entered the pot it is NOT a bad play to call and see the flop.

Ah, but you're changing your argument now. You just said "if you are in position". In the BB you are certainly not in position.

But even in position you need some sort of a hand to make the call. A pair or some SCs are fine. 72o, or some equally trashy hand is not, as despite needing to call 300 for a 1500 pot you do not have pot odds.

If 10 people put money in infront of me instead of 5 am i allowed to put 40% of my stack in with 9,3??

In the BB you will be the LAST person to make a move. So calling the raise that 5 or more other people is the right move as long as its for less than 20% of your chips.
Switch........what are you talking about?

If you are willing to call off 20% of your chips in the first hand of a tourney , say with a 5 7 os. just because 3 other players are in the pot you are not very bright. This will fail you alot more than it will work. A random hand like that shrinks up the more players you are against.

You are also the FIRST OR SECOND TO ACT AFTER THE FLOP WHICH IS WHERE THE BETTING MATTERS. YOU SHOULD ONLY CALL STRONG STARTING HANDS FROM THIS POSITON WHEN FACED WITH A RAISE FROM EARLY POSITION