When Is It Time To Play Loose/Make Coinflips?

[dgiharris]

Yes, the bully tactic. Well, I do hope you realize what being a bully is; it is not getting max value from the best hand you are holding - no, it is scaring people off with no hand or 2nd/3rd best. Seriously, you do not think that will backfire sooner or later? Putting valuable chips at stake in a pot with a weak hand or no hand at all? That is what you are doing, daring people to call, at their own risk. See someone do it enough, and they just wait and trap you.

Honestly, I see guys bully all the time. Then they get smacked for half their stack or more and suddenly they stop bullying. Now, is that a tell about their range now? You betcha! Is bullying people with weak holdings a tell about your hand as well? You betcha!

Want some advice on how to become a bully-killer? https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/dont-fear-bully-parts-1-4-a-224991/

But, if this works for you, I wish you well.:beer:

Being a bully is only "part" of the equation. The other part is incorporating that bully game into your overall total game, i.e. "balance"

If you are targeting the right players and situations to bully and then on the flip side you wake up with a monster hand you are so much more likely to get action because you have been active right?

There needs to be a method to your madness. I know I sound like I'm advocating that we become super LAG and just splash around and steal every pot.

That is not my intent.

I'm just saying that if you have extra chips early you have more opportunity to risk more to win more. You can take risks that DO NOT put your tournament life at risk. That is a HUGE EDGE!!!!

How on earth can you argue that it isn't a big edge? You can take risks that others can't and guess what. If it doesn't pan out and you lose a big hand then you are back to average chip stack, no harm no foul.

Think about that. Your argument is that being up early in a tournament makes little difference right? Thus, you can take all those risks I'm advocating because if you lose then you are back to average and according to you average is more or less the same as being double average early in the tournament so no harm no foul right?

So you are freerolling. You get to risk more to win more but if you lose then you are no worse off. So please explain to me how that is not a huge edge to have that will dramatically increase your odds for winning a tournament???

 

[Michael Paler]

Some of the best poker players out there are very aggresive like Tom Dwan, Ilari Sahamies, V. Blom, Gus Hansen etc. What do you guys think is the time to play this loose aggressive strategy if you would call it, any game choice that suits this? Is the image part of it profitable or is the actual playing style? I think this style is very difficult to master, and that's part of why the tight players don't always get the action or wins that these guys I mentioned do, I think the Russians imitate the style the best

You always want to switch gears along the way in your game. If you are aware of your own table image, you can use this to your advantage.

If they think you are a TAG or a nit, you can safely open up your range a bit and catch some folks off guard. You cannot do that early in a game however, no one has yet seen what you show up with.

Sometimes, if I have not held a decent hand in a while and think I am overdue, I might splash a bit if I can afford it and it makes sense. It makes me look LAG to other players. Then when I finally do get my big hand, I can make more from it, again, catching them off guard.

At 20-30 BB's I am definitely looking for a coin flip if I can find a good one. At that point the level change really hits your stack harder, and if you get down to 10 BB's, you are really in trouble. Some wait until 10-15 BB's to flip, some 30-35. Just depends on so many things.

 

[Michael Paler]

Being a bully is only "part" of the equation. The other part is incorporating that bully game into your overall total game, i.e. "balance"

If you are targeting the right players and situations to bully and then on the flip side you wake up with a monster hand you are so much more likely to get action because you have been active right?

There needs to be a method to your madness. I know I sound like I'm advocating that we become super LAG and just splash around and steal every pot.

That is not my intent.

I'm just saying that if you have extra chips early you have more opportunity to risk more to win more. You can take risks that DO NOT put your tournament life at risk. That is a HUGE EDGE!!!!

How on earth can you argue that it isn't a big edge? You can take risks that others can't and guess what. If it doesn't pan out and you lose a big hand then you are back to average chip stack, no harm no foul.

Think about that. Your argument is that being up early in a tournament makes little difference right? Thus, you can take all those risks I'm advocating because if you lose then you are back to average and according to you average is more or less the same as being double average early in the tournament so no harm no foul right?

So you are freerolling. You get to risk more to win more but if you lose then you are no worse off. So please explain to me how that is not a huge edge to have that will dramatically increase your odds for winning a tournament???

No, I got what you are saying. I just feel like you are putting too much emphasis on an early big stack and risks to get it early on.

When you have it you tend to be willing to take a few more risks to kill off the smaller stacks and deepen your lead. However, some of those small stacks know this and are just itching for you to try it with them; IE, you become a target. The equal stacks might not risk going out to this type of player, but you will, as you have them covered. So while you might be successful, your success is really going to come from those who do not know better.

Those that do, well, you are going to become their ATM. See what I mean? And like I said, let us not forget; early chip leaders rarely win the game or hold onto that lead for the whole game.

But once more, if this works or you, go for it. I have tried it and found it to be far more costly than beneficial overall for me.

 

[RamdeeBen]

Let me clarify. What I mean is that spots you would naturally think is a flip i.e. you have JJ and you are fairly sure your villain has AK but then when the cards turn over you are shocked to see that villain has 99. Or you have AK and are sure V has an underpair and then V turns over AJ soooooted

You should be already at a stage even early on to pin point the bad loose players and the nits and their hand ranges, unless it's the first couple of hands. If I'm getting JJ in pre; it's for value; not to be flipping - not early stages anyway. Quite often than not; if my stack is going in; it's always for value so I expect to be ahead more times than not.

This post makes me sad. You are stuck in "tight tournament poker" think. Players make all kinds of mistakes and as a big stack you can exploit those mistakes by inflating the pot and getting your villains to dump tons of money into the pot and then BOOM forcing them to put their "tournament life" at risk.

I'm not stuck in tight poker mode; I'm stuck in what I think is going to give me the best EV in the tournament. In general if my tournament life is at risk, it's likely because I feel I'm a favorite at that point. I'm not going to stack of vs a fish for my tournament life on a 50/50 when I know for a fact I'll stack him as a bigger favourite.

Its funny having this argument because unless you routinely chip up early in tournaments then you have no idea what you are arguing against.

I have to be honest, if you do not see the advantage of having double to triple the chips of the field in the early stages of a tournament then you just aren't that skilled and are the typical "tight" tournament player who only wins tournaments when the deck is smacking you in the face.

I know that sounds accusatory and antagonistic but I don't know how else to say it.

I chip up more than enough in tournaments but at the right times. All I'm saying is; when I have an edge, why would I want to take a 50/50 when I'm likely to benefit much more from post flop and get my chips in a bigger favourite?

I have to be honest with you; if you really believe chipping double/triple ups early benefits more than later stages; then you're way of and I don't think you likely have much experience when it comes to the later stages of the tournaments because all players know, this is the important and most relevant stages. It's funny how you seem to think I'm a "typical tight player", when I'm actually more of a LAG player and assuming I win tournaments only by hitting a good run of cards lol.

As I've said numerous times; taking a coin flip early should only be done if you feel you don't have an edge vs someone as this is likely the best spot you're going to get. If you regularly take flips vs any types of players early just to double/triple up, you won't get anywhere.

The late stages is where and how tournaments are played and won; not early bad flips. Can I ask, why you think double or tripling up early taking 50/50's is going to be more +EV over the long haul as opposed to say, 70/30's much more often?

You can choose to listen or not, or continue thinking flipping early is correct when it's not - I'm just trying to help you

 

[dgiharris]

No, I got what you are saying. I just feel like you are putting too much emphasis on an early big stack and risks to get it early on.

When you have it you tend to be willing to take a few more risks to kill off the smaller stacks and deepen your lead. However, some of those small stacks know this and are just itching for you to try it with them; IE, you become a target. The equal stacks might not risk going out to this type of player, but you will, as you have them covered. So while you might be successful, your success is really going to come from those who do not know better.

Those that do, well, you are going to become their ATM. See what I mean? And like I said, let us not forget; early chip leaders rarely win the game or hold onto that lead for the whole game.

But once more, if this works or you, go for it. I have tried it and found it to be far more costly than beneficial overall for me.

You are right, smaller stacks will target you with their nutted range if they think you are splashing around.

I guess I'm saying that when you are big stack you want to be targeting other big stacks and loose players. I mean, if I'm at 30k chips and blinds are 150/300 and a player with 4k chips raises to 800 am I going to splash around and call him with QJs??? Hell no.

But take that same situation but instead of a random short stack its a deep stack donk who is at 30k chips and he raises to 800 am I'm going to call him?? Hell ya. How about 3-bet him??? Maybe, depends on his preflop and post flop tendencies. There are tons of aggros who have a wide raising range but insta fold to a 3-bet. Basically it depends...

that is what I'm more or less getting at.

 

[dgiharris]

....The late stages is where and how tournaments are played and won; not early bad flips. Can I ask, why you think double or tripling up early taking 50/50's is going to be more +EV over the long haul as opposed to say, 70/30's much more often?

Ultimately I think it comes down to poker philosophy. I believe that if I have an edge early in the tournament it increases my odds of winning for the reason's i've outlined up-thread. I can take more risks, target the right villains, and have enough chips to where I can take a hit or survive a suckout.

There is also a "runaway" effect that happens when you accrue a lot of chips. Players tend to stay out of your way and they don't try to steal with you with crap hands. This means later in the tourney if you are big stack that you pick up an extra big blind + antes per orbit either through simple stealing or even better the table GIVES YOU A WALK!!!

Then there is the knock out effect that happens when you manage to stack a fellow big stack.

Maybe this is the point I haven't done a good job of making. When I'm big in chips I ruthlessly attack other big stacks!!!! This is when/where a skill edge really matters since most tournament players as big stacks try to stay out of the way of other big stacks...

Lastly, I understand your point. In terms of taking a 50/50 flip vs a 70/30 flip obviously I want the 70/30 flip. And so i get your argument which is essentially, "Hey, why don't we just wait patiently and eventually we can get a favorable situation to get stacks in"

That is not a bad point or argument to make. And to be fair I don't fault it.

Its just that when we do that, what usually happens is we blind off all day until we finally get that big hand and then we get no action or we do get action but by then we are under chip average and then when we double up we are back to the average. We squeak by the bubble and are short stacked again, folding folding folding until we are under 10bb and we get A9 and shove all in and get snapped called by AJ and lose and we min cash and pat ourselves on the back.

My live tourney stats are top heavy. I almost never min cash, I either finish top 3 or I don't cash. And the reason this is the case is because when the bubble hits I'm almost always top 5% in chips and either chip leader or 2nd chip leader.

My philosophy is that you can't win a tournament without flipping a few times. And damn it, if I'm going to flip, I rather flip early and win chips that I can use to acquire more chips or bust out and play the cash game vs bleeding chips waiting for my big hand and then being under 10bb near the bubble and shoving with Ax or Kx garbage hoping to steal blinds and antes and getting snapped off with AT+ and busting out

 

[WillinNewHaven]

I consider "being aggressive" and "taking coin flips" separate, admittedly related, topics. If the stacks or deep enough you can be aggressive without being close to being all-in.

Being pot-committed isn't really the goal of a typical aggressive player early in the tournament or for most of the middle period unless one finds oneself on (hopefully) the good end of a cooler.

Later on, as the blinds rise and the stacks seem to shrink, you hope to have stolen enough chips, and won enough big collisions, so that it isn't _your_ stack at risk.

 

[bernotas22]

I consider "being aggressive" and "taking coin flips" separate, admittedly related, topics. If the stacks or deep enough you can be aggressive without being close to being all-in.

Being pot-committed isn't really the goal of a typical aggressive player early in the tournament or for most of the middle period unless one finds oneself on (hopefully) the good end of a cooler.

Later on, as the blinds rise and the stacks seem to shrink, you hope to have stolen enough chips, and won enough big collisions, so that it isn't _your_ stack at risk.

agreed taking coinflips later on with large pairs or dominant preflop hands is much more valuable, the blind amounts are more important the your current chip amount, also being below average is something i think many players including me at times are not good at playing but you can't cash or run deep if you aren't able to play short stacks and make the best decision to double up from them, you can tend to fall in love with ok hands like aj, or kq and shove those instead of looking at the flop at the right price or waiting for big pair hands

 

[Gorak]

If there is an early stage flip then somebody is donking.

Let's say your stack is 2000 and the blinds are 10/20. If you get into a flip situation then you are either calling a shove or shoving yourself. pot odds are irrelevant since the blinds are so low.

Lets think about hand ranges; what do you call with and what do you shove?

Calling a shove in this situation: JJ+, AK and maybe AQs if villain is aggro? Ok that could be +EV
Shoving yourself: QQ, JJ, AK (AA, KK would be a bigger waste since there is a great chance everybody will fold).

But why would we be shoving any hand in the first place? Why not just put a normal raise and see a flop?

 

[baudib1]

+1 mirrion to dgiharris' comments. The idea that any player is good enough to pass up a 51-49 edge or any spot where you have a pot equity advantage is just silly. You are seriously overestimating your edge over any field if you think this is the case. You will very happily end up taking 45-55 or worse spots later in the tournament, every single one, if you aren't pushing better spots for a lot of chips earlier.


There are some exceptions to this; for example, in the first few levels of the wsop Main Event, you probably don't want to stick in 600 BBs pre with any hand other than AA, and yeah, early on QQ vs. AK confrontations in this tournament are exceedingly rare, and incredibly silly.

That said, the structure in the ME is not very common. Most tournaments you will not double up once; having the chance to double up early is exceptionally +EV.

One of the prevailing beliefs in tournament poker is that the chips you lose are worth more than the chips you win. This is the case in some structures, most notably in satellites or tournaments with exceptionally flat payout structures. It is true, very often, in SNGs. However, in large-field MTTs, this is rarely the case. It is also rarely the case in fast-structure turbo type tournaments (180s for example).

The value of entering the middle and bubble periods with an enormous stack is incredible and frankly difficult to measure.

 

[bernotas22]

If there is an early stage flip then somebody is donking.

Let's say your stack is 2000 and the blinds are 10/20. If you get into a flip situation then you are either calling a shove or shoving yourself. Pot odds are irrelevant since the blinds are so low.

Lets think about hand ranges; what do you call with and what do you shove?

Calling a shove in this situation: JJ+, AK and maybe AQs if villain is aggro? Ok that could be +EV
Shoving yourself: QQ, JJ, AK (AA, KK would be a bigger waste since there is a great chance everybody will fold).

But why would we be shoving any hand in the first place? Why not just put a normal raise and see a flop?

I have witnessed people miss out on big money in late stage tourney play by misplaying pairs, this especially applies to turbo tourneys, for example i have seen situations where people shove 22 into ak for a pure flip but the 22 is of course the lower stack and the ak wins, i don't think 22 is a logical flip especially since in this situation the guy had almost average stack, another situation is where a decent stack shoves jj late and he gets called by aa! learning how to minimize your losses in flips is just as important as maximizing your ev in this situations

 

[RamdeeBen]

+1 mirrion to dgiharris' comments. The idea that any player is good enough to pass up a 51-49 edge or any spot where you have a pot equity advantage is just silly. You are seriously overestimating your edge over any field if you think this is the case. You will very happily end up taking 45-55 or worse spots later in the tournament, every single one, if you aren't pushing better spots for a lot of chips earlier.

Wait, let me get this straight. We're talking early stages of a tournament, where the field is full of fish. So, lets say for arguments sake; we're 70bb deep; levels are 25/50, no antes in play we have we have a player we know is bad and can out play post flop and we have 66. He open shoves and we can see his cards, he has AQ. You're telling me, you take this spot? Given there are no antes in play, we are risking our tournament life for 70bb increase with no extra dead money at this point on a 50/50 when we know for a fact, we're highly likely going to get a much better spot later down the road; at a point when antes are in play and we have a better edge in late game play where stealing/re stealing become much more profitable than than early flips like this.

Of course later on in the tournament we will take these spots, but that is because the average stack size as got smaller and there is a lot of dead money in the middle and we're losing our potential to play many flops, that's pretty standard late game tournament poker, taking flips. Also; how is flipping taking a pot equity advantage vs this player? We have exactly a 50/50 split with bad player, there's no real equity advantage we have at this point.



The only time I'd advocate this play; is if we had a player who is better than ourselves and us getting a 50/50 is going to be more +EV for ourselves as opposed to the villain and likely our best spot to be in vs that player as we know we're going to be losing a lot of flops/turns/rivers vs better player players.

 

[baudib1]

Wait, let me get this straight. We're talking early stages of a tournament, where the field is full of fish. So, lets say for arguments sake; we're 70bb deep; levels are 25/50, no antes in play we have we have a player we know is bad and can out play post flop and we have 66. He open shoves and we can see his cards, he has AQ. You're telling me, you take this spot? Given there are no antes in play, we are risking our tournament life for 70bb increase with no extra dead money at this point on a 50/50 when we know for a fact, we're highly likely going to get a much better spot later down the road; at a point when antes are in play and we have a better edge in late game play where stealing/re stealing become much more profitable than than early flips like this.

Of course later on in the tournament we will take these spots, but that is because the average stack size as got smaller and there is a lot of dead money in the middle and we're losing our potential to play many flops, that's pretty standard late game tournament poker, taking flips. Also; how is flipping taking a pot equity advantage vs this player? We have exactly a 50/50 split with bad player, there's no real equity advantage we have at this point.

Well the scenario you laid out is fairly ridiculous. First off how many times do you ever have 140 BBs in a tournament? It's a not insignificant increase.

With the cards face up then AQ is not a favorite over 66, we're 46-54. Of course we don't know that he actually has 66. Furthermore if we can outplay him postflop what good is that if he is open shipping? If he has open shipped his entire opening range then yes it's a supersnap call. He's going to give his stack away and we can't afford to wait for QQ+.

If someone has open shoved 3 times in the past 2 orbits, then we should be happy getting it in with AJs or 99 or whatever we think has a slim edge over his range.

 

[Beanfacekilla]

I have to be honest, if you do not see the advantage of having double to triple the chips of the field in the early stages of a tournament then you just aren't that skilled and are the typical "tight" tournament player who only wins tournaments when the deck is smacking you in the face.

LOL..

 

[RamdeeBen]

Well the scenario you laid out is fairly ridiculous. First off how many times do you ever have 140 BBs in a tournament? It's a not insignificant increase.

With the cards face up then AQ is not a favorite over 66, we're 46-54. Of course we don't know that he actually has 66. Furthermore if we can outplay him postflop what good is that if he is open shipping? If he has open shipped his entire opening range then yes it's a supersnap call. He's going to give his stack away and we can't afford to wait for QQ+.

If someone has open shoved 3 times in the past 2 orbits, then we should be happy getting it in with AJs or 99 or whatever we think has a slim edge over his range.

How is it fairly ridiculous? That's the classic spot I'm talking about which comes up a LOT in tournaments it's far from being ridiculous?

dgiharris was talking about how flipping in this spot would be good when I can only see it being the worse time to do it. The whole discussion was about taking flips in these spots when I don't think it's necessary at all. I didn't say 140bb; I said if we have a 70bb stack; which is actually quite a normal stack size in most tournament at these early stages. The deeper we get of course; the even worse of a decision it would be to flip.

I also said; if we have 66 and we know he has AQ and he shoves it's a classic flip, sure we know 66 has a slight equity edge but it's just a common flip situation? So, I just don't understand why you think taking a small 54/46 spot vs fish at these stack depths is going to be a good spot when there is a very good chance we will find a much better equity edge? I just don't think we should be taking these spots when still relatively deep in a tournament, when there is still no dead money available. It just doesn't make sense why we would reduce our edge on a field by taking flips so early with a decent stack size.

If we're doing the shoving, fine as we have fold equity to. It's just that djharris seems to think double/trippling up and taking flips like this regardless of player types is the best chance of going deep in the tournament when I think it's our worse chance.

 

[Beanfacekilla]

+1 mirrion to dgiharris' comments.

I agree with this 1 mirrion percent.

 

[dgiharris]

How is it fairly ridiculous? That's the classic spot I'm talking about which comes up a LOT in tournaments it's far from being ridiculous?

dgiharris was talking about how flipping in this spot would be good when I can only see it being the worse time to do it. The whole discussion was about taking flips in these spots when I don't think it's necessary at all. I didn't say 140bb; I said if we have a 70bb stack; which is actually quite a normal stack size in most tournament at these early stages. The deeper we get of course; the even worse of a decision it would be to flip.

I also said; if we have 66 and we know he has AQ and he shoves it's a classic flip, sure we know 66 has a slight equity edge but it's just a common flip situation? So, I just don't understand why you think taking a small 54/46 spot vs fish at these stack depths is going to be a good spot when there is a very good chance we will find a much better equity edge? I just don't think we should be taking these spots when still relatively deep in a tournament, when there is still no dead money available. It just doesn't make sense why we would reduce our edge on a field by taking flips so early with a decent stack size.

If we're doing the shoving, fine as we have fold equity to. It's just that djharris seems to think double/trippling up and taking flips like this regardless of player types is the best chance of going deep in the tournament when I think it's our worse chance.

Going deep in a tournament is fairly easy. Just sit back, play top ten hands, set mine when you are getting the right odds, hit flops with TPGK and get the monies all-in. Easy peezy.

Its just that doing that puts you at the mercy of the cards and more often than not, what ends up happening is you are one of the masses who reach the bubble with 10bb left and you end up shoving all-in on a blind steal with A6o praying the BTN, SB, and BB don't have an ace or a pair...

However, the equation changes if you manage an early double or triple up. Chips are power and an early advantage is going to favor the better player.

I think in my argument I'm giving the wrong impression as if I'm advocating we splash around like Durrr on steroids when that is not what I'm advocating.

I feel that in a tournament we will almost always have a key moment in the tournament, a moment where if we win this hand we have a seriously good chance of winning the tournament. Imo, this moment is in reality earlier than most players realize.

In this thread the counter argument to my taking flips seems to be our edge over the field. If we are the "better" player then why would we ever want to flip right?

My answer to this is not so much the hand that we are flipping, but the subsequent hands AFTER WE FLIP.

Here is a common scenario in a tournament. There is a luckbox donk who has just won two huge suckouts. Blinds are at 200/400 and average chip stack is at 14k chips but this donk has 40k chips. Because you took an early flip and doubled up you are at 33k in chips. The donk is splashing around and raises 1600. You are in position with 88. Now, if you were at 14k chips you would be unable to call this raise to profitably set mine. But since you are at 33k chips you can call to set mine and use your position to play your hand for value post flop depending on board texture and post flop action.

You flop gin and double up. BECAUSE you took that early flip, that early flip put you in a position to amass 66k in chips when the average is merely 14k. Now you are tournament chip leader with 35 players left to go...

However, had you not of taken that early flip *insert flip scenario* the above would have never happened.

Here is another scenario. You are at 33k chips and wake up with AA in the BB. UTG short stack shoves for 4k chips, BTN reshoves for 15k and you snap call. UTG has AK, BTN has JJ,
Board: J 3 8 Q 7

You lose but still are above chip average with 17k in chips...

Anyways, I think i've done my best to put forth my argument for why you want to flip early or perhaps I should say for why you shouldn't shy away from flipping early especially if you can be the one doing the shoving first in pots where there is some dead money.

or put another way, if you feel that doubling or tripling up early has little impact on how well you do in a tournament, then imo you need to rethink how you play tournaments.

 

[RamdeeBen]

Maybe you personally need to flip early in tournaments, as you don't feel comfortable post flop or feel your edge is smaller vs the field so would rather take a 50/50 as this will maximize your long term EV I dunno but for me personally, I take what I feel will be the maximum EV in a tournament which will very rarely if ever include me taking flips vs fish early. The way I see it, is that I know at some stage, unless variance takes over and they run like god they will double/triple me up anyway, at some point but it will be on my terms where I have a lot more equity than 50%. I feel I shouldn't really give them an option of having 50% equity vs me as that will only benefit them and not me.

For example; KQ on a Kxx board, fish are happy stacking of with worse Kx, say KT..so now I'm getting my chips in as a decent favourite 80/20. Given I play a fair few pots in early stages; I'd much rather take a 80/20 over a 50/50 much more regularly (obviously) as opposed to saying to the fish; "Given you will likely make a lot more errors post flop, I'm going to start stacking of pre flop with our 50/50's just to give you a fair run!" lol; just seems a bit daft, right and like your just burning money.

I guess it's working out nice for me, especially this year given my results but maybe you could share your experience with how flipping your way to final tables has gone? Maybe you run like god and can win 20+ flips in a row, I certainly can't! If you can, then I guess that's not a bad thing and I see why you opt to want to flip more often.


As I say; if you feel that flips give yourself your best chance of winning tournaments then I understand your option for taking flips early as that makes sense but I'd seriously consider trying just a few cash game sessions just to improve on your post flop play because you will see that in early stages especially given stack sizes and the mountains of fish that are around you will find a ton more spots which give you a much better edge in accumulating chips.

 

[baudib1]

How is it fairly ridiculous? That's the classic spot I'm talking about which comes up a LOT in tournaments it's far from being ridiculous?

dgiharris was talking about how flipping in this spot would be good when I can only see it being the worse time to do it. The whole discussion was about taking flips in these spots when I don't think it's necessary at all. I didn't say 140bb; I said if we have a 70bb stack; which is actually quite a normal stack size in most tournament at these early stages. The deeper we get of course; the even worse of a decision it would be to flip.

I also said; if we have 66 and we know he has AQ and he shoves it's a classic flip, sure we know 66 has a slight equity edge but it's just a common flip situation? So, I just don't understand why you think taking a small 54/46 spot vs fish at these stack depths is going to be a good spot when there is a very good chance we will find a much better equity edge? I just don't think we should be taking these spots when still relatively deep in a tournament, when there is still no dead money available. It just doesn't make sense why we would reduce our edge on a field by taking flips so early with a decent stack size.

If we're doing the shoving, fine as we have fold equity to. It's just that djharris seems to think double/trippling up and taking flips like this regardless of player types is the best chance of going deep in the tournament when I think it's our worse chance.

Sorry I thought you said that we have AQ and he has 66. If we have 66 and he shows AQ then yes you absolutely have to take the flip. No one is good enough to pass up this kind of edge ever.

 

[RamdeeBen]

Sorry I thought you said that we have AQ and he has 66. If we have 66 and he shows AQ then yes you absolutely have to take the flip. No one is good enough to pass up this kind of edge ever.

There's no edge though, that's the point. It's a 50/50, how is this taking an edge vs a fish? Our edge vanished as soon as we take a flip. I'm not talking like when we're 20bb< as this is standard given we have antes in play at this point. The only player this is favouring, is the fish, how is no one good enough to pass up this so called edge when we're likely going to just beat them post flop nearly always?

I'm talking when eff stack size is like 60bb+. The only time I see it as fine, is if we actually have a player who we feel is better than us post flop. I just don't see the sense in flipping for our tournament life vs fish? We WILL get much better spots vs them, like always. Like if they open K8o and we flat with KQ, flop comes Kxx. This is where we should take advantage of them, no? If you're taking flips vs fish all the time this deep, we're always going to be break even vs them when we should be using this time in the tournament to exploit them post flop.

 

[baudib1]

There's no edge though, that's the point. It's a 50/50, how is this taking an edge vs a fish? Our edge vanished as soon as we take a flip. I'm not talking like when we're 20bb< as this is standard given we have antes in play at this point. The only player this is favouring, is the fish, how is no one good enough to pass up this so called edge when we're likely going to just beat them post flop nearly always?

I'm talking when eff stack size is like 60bb+. The only time I see it as fine, is if we actually have a player who we feel is better than us post flop. I just don't see the sense in flipping for our tournament life vs fish? We WILL get much better spots vs them, like always. Like if they open K8o and we flat with KQ, flop comes Kxx. This is where we should take advantage of them, no? If you're taking flips vs fish all the time this deep, we're always going to be break even vs them when we should be using this time in the tournament to exploit them post flop.

54% is a titanic edge. 54% to have a 140 BB stack is a ridiculously +EV spot. I guarantee you that you are seriously overstimating your skill level and edge even vs. the worst players in the world if you think you can pass up this spot.

 

[bernotas22]

Sorry I thought you said that we have AQ and he has 66. If we have 66 and he shows AQ then yes you absolutely have to take the flip. No one is good enough to pass up this kind of edge ever.

sure you can flip like that also you gotta fold flips if you have good position, like for example if you raise with AK and then the guy shoves, its probable as he covers you he has anything between 88-AA, having the ability to read this and fold off AK is gonna show your game is at a higher level, on the other hand if you raise with JJ and he shoves the situation is harder to read but I would still fold here since it is actually likely he is shoving QQ-AA, Knowing your edge is the real art of coinflips, so you aren't dominated and end up needing 3 or 4 outers on the river

 

[RamdeeBen]

54% is a titanic edge. 54% to have a 140 BB stack is a ridiculously +EV spot. I guarantee you that you are seriously overstimating your skill level and edge even vs. the worst players in the world if you think you can pass up this spot.

baudib1; usually your comment I appreciate but this just seems mind boggling to me and wrong on so many levels.

I mean wow, are you for real?

Firstly; I'm not saying I'm great by any means..but I know from personal experience the fish in these tournaments will give you a ton of better spots to get their stack where we have a lot more equity than 54%. All I can say to that; If you think getting a 54/46 spot vs a fish is a "titanic" edge then I've no idea what to say to that apart from I feel something must be a miss with your mtt game? I'd see that as possibly one of the worse cases at best and I wouldn't be playing poker and especially not MTT's if I thought taking a flip vs the very worse players for my tournament life is a "great" spot to be in. I mean; why would you even play if you think that's all we can hope for? Whilst it might be +EV; it certainly isn't the most +EV vs a fish, like we're supposed to use the early levels to exploit the bad players not give them an easy ride with a flip. I think I'd much rather sit betting on black/red on roulette a ton of times and hope to run good 20 times in a row as opposed to flipping with the bad players all tournament.

God help it should we be up against a good player, what would you class as the best case scenario there? Getting it in as 30/70 dog and be happy?

Your logic seems backwards to me on this but I guess it's another one of those threads where we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[BigCountryAA]

In a tournament, chips are power. If you are a skilled winning tournament player, having extra chips early gives you a TREMENDOUS advantage.

#1 The extra chips gives you a ton of fold equity vs other thinking players
#2 The extra chips makes other players fearful of you and they are less likely to try to bully you, bluff you, and will often just flat out surrender pots to you
#3 Extra chips enable you to see more pots thus increasing the probability of you acquiring more chips through skill and or exploiting leaks of your opponents
#4 Extra chips enable you to take advantage of luckbox deep stacked donks, thus if you double up against a deep stacked donk you become tournament chip leader and completely outpace the field...
#5 Extra chips can serve as "fat" enabling you to survive a couple of lean rounds of card deadness and still be healthy when you finally get some decent cards

Once you acquire significantly more chips than your peers at the table, a runaway effect takes place where the chips just seem to flow to you. Villains stay out of your way, no one tries to steal from you, all your raises illicit folds from players and they fold everything but JJ+/AK to you, its super easy to steal blinds and antes, etc. etc.

Near the bubble when the majority of the field is at 5bb - 20bb and in super fit-n-fold shovebot mode you are at 50bb+ deep and can just swoop in whenever you like and grab more chips and/or take advantage of loose shoves by desperate short stacked villains who are now forced to shove with Ax and Kx hands...

To be clear, I'm not saying you have to splash around and LAG it up. That is not my point. My point is simply the earlier you acquire more chips, the better your odds of winning IF YOU ARE A SKILLED WINNING TOURNAMENT PLAYER.

If you are not a skilled winning tournament player and the only way you win tournaments is to be dealt top 5 hands and flop sets then chipping up early will not benefit you all that much vs a player who knows how to use chips to gain more chips.

100% agree with this.

 

[baudib1]

I just don't see the sense in flipping for our tournament life vs fish? We WILL get much better spots vs them, like always. Like if they open K8o and we flat with KQ, flop comes Kxx

Why do you keep talking about postflop spots when you are almost never going to have a playable stack? The only way to exert an edge postflop is to have enough chips to make moves. If you're just waiting for spots better than what you're passing up then you are playing ship-it-pre mode approximately 99% of the time.

sure you can flip like that also you gotta fold flips if you have good position, like for example if you raise with AK and then the guy shoves, its probable as he covers you he has anything between 88-AA, having the ability to read this and fold off AK is gonna show your game is at a higher level, on the other hand if you raise with JJ and he shoves the situation is harder to read but I would still fold here since it is actually likely he is shoving QQ-AA, Knowing your edge is the real art of coinflips, so you aren't dominated and end up needing 3 or 4 outers on the river

you're doing it wrong