A Minor Peeve When It Comes to STT's

(I didn't plan for this to be long, it was just meant to be a minor vent, so sorry in advance)

I've been browsing around the interwebzz trying to find good strategy articles for STT's, what's unfortunate is that most of them are very general and don't really provide much insight to a person who has read books on the subject already and posts on here as much as I do. But that's not the point of this thread.

What really bothers me is when I'm reading another one of these really broad strategy articles and they try to say "you should always go for the win, don't try to squeeze into the money". It seems catchy enough, and to a lot of people it makes sense, first pays out more than two 3rd's combined, so why wouldn't you try to win the whole thing?

However, I think it is extremely flawed logic, and STT's are not about "going for first". Rather, STT's are about making +$EV decisions. In order to be successful, you have to make decisions that, while may not seem immediately profitable, will make you money in the long run.

Let's consider an example where we're on the bubble in a 10-man tournament where stacks start at t1500. We're in the BB with t4000 in front, the CO has t1000, the BTN has t3000 and the SB has t7000. Let's say blinds are t150/t300. The CO and BTN fold, and the SB shoves. We have AK. What's our move?

One might argue that the big stack is shoving very wide here, and that we do very well against his range with AK. Also, since "we're not playing to min-cash, we're playing for first", this is a good place to take a risk. Cause, after all, if we call and win, we'll have t8000, the short stack will be to our left, and there are then two players left with t3000 who we can abuse. But...

ICM and the arrangement of the stacks tell us this is a snap fold. We are risking an enormous amount of equity when the short stack is about to be pot-committed. The risk/reward is simply not there. Calling this bet would be criminal! So while it seems like we are being extremely nitty and risk-averse by folding, it's most definitely the most +$EV play-- even though you're not "playing for first".

When you're playing, don't worry that you heard it from someone that you should try to "need" to always go for first. What you "need" to do is make good, profitable decisions, and often the decision to go for first is the least profitable decision you'll make in a STT.

I should add that "going for first" is typically a great strategy for MTT's. I won't really argue that-- there are some considerations that need to be made at the final table, for the majority of the time, that is the correct strategy. The reason for that is our equity changes way differently in a MTT than it does in a STT, based on the way the prize pool is paid out.

That is all, feel free to add anything, ask a question, tell me I'm an idiot, whatever compels you this evening.

Is the decision here any different than if the CO shoves and the button and SB fold? Why? Why not?

It's very very very different, because if we knock out an opponent we will receive a huge boost in equity, not to mention we gain equity by boosting our chip stack. The main boost would come from the CO getting knocked out. At the same time, we're risking very little to play against the CO here, whereas when the SB shoves we have to risk our entire stack, plus no one gets knocked out, so we can't gain any equity that way.

Yes yes yes. This is one of my pet hates too.

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/play-win-not-me-178863/

'Play to win, not just cash' is a vacuous statement, usually made when the speaker can't work out what is +EV or doesn't understand ICM.

From what i've learnt in the last month or so, it's completely changed my mindset in STT's. I would have totally agreed with you guys, but i have to say, the playing to win mentality is one we should be adopting. That's not to say, of course, that there are times where i need/want to survive and get into the money on the bubble. But for the most part, we want to play for the number one spot.

Why Wizzim?

Well, i had a big problem on my hands, i was getting a shitload of 3rd place finishes. So much so, that i had to question myself, the way i played the game, and the mentality i had on and around the bubble.

Turns, out, over time i had adjusted (probably after being called down light in so many spots) and was playing far too risk averse on the bubble, Which, was gaining me equity sure, but costing me a chance at picking up a load of chips, which sets me up for ITM play. Funny thing was, once i was ITM, i was playing far too loosely.

So basically, my mindset was probably that you guys have now. I was playing to cash first, then playing to win.

Anyways before i babbly on anymore about this subject. What i'm getting at is this. We should have the mindset of playing for the win, but also we want to be making +EV decisions. The differance between not taking/taking slight edges in this game can proove to be a huge factor in your win rate.


And in your example CJ, i totally agree to the snap fold. But one last thing i want to mention is, this will be really funny coming from me, but it's something that i'm starting to learn. Is that ICM isn't the only answer in beating these games, sometimes we want to make slightly -ev decisions in early/mid game to help us pick up a ton of equity and set us up for a bigger stack. Things like 3betting tight regulars wide and stuff for a quick example.

One example of how i've changed my game is, i've been loosening up a lot in the early stages, my requirements to get it in have loosened considerably, which, as you know kind of goes against ICM to some degree. Why am i changing this? Well, i felt like i was losing out on a LOT of equity early on in the game. When i think about it, most of the donks play loose early, and are either knocked out, or double through someone, basically i felt like there is a lot more equity to be picked up early game than i previously thought. Another change i've made is that i've started to play in much bigger pots early on. Usually with TPDK i'd be playing pot control, but taking that line doesn't really affect our equity much at all, and considering donks will stack off with just about anything, i felt like i was missing out on a lot of value. And also, playing in bigger pots early can drastically affect our equity, and it sets us up with a big stack, which im most comfortable playing. Also little things as we move up in stakes can really make a differance.


Anyways /Babble.

I'm with ya. I am fully aware that I cannot win if I don't get past the bubble. So when the big stack shoves at my #2 stack when I have AK on the bubble, it's a fold. (If I call and happen to win, I'm still kicking myself.) If a small stack shoves when I have AK, I'm in there.

After the bubble, I've come back to take it down more times than I can count. From a small stack. At that point, the blinds are pretty big and I have nothing to lose. Cash first, win second.

I've also had a nice lead after the bubble and the other players whittle me down with slightly better hands. Of course, there are the times when I have a huge lead and handily pick off the others for the win. No telling which one it will be. I tend to feel as if it's a coinflip.

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WiZZiM said:

the playing to win mentality is one we should be adopting

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I'll throw in my two cents and agree.

The way to find out for sure is to identify some STT players who are making money at this and rail them for a while. There's a lot to be learned by just watching.

I have been doing exactly this for MTT tournaments watching players who have win rates in excess of $200K per year. They take this "play to win" mentality to, what I would consider, extremes; however, they're making the big money. I have seen these guys push middle pairs all in within a minute or two of mincashing the tournament, and lose.

The rationale here is that you can have a high win rate but mincash yourself into the poor house. This is true for STT and MTT tournaments.

Joe Slick said:

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I'll throw in my two cents and agree.

The way to find out for sure is to identify some STT players who are making money at this and rail them for a while. There's a lot to be learned by just watching.

I have been doing exactly this for MTT tournaments watching players who have win rates in excess of $200K per year. They take this "play to win" mentality to, what I would consider, extremes; however, they're making the big money. I have seen these guys push middle pairs all in within a minute or two of mincashing the tournament, and lose.

The rationale here is that you can have a high win rate but mincash yourself into the poor house. This is true for STT and MTT tournaments.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but not to take that line out of context. In CJ's above example, it's a clear fold. We're still playing to win, but not taking it to the extreme that we just ignore ICM and calling off here with two shorties is horrendously bad.

As CJ touches on MTT and STT are totally differant. Playing to win in MTT's is completely correct, not aiming for the top spots is going to cost you a lot, so taking huge risks is the only way to accumulate a big stack to try and final table big.

However in STT's the payout structure is a lot flatter, so there are a lot of times where we need to be really cautious, and times where we're just flat out trying to out-survive a similar short stack.

What i was getting at in my post is, not to take it too far either way. Playing to cash first can be a costly error too, and if we're not taking enough risks on the bubble, we're losing out on a lot. So, techincally while it's true that we want to cash first, we also want to give ourselves the best chance of taking first down when we get ITM.

I think overall it's a balancing act, between cashing at a decent rate, and getting a higher proportion of 1st's to 2nd's/3rd's.

doops said:

After the bubble, I've come back to take it down more times than I can count. From a small stack. At that point, the blinds are pretty big and I have nothing to lose. Cash first, win second.

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Unfortunately, if we're entering the bubble as a shortstack, we're naturally going to have less 1st and 2nd placings. Why?

Well, think about it. If we have the big stack, we can surivive a couple of all ins and still be in the tournament, if we're the shortstack we have no room to lose, if we do, we're out. So naturally we're left with a ton of 3rd and 2nd places, and few firsts, not a good proposition.

And with that same rationale, people tend to loosen ranges when they get ITM, so shoving really wide and going crazy aggressive when we get ITM isn't going to be very profitable, we get called wider, and you guessed it, get knocked out in 3rd more often.

WiZZiM said:

From what i've learnt in the last month or so, it's completely changed my mindset in STT's. I would have totally agreed with you guys, but i have to say, the playing to win mentality is one we should be adopting. That's not to say, of course, that there are times where i need/want to survive and get into the money on the bubble. But for the most part, we want to play for the number one spot.

Why Wizzim?

Well, i had a big problem on my hands, i was getting a shitload of 3rd place finishes. So much so, that i had to question myself, the way i played the game, and the mentality i had on and around the bubble.

Turns, out, over time i had adjusted (probably after being called down light in so many spots) and was playing far too risk averse on the bubble, Which, was gaining me equity sure, but costing me a chance at picking up a load of chips, which sets me up for ITM play. Funny thing was, once i was ITM, i was playing far too loosely.

So basically, my mindset was probably that you guys have now. I was playing to cash first, then playing to win.

Anyways before i babbly on anymore about this subject. What i'm getting at is this. We should have the mindset of playing for the win, but also we want to be making +EV decisions. The differance between not taking/taking slight edges in this game can proove to be a huge factor in your win rate.


And in your example CJ, i totally agree to the snap fold. But one last thing i want to mention is, this will be really funny coming from me, but it's something that i'm starting to learn. Is that ICM isn't the only answer in beating these games, sometimes we want to make slightly -ev decisions in early/mid game to help us pick up a ton of equity and set us up for a bigger stack. Things like 3betting tight regulars wide and stuff for a quick example.

One example of how i've changed my game is, i've been loosening up a lot in the early stages, my requirements to get it in have loosened considerably, which, as you know kind of goes against ICM to some degree. Why am i changing this? Well, i felt like i was losing out on a LOT of equity early on in the game. When i think about it, most of the donks play loose early, and are either knocked out, or double through someone, basically i felt like there is a lot more equity to be picked up early game than i previously thought. Another change i've made is that i've started to play in much bigger pots early on. Usually with TPDK i'd be playing pot control, but taking that line doesn't really affect our equity much at all, and considering donks will stack off with just about anything, i felt like i was missing out on a lot of value. And also, playing in bigger pots early can drastically affect our equity, and it sets us up with a big stack, which im most comfortable playing. Also little things as we move up in stakes can really make a differance.


Anyways /Babble.

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With the bolded part, I can totally understand where you're coming from and agree with it to an extent. As you say, this will help us create +$EV situations later in the game. To go back on my example, if we can have the stack that the SB size, and can be in a position to make the second place stack fold AK and have it not even be close, that's hugely +$EV.

But I wouldn't consider that part of a "go for first" strategy. It's still part of the +$EV strategy, at least from the way I look at it. Since the bubble is probably the place where most of our money is made, we want to set ourselves up to be in a position to crush the bubble, and how do we do that? We make sure that we're the big stack at the bubble. And to accomplish that, we need to be less risk-averse when we're 6-handed or 7-handed, where there is less of a penalty for making close gambles, and build our stack there.

So I suppose then that I would argue that aiming to get a big stack for the bubble and ITM play by playing aggressive and taking risks during high blinds is still part of the good decision strategy, not the "go for first" strategy, because taking the close gambles allows us to make very profitable decisions later. If that makes sense.

Also, thanks for your time in typing a response, glad this is turning into an interesting discussion.

doops said:

I'm with ya. I am fully aware that I cannot win if I don't get past the bubble. So when the big stack shoves at my #2 stack when I have AK on the bubble, it's a fold. (If I call and happen to win, I'm still kicking myself.) If a small stack shoves when I have AK, I'm in there.

After the bubble, I've come back to take it down more times than I can count. From a small stack. At that point, the blinds are pretty big and I have nothing to lose. Cash first, win second.

I've also had a nice lead after the bubble and the other players whittle me down with slightly better hands. Of course, there are the times when I have a huge lead and handily pick off the others for the win. No telling which one it will be. I tend to feel as if it's a coinflip.

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Yeah, especially in turbos, it can seem like ITM and HU play are sort of a crapshoot, it seems that way because they are. The best thing we can do is to try and make sure we are the big stack in those situations so that when we end up on the wrong end of a bad beat (or even just a 60/40), it hasn't ended our tournament.

Joe Slick said:

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I'll throw in my two cents and agree.

The way to find out for sure is to identify some STT players who are making money at this and rail them for a while. There's a lot to be learned by just watching.

I have been doing exactly this for MTT tournaments watching players who have win rates in excess of $200K per year. They take this "play to win" mentality to, what I would consider, extremes; however, they're making the big money. I have seen these guys push middle pairs all in within a minute or two of mincashing the tournament, and lose.

The rationale here is that you can have a high win rate but mincash yourself into the poor house. This is true for STT and MTT tournaments.

Click to expand...

I have no qualms about playing that way in a MTT. But I really can't agree that it's true for a STT, it's mathematically incorrect to be playing that way. Sure there are other factors that need to be considered, but especially on the bubble, there are situations in which the excuse to play for first cannot overcome the ICM disaster that comes with certain decisions.

nothing to say, but cant subscribe, so I have to post to get this in my subscriptions. I want to follow this.

okay, triple post coming up here lol. (edit: darn it, fletchdad ruined my triple post! )

A point to be made that WiZZiM brings up, but I think deserves to be repeated-- by getting to the bubble with a big stack, we create enormously +$EV opportunities for ourselves. So we want to put ourselves in that position, which is done not on the bubble, but earlier on in the tournament, where the penalty for taking risks is way lower. This I agree with and understand. I would only argue that this still falls into the +$EV strategy and not the "1st place" strategy.

Sorry if I repeated myself lol. Just thought I would try to make it more clear.

guess I'll chime in here:

For me I do try to make the money first but I try to make sure I have a workable stack when I get there. In the above example for instance clear fold as we already had a workable stack and the bubble should be bursting soon. But there are instances where there is a huge stack and 3 similar shortstacks. I have the big stack to my left which means the shortstacks can steal one off the other and then off me who am I stealing from? Depending on exact chip counts of course I really dont mind getting it if I think I am solid against villains range. Sure I could sit back and let one shortstack bust into the other then I am in the money but I have a puny stack vs. two reasonable stacks which greatly diminishes our chances of placing higher than 3rd.

Right or wrong here I dont know but it works for me.

You're right cj, I'm really enjoying reading this.

Personally my game is heading in the opposite direction of WiZZiM's, more towards cj's approach. I've progressed from a complete aggrodonk - to an "ICM unaware" chip accumulating machine - to an "ICM aware" (far from expert but understanding the fundamentals) semi-nit/tag.

I'm just afraid that being too concerned with ICM is diminishing my chip count when the game get's down to 4 or 5 players. I've recently gone back to chip accumulation early (3 bets, 4 bets, floats, 3 barreling bluffs, etc) with mixed results.

I'm having a hard time finding the right balance and when to switch up my playing style.

Wizzim's comments about loosening up (and even making -ev calls) early on are perfectly valid. There is an argument for making life threatening plays early so that you double your t1500 stack to t3000 - why wait for to make a marginal shove with 5/6 players left when your tight play has left you only t1000 to double?

Whatever early/mid game style we choose we find ourselves in some sort of bubble decision - our aggressive play could have us sitting on t4000 or t800 and considering a call with 99. The thing I am interested in in a tournament is staying in my seat for as long as possible, the number of chips in my stack is of secondary importance. Sure it is easier to win if I have a bigger stack, but it is impossible to win from the rail.

Faced with a bubble decision with t3000, if a fold pretty much guarantees cashing but a call means double or die I'm needing very good odds to make that call. My t3000 against, say t6000 and t4000 after the bubble is comfortable enough for me; I'm not settling for third place because the prizes haven't been awarded yet. What I am trying to say is that the advantage that double to t6000 offers is not enough for that bubble risk, I am still in good shape with t3000 to win the thing.

The_Pup said:

Wizzim's comments about loosening up (and even making -ev calls) early on are perfectly valid. There is an argument for making life threatening plays early so that you double your t1500 stack to t3000 - why wait for to make a marginal shove with 5/6 players left when your tight play has left you only t1000 to double?

Whatever early/mid game style we choose we find ourselves in some sort of bubble decision - our aggressive play could have us sitting on t4000 or t800 and considering a call with 99.Well overall, on average, we're going to have a much bigger stack than if we're not taking appropriate risks. If we're not risking anything, we're pretty much always going to be left with a shortstack unless we have big hands, taking appropriate re-stealing risks and calling down regs light for example are ways we can massively increase our equity and chip stack The thing I am interested in in a tournament is staying in my seat for as long as possible, the number of chips in my stack is of secondary importance. Sorry, but this rationale is pretty silly. Sitting in a tournament for a long time will not guarantee us to win or even cash in the tournament, it makes very little sense to me Sure it is easier to win if I have a bigger stack, but it is impossible to win from the rail.

Faced with a bubble decision with t3000, if a fold pretty much guarantees cashingHardly. but a call means double or die I'm needing very good odds to make that call.In that situation, sure, we need a very strong hand to call, our range id probably KK+ and this is pretty much out of context of what we're talking about, in that situation calling off is terrible My t3000 against, say t6000 and t4000 after the bubble is comfortable enough for me;So what your saying is, generally, youd rather make the money a high % of the time, but always enter the money in 3rd place? I'm not settling for third place because the prizes haven't been awarded yet.True, but your going to be left with a lot of thirds anyway, or, more thirds than if you even had one of the guys covered, we can't make many +EV decisions ITM if we are outchipped by both opponants, it means we have to shove tighter and proabably call wider. What I am trying to say is that the advantage that double to t6000 offers is not enough for that bubble risk, I am still in good shape with t3000 to win the thing.I totally agree with this, but i'm not saying take huge risks on the bubble, what i'm saying is take appropriate amount of risks BEFORE you reach the bubble. This sets you up to make better more +EV decisions on the bubble, which naturally leads you to having a bigger stack when you get ITM.

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Not aiming for a high % of 1st placings is going to leave you with a very low ROI, and you will be left as most probably a slightly positive/breakeven player. Just a quick look in an ROI simulator clearly shows the importance of getting more 1st places. It's something i've worked pretty hard on, and now understand that playing to have a high % of 1sts is the only way to beat these games at a decent rate.

Just did a quick comparasin between a bad breakeven type player and an extremely winning player. What do those distribution charts tell us? The breakeven tight guy, who scrapes into the money and plays to cash is left with barely a profit. Whereas the guy who takes a lot of risks before and on the bubble in this case is left with a huge ROI. In most cases, the bubble finishes are a tad high, but it really doesn't matter, as he obviously gets into the money with a huge chip lead, and takes down first more often than not.

So if we enter the money with a bigger chip stack on average than our opponants, it means that when the inevitable comes and we shove or call a shove we can survive a few 60/40 flips, whereas if we're the shortstack, we can't survive any.

Anyways i'm getting a little bit off topic here, but overall, playing to win by making +$ev decisions is going to greatly improve your ROI. For me it's a balancing act of when and where to take certain risks at certain stages of the tournament. WHen you find that right balance, things become easy.

So below are 2 comparasins, the first, compares our ROI when we shift 1% from 3rd to 1st place, a huge ~5% ROI increase!

Second compares a breakeven bad/tight player, to an extremely winning player. Notice the differances in the distribution, and notice the winning players 1st %.

Wizzim - in spite of your bold comments on my post, I think we agree. I am not advocating a settling for third mentality; making +ev decisions is what it is all about. I agree that a high proportion of first places is better for ROI whereas a lot of third places is not enough to pay for all those games that went wrong.

If I am saying anything different it is that the expression 'play to win, not just min cash' does not have much meaning for me. I hear it used as a way to bypass any meaningful discussion about what is +ev, and always to justify a call, never a fold. In any given situation at the poker table I am making what I judge to be the best +ev decision I can given all the information I have available. If that means calling all in with 99 because I reckon the gain if I win the hand is worth the risk in the long run, I'll do it; if it means folding then I'll do that. In both situations the concept of 'going for the win' has no meaning. I will do what I do to maximise my prize in the long run given the situation I am in at that moment - if that means a risky play, then fine.

What I meant by my 'silly' comment was that I want to get the best prize I can (in the long run) and to do so I want to stay at the table for as long as possible because that's how the prizes are awarded. I can understand that it might look like I am advocating hanging on to a small stack and hoping others will get knocked out, but I am not. I merely meant to emphasise that the position we finish in is what matters and the number of chips we win along the way is incidental - it helps to have a big stack early on, but this isn't everything.

There is only one way to win a tourney and that is to have the bigger/biggest stack going into the last hand. It is easier to get to this position if we have a big stack early, but we can also win plenty of STTs and not have the biggest stack until that last hand.

In short - a big stack is very handy but not always worth risking your life for.

The_Pup said:

Wizzim - in spite of your bold comments on my post, I think we agree. I am not advocating a settling for third mentality; making +ev decisions is what it is all about. I agree that a high proportion of first places is better for ROI whereas a lot of third places is not enough to pay for all those games that went wrong.

If I am saying anything different it is that the expression 'play to win, not just min cash' does not have much meaning for me. I hear it used as a way to bypass any meaningful discussion about what is +ev, and always to justify a call, never a fold. In any given situation at the poker table I am making what I judge to be the best +ev decision I can given all the information I have available. If that means calling all in with 99 because I reckon the gain if I win the hand is worth the risk in the long run, I'll do it; if it means folding then I'll do that. In both situations the concept of 'going for the win' has no meaning. I will do what I do to maximise my prize in the long run given the situation I am in at that moment - if that means a risky play, then fine.

What I meant by my 'silly' comment was that I want to get the best prize I can (in the long run) and to do so I want to stay at the table for as long as possible because that's how the prizes are awarded. I can understand that it might look like I am advocating hanging on to a small stack and hoping others will get knocked out, but I am not. I merely meant to emphasise that the position we finish in is what matters and the number of chips we win along the way is incidental - it helps to have a big stack early on, but this isn't everything.

There is only one way to win a tourney and that is to have the bigger/biggest stack going into the last hand. It is easier to get to this position if we have a big stack early, but we can also win plenty of STTs and not have the biggest stack until that last hand.

In short - a big stack is very handy but not always worth risking your life for.

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That's fine, i was posting it not for just yourself, but any other guys reading this thread thinking "Oh, shit, i think i do that". Plus your post did sound a little like it was advocating scraping into the money .

WiZZiM said:

Anyways i'm getting a little bit off topic here, but overall, playing to win by making +$ev decisions is going to greatly improve your ROI. For me it's a balancing act of when and where to take certain risks at certain stages of the tournament. WHen you find that right balance, things become easy.

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This is probably the best way to put it, the issue I have with these generalizing strategy articles is they don't give any context to their advice. Its important to understand where it's appropriate to take risks, and how to balance chip accumulation and good ICM decision making.

For example (this will be very very general, it may not even be relevant but I think it is), if we're up against a 50/0 on the first hand of a STT (we've played with him before), we have AJs on the button and we raise after it folds to us, the villain calls out of the BB. Flop comes A72, and he pulls a stop-n-go and shoves. If we call and lose we bust. But here I think we need to call, it is way too +$EV not to. He could be showing up with a ton worse, so on average we'll wind up way ahead. Plus, by calling here, the ICM tax is way less than it would be if we were making the same decision on the bubble. Also, by calling here, we become the chip leader, which isn't all that handy at the moment, as it is still early and our lead isn't huge, but it can help us as the blinds get higher as we can be aggressive and take more chances (we're risking less equity to further increase our stack and dominate the table). A "not playing for first" strategy would advocate a fold here, because we can't win the tournament if we lose on the very first hand, but from a +$EV standpoint we have to call, not necessarily because we want to "play for first".

Sometimes the two goals clash, specifically on the bubble, and that's why we need to realize that a catchy one-liner like "playing to win" isn't the most helpful strategy, it needs to be given context. I suppose my example wasn't the best, a better example might be if we're 6-handed and we have something like QJ heads-up in position and we flop an open-ended straight draw and the reg who opened the pot fires at us from early position. The pot is about 1/3 of our stack by now, but we know he is pretty strong here. So raising all-in might be pretty marginal, but the difference is that the times that he folds we increase our equity pretty substantially, if he calls and we hit then we have a huge stack to take to the bubble. Obviously if he calls and we lose we're out, but that's an appropriate risk, because overall the line is +$EV. The immediate decision itself is probably about neutral depending on how much fold equity you have, but the opportunities you get later on will allow you to maximize your total equity.

So I suppose that's a better context than what most articles give, making the same move on the bubble when there's a player with 2.5bb's would be a disaster, although it would appear that we're making the moves for the same reasons, that we're making them to win the tournament. But the difference is one decision is way -$EV, while the other is not, and it grants us many opportunities to score +$EV later

(how's that for a babble, lol, I feel like my thoughts are so scattered and won't make any sense)

Yeah i mean, most articles won't be able to cover absolutely everything. There would be a gazillion pages of text for starters. Most of them are either written in simplified form (for dummies), or they are written by simple people (dummies). So really, your getting free information. Back four years ago you could beat the $16's with that info, now obviously, it's obsolete.

I kind of get what you guys are talking about. When i think of "playing to win", i think of my state of mind or mentality. When i go to load a session, i'm not thinking, "oh, i hope i cash in a lot of these." I'm thinking, "I'm going to win a lot of these". I'm aiming for that top spot. I didn't really have that mentality going back a few months, my game was bad, confidance was down, and i worked out that i was kind of playing to cash into the money instead of focusing on how to get more 1st places, and it was costing me big time. So now, instead of cashing in 40-42% of the time, i'm only cashing in 38%, but with more first my ROI is going up rapidly. Of course fixing major leaks and ranges helped this, but i also feel that having a "winning" mentality is going to pay dividends. Anyways i think i've repeated the same thing like 5 times now. I guess in the end, as mentioned above, it's a tricky balancing act between the right aggression in particular stages. Overdoing it in one stage can have a ripple effect on the rest of the tournament. Find that right balance, and you can start printing money.

WiZZiM said:

Yeah i mean, most articles won't be able to cover absolutely everything. There would be a gazillion pages of text for starters. Most of them are either written in simplified form (for dummies), or they are written by simple people (dummies). So really, your getting free information. Back four years ago you could beat the $16's with that info, now obviously, it's obsolete.

I kind of get what you guys are talking about. When i think of "playing to win", i think of my state of mind or mentality. When i go to load a session, i'm not thinking, "oh, i hope i cash in a lot of these." I'm thinking, "I'm going to win a lot of these". I'm aiming for that top spot. I didn't really have that mentality going back a few months, my game was bad, confidance was down, and i worked out that i was kind of playing to cash into the money instead of focusing on how to get more 1st places, and it was costing me big time. So now, instead of cashing in 40-42% of the time, i'm only cashing in 38%, but with more first my ROI is going up rapidly. Of course fixing major leaks and ranges helped this, but i also feel that having a "winning" mentality is going to pay dividends. Anyways i think i've repeated the same thing like 5 times now. I guess in the end, as mentioned above, it's a tricky balancing act between the right aggression in particular stages. Overdoing it in one stage can have a ripple effect on the rest of the tournament. Find that right balance, and you can start printing money.

Click to expand...

Totally with you about the mindset, and there's no denying that coming in 1st a higher percentage of the time results in a better ROI. I think a lot of the +$EV moves we will make will put us towards first, it's just important to know the balance, like you said, and not misinterpret the mentality. And it seems like we both agree on that.

WiZZiM said:

Yeah i mean, most articles won't be able to cover absolutely everything. There would be a gazillion pages of text for starters. Most of them are either written in simplified form (for dummies), or they are written by simple people (dummies). So really, your getting free information. Back four years ago you could beat the $16's with that info, now obviously, it's obsolete.

I kind of get what you guys are talking about. When i think of "playing to win", i think of my state of mind or mentality. When i go to load a session, i'm not thinking, "oh, i hope i cash in a lot of these." I'm thinking, "I'm going to win a lot of these". I'm aiming for that top spot. I didn't really have that mentality going back a few months, my game was bad, confidance was down, and i worked out that i was kind of playing to cash into the money instead of focusing on how to get more 1st places, and it was costing me big time. So now, instead of cashing in 40-42% of the time, i'm only cashing in 38%, but with more first my ROI is going up rapidly. Of course fixing major leaks and ranges helped this, but i also feel that having a "winning" mentality is going to pay dividends. Anyways i think i've repeated the same thing like 5 times now. I guess in the end, as mentioned above, it's a tricky balancing act between the right aggression in particular stages. Overdoing it in one stage can have a ripple effect on the rest of the tournament. Find that right balance, and you can start printing money.

Click to expand...

Yep, I agree with this too. One of the leaks in my game is bottling it when faced with a big call when my mindset is in defensive mode. If I have had a run of bad results, and it seems like my aces never hold or my steals get reraised or the villains flush always comes but mine never does, I can find myself settling for 3rd place instead of making the +ev play. This is usually because I have a sense of needing to consolidate - 'if I haven't cashed for 15 games then at least if I cash this one I can get back on track' is the sort of thing I say to myself.

Like most people (I imagine) I respond emotionally to events at the poker table to some degree - a load of bad beats really pisses me off! As Wizzim says we can get low on confidence and even if the most +ev play is staring us in the face we can do the opposite because we cannot face the frustration of bubbling again. I think this defensive play does have a place - if that 3rd place after 15 barren games does kick start things; but what is a whole lot better is to be able to remove the emotional response to results and just make the +ev play every time (like I claimed I do in a previous post).

I suspect this emotional control is a major thing that seperates a lot of us reasonable players from the really good ones. I'm working on it and this little therapy session has been very helpful...