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RamdeeBen
Legend
Silver Level
I've got no idea what structures you play but the way you're talking is like you're playing hyper turbo MTT's where after 15 minutes we're in shove fold mode and it would be correct to take a 54/46 vs a fish when our stack size is so small purely because of the fast structure. This just isn't the case in most online MTT's though what we're talking about.
In the early stages of most online tournaments, there is at least 1 hour of poker play and usually more. Just because we're not 100bb+ deep, doesn't mean we lose all post flop ability and play to make "moves" Not sure why you think the only way to exert an edge, is having a "playable" stack.( I assume you think a playable stack is only 100bb+?) If there is a fish, you can exert an edge playing a 20bb, 30bb, 40bb, or whatever it doesn't have to be a set amount of bb's as they will make incorrect calls pre flop/post flop. How do you think short stack specialists gain their edge vs fish? Not flipping with them all day long that's for sure.
It seems like your in a mindset of 100bb+ poker is the only way to play and after that, that's it. Playing different stack sizes from 30bb-100bb all of which require different skill sets but there is play left in those respective stack sizes all of which you can still gain a big edge vs the fish.
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dgiharris
Rock Star
Silver Level
Wow, way to put words in my mouth. I list in excruciating detail the whys of my taking a flip early and the benefits of acquiring extra chips early. Specifically, I give numerous examples of how extra chips increase our post flop edge.
This feels like you don't understand variance. You can easily go 2, 3, or 4 rounds of being completely card dead or you finally get your AA, KK, QQ, AK and raise (your first raise in two hours) and surprise surprise everyone snap folds to you. Yeah, how'd that double up go
What? Everyone folded... Imagine that...I'm so glad you brought this up. However you are forgetting some important details. Because you didn't acquire extra chips early, you are at 8k chips, blinds are at 150/300. The aggro donk at the table raises from UTG+1 to 900 and a semi-decent player calls from LP, you are in the CO with KQ and you are forced to FOLD because you don't have those extra chips.
Flop comes Kxx and the donk stacks off and the LP player reeps the benefits with KJ because he had extra chips and could afford to call the raise whereas you don't have extra chips and are forced to fold...
I guess math isn't your strong suit. THe beauty and advantage of flipping early is that you only really have to do it once. If you double/triple up then those extra chips give you an enormous advantage and if you have a strong post flop game you can then proceed to use the advantage of extra chips to your advantage.
This is a point i've made about a thousand times on here that you seem to be intent on ignoring. And my point is that once you have extra chips, if you are skilled then those extra chips equate to power and increase your edge making it easier to acquire more chips...
Apparently this is a phenomena you are unfamiliar with which wouldn't surprise me. THe bulk of your tournament wins probably consist of making it to the bubble with 10bb and then getting AA, KK, AK shoving and getting called and doubling up and then a little bit later getting QQ vs someone else's JJ and doubling up again and now you are good in chips and the deck hits you in the face some more with big hands and easy peezy you win the tournament because tight is right and you pat yourself on the back for your awesome poker skills of being dealt AA, KK, QQ and getting on a heater after the bubble...
dude, I'm a live pro and have been supporting myself with poker as my sole income for the past two years. I play in CA and Vegas all the time, check out my handle on that 'other' poker forum site that I don't think i'm allowed to mention on here.
I play 2/5nl and 5/10nl five days a week...
in fact, I'm doing this tournament tomorrow
http://www.bay101.com/pdf/345NoLimitEvent3_005.pdf
And I'm gonna take that mother-father tourney down!!!!
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bernotas22
Legend
Silver Level
negative, you take coinflips also when you are a big stack and have an edge to bully around people, it also may be worth it in tough games period, and to show well timed aggression
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RamdeeBen
Legend
Silver Level
You said along the lines of sure it's great to get 70/30 but when you get a hand; you finally get no action but as I've already stated why would you get no action if you're playing a lot of pots? Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems you have the impression; I'd sit folding and blinding all day until I picked up QQ+/AK. That's just not the case..
1:Chips are power; correct however there is no power with a big stack early stages because when there is no antes in play; what are you trying to take control of exactly? The deeper you are doesn't effect the eff stack size at the table so if eff stack size is still 80bb; you having 8k chips will still play 80bb poker.
2: Extra doesn't give people fear factor in early stages for the reasons I've said a ton of times. The only time a big stack will go in your favour; is towards the bubble or the late stages, when people will play more fearful but from my experience this doesn't exist in online tournaments I've played. Given you have just said your a live pro in your last post; maybe the fish think it does there but online, I've never noticed it.
3:I don't argue more chips = more pots but how many flips in tournaments do you have to win to acquire a chip stack big enough to play a ton of pots? Again, though - if you have a fish at the table; you don't need a 10k stack size to exploit the weak players, you can or should be able to still expliot fish as you only need a stack size that's equal to theirs as it's not like they are going to be stacking of 1000's bb's.
4: If you have a luck box donk who has a ton of chips; then good luck to them it must be there day but given if you have already acquired a big stack size yourself and you get seated to a table with a donk who has luck boxed a big stack then our goal should be playing a lot of a pots with them. Given we likely will have a post flop edge vs them; we don't need to to look at getting our stack in on flips. We just need to play a ton of pots and build our stack?
This feels like you don't understand variance. You can easily go 2, 3, or 4 rounds of being completely card dead or you finally get your AA, KK, QQ, AK and raise (your first raise in two hours) and surprise surprise everyone snap folds to you. Yeah, how'd that double up go
Not sure about that one; pretty sure hyper turbo games have a ton of variance !
Again; you seem to think I'd only be playing the premiums? Why's this?
That's my point though again; if fish are playing 50% of hands and I get dealt 66 why would I want to take this flip pre flop when we know we can extract a ton more chips playing multiple pots post flop with a much better return than break even flips.
Firstly; if you was given this spot - you should note of all stack sizes and the amount of money that will be in the middle already and realize this isn't so much of a horrible spot to be in as you think. When we're playing 25bb< poker and we're now beyond the early levels of the tournament. We're at a stage where we can't play a ton of flops, our objective now should be looking for a double up. Given the scenario you laid out; depending on semi decent player flatting stack size we have a options left. By this point though; we will have more reads on semi decent player and his calling ranges, given our range is likely stronger than both and we have a perfect stack size with all the dead money in the middle you be happy squeezing given aggro donk player will likely call worse; semi decent player will have to fold and even if called; we're not in terrible shape.
lol; you made out like you will routinely take a flip vs fish as well in early stages to acquire a huge stack size to push over the 7k stack sizes whilst sat on a 30k stack. Seems to me this likely isn't going to be just once. As I keep stating though; even having a huge stack size won't really benefit the early levels given the eff stack size is still going to be <100bbs and all you're doing is stealing worthless blinds. Blinds and pots only really become valuable when eff stack size drops and antes become a huge factor. I'd much rather run over a table with stealing and re stealing rather than flipping the fish with an irrelevant double up early levels, but that's just me.
Also; if you have a post flop edge, then you don't need a huge stack to take advantage of that given the maximum you're winning is what's in villians stack.
No; I'm listening but I just disagree and that's what makes forums so great, we can have these discussions. Extra chips without antes in play, don't serve as an advantage in the early levels. The only time it would; is if you had a table who have the same stack size which is never the case. It's great if you can build a big stack; it's not a big thing but imo...when there is nothing to fight for early levels sitting on a 1000bb stack will have the same benefit as sitting on the average stack of the table of 70bb's.
I rarely; if ever play the bubble as a short stack I'd rather bust or be one of the chip leaders by this point. It seems you are getting mixed up, we're talking about the early levels and not late stages right?
And yes; you're absolutely correct - I just wait for the big hands, get short, hope to get lucky and cooler a bunch of people and bink the tournament. Easy game right?
Well; I'm happy for you. Good luck in your tournament, hope you flip good. What am I checking out on your handle on other forum site, more forum discussion about MTT's?
It was very entertaining Vanq, true.
In a nutshell dgiharris; I like discussions it's what makes poker players better and it's clear we both have a different views on early level flipping. As I said; if you feel this is correct for you then great but just from my experiences of playing online MTT's there are so many fish in the field in the early levels, I will often get gifted with much better chip ups post flop with more equity. Given live MTT's are notoriously softer and assuming you haven't played online poker then if anything I'd of thought the last thing you want to do vs a fish is to give them an equal share of each pot. Seems daft.
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RamdeeBen
Legend
Silver Level
Oh; also - maybe because your a live MTT player you get such fewer hands to play so feel pushing for a flip is fine early levels as you don't feel you will get many spots to play vs the fish post flop. I dunno; I've got nearly zero live mtt experience but online, there are plenty of post flop play early levels to extract chips from the fish all of which with much better equity edge.
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DunningKruger
Legend
Silver Level
Why are you calling me Vanq. Sounds like another instance of you not knowing who you're speaking to tbh, but if you don't want to use my handle you may refer to me by my real name. John's the only regular poster I can think of who knows it for sure, but I mean you can always just ask as opposed to the random guessing (the ramdee guessing?).
What is your understanding if any of chip utility block theory etc and just how certain are you of yourself that having more chips in the earlier stages of a tournament isn't an advantage.
What is your understanding if any of chip utility block theory etc and just how certain are you of yourself that having more chips in the earlier stages of a tournament isn't an advantage.
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RamdeeBen
Legend
Silver Level
Apologies then. Saw it in a thread ages ago when you first joined and given vanq was an active member and stopped posting, I guess it made sense.
What do you mean it sounds like another instance of not knowing who I'm speaking to? Where have I done that before? If you're talking about dgiharris then am I ignorant and supposed to know who dgiharris is then if no one has said? I mean; he joined this year and I don't recognise the name so am I second guessing him as an older member who for whatever reason has decided to come back to cc? Or is he a new member who's a pro? If so, apologies but I still don't know who he is. I'll just refer to you as dunningkruger then; given I don't know your real name and I mean am I supposed to know who the people are if they are not the handle they are?
I'm not saying if you can't chip up; don't. All I'm saying is; I don't opt to flip vs fish just to double up when there are going to be likely bigger equity edges. As I've said; from my personal experience ( other people might and obviously do have different experiences) having a ton of chips isn't as huge as an advantage early stages as it is the later stages.The only time I've noticed a difference in having a big stack early levels, is if there the early level antes; but this is rarely the case. It's an advantage sure as you have more chips; but I'd sooner pick having a large stack middle/late stages as opposed to the early levels as these are the times people begin to play a lot more tighter and the pre flop chip ups have a much bigger impact.
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MasterOfDisaster
Legend
Silver Level
Isn't this more about how +EV something can be?
I think both ways can be +EV although baudib's are a bit more marginal in general, but probably he is got a lot more +EV spots as rams are probably more +EV only you won't see as many of these spots.
I think both ways can be +EV although baudib's are a bit more marginal in general, but probably he is got a lot more +EV spots as rams are probably more +EV only you won't see as many of these spots.
dgiharris
Rock Star
Silver Level
Fair enough, but just saying if you double up early you do get to play more pots. In Live MTTs, blinds increase pretty damn fast and its not long before the field drops from 150bb+ to under 50bb plus. Hell, that usually happens within 2 hours...
This is where our argument diverges. Even though eff stacks earlier in the tournament may be 80bb, 100bb, whatever, us having double or triple that is STILL A HUGE ADVANTAGE. Having those extra chips means we can better target aggros and put the pressure on. We can float, steal, put our villains all-in which will generate tons of fold equity. Not to mention the comfort level of knowing that we can take these lines and if they don't work we aren't crippled.
I feel like on some level you think that having 100bb in chips is a lot of chips. I guess to tournament players that feels like a lot of chips since most of the tournament is spent under 50bb, but in reality, 100bb in chips isn't the end all be all of super deep poker. And if we have 200bb+ in chips while the rest of the field is at 100bb or less, its still a huge advantage. I don't know what else to say if you honestly don't think we have an advantage.
I used to play a ton of online tourneys before black friday. I do think that online players are definitely better than live tourney players and I do think online players are definitely more fearless. But even with that being said, extra chips do generate fold equity early in tournaments "in the right spots". How much fold equity? Impossible to quantify. But just the sheer fact that you are big in chips is going to dissuade certain players from taking bluff lines against you because due to your chip stack their bluff lines will lose fold equity because you CAN tolerate a looser call because a looser call will not cripple you. Hence advantage.
I can appreciate this argument. To answer the question "How many flips" the answer is simply one flip.
We flip once and win, we double up. Now we are double the field and realize all the advantages I've been highlighting. If another flip comes up we can now tolerate a flip without really having to worry. We win, great the rich get richer. We lose, we are back to tournament average so no harm no foul according to your arguments right? And all this works in conjunction with your overall game.
I can agree with this, I'm just saying that those extra chips sure would come in handy when we are facing a deep stack donk. Its a risk reward thing.
Because we were willing to flip early and double/triple up. Later, when we are at a table with a deep stack donk we have now put ourselves in the position to dramatically improve our chances of winning the tournament by stacking Mr. Deep Donk and becoming chip leader. Now, feel free NOT to flip with Mr. Donk and to rely moreso on that awesome post flop game.
My point is simply that since you were willing to risk that flip earlier in the tournament, it sets you up to reap enormous benefits later. Again, I'm all for having an awesome post flop game, yada yada yada... And if we can chip up naturally with solid TAG then again more power to us. But my point is that if I have a chance to flip and double up early I'm taking that chance because if I win that flip I give myself an advantage and even bigger edge over the field. I mean, when a good player has extra chips, he's a beast in a tournament. ...
...I guess its just a difference in tournament philosophy. In a tournament due to the increasing blinds and variance, you simply don't know when your next opportunity to get chips is going to come along. Sure, you may get dealt AA next orbit or you can go the next 4 orbits being card dead and raised out of pots pre. If there is a super drooler at the table how long until someone else stacks him?
I get your argument, I do. But the truth is you can not say with certain if/when that mythical "better spot" will come along in the future. But what we can say with 100% certainty is that we have a +EV flip NOW. With dead money in the pot and potential fold equity if we are the one doing the shoving, right here right now its a +EV flip so why not take it? Oh, because later we "might" get a better spot???
All the above is true and even better if we had double/triple the amount of chips. Again, we'd have a big advantage and that is my point. Chipping up early gives us an advantage later and thus it is worth that risk of an early flip.
the bold is just 100% incorrect. Blinds and pots "can" become super valuable depending on the initial conditions. Even in round one where blinds are 25/50 and stacks are 8K in chips, all it takes is 2 aggro donks to create a big pot.
V1 raises 200bb, V2 3-bets to 700bb, Hero calls, V1 calls
Flop(2100) X Y Z
Wouldn't you agree that this pot is now "valuable" ??? If V1 was at 8k and V2 was at 8k wouldn't you think you'd have an advantage if you were at 16k chips while they were at 8k chips? The obvious advantage would be you can shove the flop or turn as a semibluff and if called you have outs and if you lose guess what??? You are still in the tournament with a healthy stack. How is this not an advantage? And we realize this advantage because we were willing to take a flip early...
Very true. I can be a bit of a ***** when arguing so apologize if I come across as antagonistic. Sometimes I post after grinding all day...
I think this is where our arguments diverge. You seem to look at it as focusing on the fish in question. Why take a 50/50 flip vs some fish who you are better than?
I can appreciate that logic.
However, I'm looking beyond the fish and at the tournament as a whole.
I take a 50/50 risk early and win that flip THEN i have double the chips and an advantage that will benefit me (almost geometrically) as the tournament progresses. So for me, its worth that risk to reap the rewards later.
stately7
Rock Star
Silver Level
Totally agree, getting some great tips and insights from this thread.
Tbh, I think it's a flip (haha) between the approaches advocated by dgiharris and ramdeebam, but i'm leaning 55 / 45 towards dgi. But seriously, both of you (and others) are making some damn fine points.
UnNa7uRal
Rock Star
Silver Level
Here is an example to help my above mentioned statement:
http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/4411581_3203D06E2F
This happened just now now with 26k stack with 3k avarage I dunno what to do. ^_^ I don't say it doesn't feels good but..
http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/4411581_3203D06E2F
This happened just now
now with 26k stack with 3k avarage I dunno what to do. ^_^ I don't say it doesn't feels good but..
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RamdeeBen
Legend
Silver Level
You know, in live MTT's I can imagine taking flips much more often at early stages purely from hands per hour perspective as we likely won't get another chance. I understand what you're saying we get to play more pots etc.
I'm not saying it's not an advantage as such because obviously having more chips can't ever be a bad thing. I just personally don't see it being like hugely that much more of an advantage as it would towards middle stages even. Flipping to me just makes more sense middle/late stages. And yes; we can take a beat or two or get crippled but still be ok, I understand that's a good thing.
In tournament play; in general 100bb is a healthy stack? How often do games really get so much deeper in poker tournaments? It's rare for me to see and even FT's you usually have one chip leader with a 100+bb stack and then obviously smaller stacks. I totally agree that having 200bb over 100bb is a huge advantage; but not in the early stages but again that's just me
Ok; well maybe the limits or games you play being higher might have that effect but honestly; even to this day from what I see the fish love playing pots early stages and are in nearly most pots on a deeper stack but as soon as antes are in play, average stack size has got a lot shorter and we're approaching bubble time or are actually in the money I find the complete opposite and this is where I find most fold equity exists along with having a big stack is where the advantage comes into play! Again, that's just my experience so far.
I understand what you're saying, I do. It just seems quite marginal EV spots especially to give vs fish.
The problem I find; is that if we are wanting to flip so very often early even doubling up once, losing another etc why did we take the first flip to double our stack to use to our advantage as the table bully, to then now take a 50/50 spot again? For this to work and build a huge stack; we're going to literally hope we run like god in a ton of flips really often where I think it's just quiet high variance when we can take lower variance routes and chip up regularly and often.
I don't dispute they come in handy especially when you get seated with a big stack donk and you can stack them or take a decent chunk of their chips.
Ok; I understand that logic. It makes sense. I still feel though given there are soooooo many fish early doors in a tournament and stack sizes being bigger to start with we have plenty more guys to take stacks from playing post flop where as obviously when we get deeper; there's going to be fewer donks and less 100bb stacks we can take for example. Say we have a table of 5 fish early stages which is common; why not try play as many flops with them as possible and potentially stack a few of them in better equity spots rather than taking that one flip to hope to double? Not sure if that makes sense but I hope you know what I mean.
That's the thing; maybe because you play high limit MTT's and there are less fish it makes more sense but I do believe most players with a TAG game playing small stake online MTT's can chip up quite regularly and I manage to do that quite often rather than taking those flips early. I'm by no means great, far from it; I'm not saying that and given your stakes you obviously are a much better player but it just seems marginal to me taking those flips.
I just find that there is ample of time and enough hands within that time to take a bad players chips and given the variance already involved in tournament play I'm just not sure I want to increase my variance. Maybe because I play several tables I notice it less; I'm not sure but usually if I see a fish I'm just wanting to try play as many flops with them rather than stacking pre on a flip.
Yeah for sure; I know a better spot might not come and of course flipping is always going to be +EV in tournaments I don't dispute that.
Also; not sure if this has been missed but I'm not saying I don't and won't shove into a fish if there's a donk/fish in a raised pot early stages as I will and do quite often because there's dead money and of course we have fold equity. It's just I never, or rarely will call a flip (unless I'm committed) if I'm pretty sure that's going to be the case.
I was under the impression from your posts that you call of stacks pre vs fish all the time in the early stages.
Maybe I phrased that wrong. Of course a multi way pot which has all that money in pre is valuable when we have a big stack given and what you said we could do post flop gives us an advantage, true. What I meant was; trying to steal small blinds when there's no dead money in the middle or getting stacks in pre on the flips.
I just still think we can still have that decent chip advantage and build a stack early stages whilst still putting pressure on other stacks in the example hand you just gave.
Well; I apologize to for sounding a bit condescending. I also do like a good debate and poker discussion in general though. Anyway; I appreciate your replies and time to give me your opinions on why and I understand why you do what you do.
Given what you have said yourself and multiple others have agreed, it might be clear I'm wrong however (there's always a however) I really still don't think flipping is necessary vs the fish early levels and only do in general against the good players as I feel this will be my best EV against that player type. Maybe in the future this might change, I dunno.
As I say; I appreciate your argument and obviously if you're a live pro etc you're doing things right.
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RamdeeBen
Legend
Silver Level
Yeah; for sure it's +EV to stack on a flip in a tournament but I just feel there is more of a +EV in the tournament buy-ins I play anyway to see many more flops vs these players as opposed to stacking them pre with flips but that's just my opinion
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tohos
Rock Star
Silver Level
I think this is just a preference and stylistic choice rather than either one being the correct way over the other.
dgi and ramdeebam both makes very good points. My personal preference and playstyle leans more towards ramdeebam.
The argument basically boils down to the chance to accumulate alot of chips at early stages and not wanting to take unnecessary variance swings because you have an edge over the field.
Whether you want to take the flips or not depends on your comfort level and ability playing different stack sizes.
Some like dgi are more comfortable and feel that they have more room to maneuver when they have big stacks and having one early on gives them a better shot at taking down the tournament and they'd rather have it as soon as possible. Basically prefers to utilise a big stack to get what they want. Anyway dgi have explained the benefits better than I can since I don't play this way but I understand the reasons for it and learnt about it before.
From ram's side, there is no need to take unnecessary risk against a field you have an edge over. Having a big stack early doesn't mean you win the tournament. You will still have plenty of opportunities to chip up in more +EV spots. Tournament life is more valuable because you can still get those chips later in the tournament and it doesn't matter when you get them. All that matters is you will get all the chips in the end and you have no reason to flip at the beginning of the tournament.
I prefer not to take unnecessary risk early on when there are still plenty of fish. This does NOT mean you fold 95% of hands. When you see opportunities to see profitable flops you're still going to take them. It is just that you are fine no matter how few chips you have. However again don't take it to the extreme and just nit up.
What is important is to find your own sweet spot and style you can play to efficiently win chips. I am not as experienced as dgi or ram but it seems to me like just a stylistic difference. It may be that I'm just starting out and fields are so soft that tournament life is more valuable however I've seen alot of fishes in 3 digit buy in tournaments from hand histories/videos.
dgi you say you are looking at the picture of whole tournament by trying to double up early but people will always catch up to you somewhere along the tournament and the early advantage you had won't matter much when the real money is being played for.
It sets you up well to get to the stage where you will be playing for what matters but personally I feel you're always set up to get to that stage by just having the skill advantage and some luck.
dgi and ramdeebam both makes very good points. My personal preference and playstyle leans more towards ramdeebam.
The argument basically boils down to the chance to accumulate alot of chips at early stages and not wanting to take unnecessary variance swings because you have an edge over the field.
Whether you want to take the flips or not depends on your comfort level and ability playing different stack sizes.
Some like dgi are more comfortable and feel that they have more room to maneuver when they have big stacks and having one early on gives them a better shot at taking down the tournament and they'd rather have it as soon as possible. Basically prefers to utilise a big stack to get what they want. Anyway dgi have explained the benefits better than I can since I don't play this way but I understand the reasons for it and learnt about it before.
From ram's side, there is no need to take unnecessary risk against a field you have an edge over. Having a big stack early doesn't mean you win the tournament. You will still have plenty of opportunities to chip up in more +EV spots. Tournament life is more valuable because you can still get those chips later in the tournament and it doesn't matter when you get them. All that matters is you will get all the chips in the end and you have no reason to flip at the beginning of the tournament.
I prefer not to take unnecessary risk early on when there are still plenty of fish. This does NOT mean you fold 95% of hands. When you see opportunities to see profitable flops you're still going to take them. It is just that you are fine no matter how few chips you have. However again don't take it to the extreme and just nit up.
What is important is to find your own sweet spot and style you can play to efficiently win chips. I am not as experienced as dgi or ram but it seems to me like just a stylistic difference. It may be that I'm just starting out and fields are so soft that tournament life is more valuable however I've seen alot of fishes in 3 digit buy in tournaments from hand histories/videos.
dgi you say you are looking at the picture of whole tournament by trying to double up early but people will always catch up to you somewhere along the tournament and the early advantage you had won't matter much when the real money is being played for.
It sets you up well to get to the stage where you will be playing for what matters but personally I feel you're always set up to get to that stage by just having the skill advantage and some luck.
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bernotas22
Legend
Silver Level
Here is an example to help my above mentioned statement:
http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/4411581_3203D06E2F
This happened just now
thats great, i thought you might get sucked out with that much people in the pot all in, how did you end up doing in this tourney? did you bully people around with that titanic stack you had early on?
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Flsnookman
Rock Star
Silver Level
Imho, early on is a bad time to flip but for different reasons than the ones stated. Early in most mtts there are a lot of weaker players. I feel since I have an edge vs these players I can gain more chips by outplaying them. Later on when I am the weaker player and am at risk of being outplayed, this is when I want to play big pot flips. Again thats just me and im sure there are players here advanced enough to never be the weak player so whatever works. Good luck.
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DunningKruger
Legend
Silver Level
It's a bit strange that anyone would assume a new member is someone who used to post awhile back and then stopped. I have the same mannerisms I suppose? A similar posting style? I'm curious as to this person's stakes and win rate so that I can decide whether to be flattered or offended.
Regarding the topic at hand, some of the things you're saying are true to an extent. You can be too reckless early in an MTT just as you can be too nitty, and knowing where to draw the line depends on the speed of the format, general aggressiveness of the field, payout, and so on. Generally there will be more value in playing to win instead of playing to min cash. I just want to make sure some of his comments are being understood because he's making a couple of excellent points about the pitfalls of waiting around for slightly higher percentage spots. Every MTT novice knows your last and final chip is the most valuable and that it goes downhill from there, and everyone knows that protecting your tournament life in any freeze out format is key. Not everyone realizes though just how beneficial it can actually be not having to hover around fairly dangerous stack sizes for a considerable stretch of the tournament, where one lost pot (for whatever the reason) of any substantial size can skull **** you quite thoroughly. Conventional wisdom advocates going after or stacking off with players who can't eliminate or severely cripple you, so ofc it's quite handy playing with a large stack at any blind level.
Too many MTT regs are frequently making bad folds with dead money in the pot and a fair amount of their own chips already invested, just because the blinds aren't putting enough pressure on them yet. They don't take opportunities to isolate weak players in position and again dead money abound, because they risk getting themselves in a marginal situation. The less risks you take early on the more you'll have to take later on. The best argument in favour of making such folds is that a lot of players are way too tight in the early going and if they jam on you (pre in particular) it's pretty reliably a monster. That's something I fully concede, it's just that the topic is discussing flips.
The sooner you can double up, the better. Even if you tighten up afterward (or suddenly stop getting any opportunities at all to play a hand, which happens) you still more or less have those chips with you once blinds are higher and most of the fish have given their stacks away... which is right around the time a much tighter player in the early going ends up looking to try and double their stack.
Being the one to jam as opposed to being the guy who calls if off is pretty important. It goes beyond fold equity. Anyway if you're called and your hand doesn't hold (or you run into something bigger) and it's early in the tournament it's pretty much gg and your buy in is gone. I get that, but if you're inching your way toward the bubble and your stack is such that you need to constantly steal, resteal, take any flips you end up getting, etc to stay afloat and one of those situations doesn't go your way and you don't end up cashing not only is your buy in gone but also several hours of your time on top of that. Time is money to any winning poker player, and this shouldn't be overlooked even though it often is. There is something to be said for having whether or not you're going to cash all but decided at a much earlier point in the tournament as opposed to much later.
Obv if you're running really well and you foresee that continuing you can forfeit all the spots with marginal equity and still have enough situations presented to you where you can get it in as a 3 to 1 favourite or better and have a very nice chip stack going into the bubble and beyond. The less idiots there are in the event you're playing, the less likely this is to actually happen.
Regarding the topic at hand, some of the things you're saying are true to an extent. You can be too reckless early in an MTT just as you can be too nitty, and knowing where to draw the line depends on the speed of the format, general aggressiveness of the field, payout, and so on. Generally there will be more value in playing to win instead of playing to min cash. I just want to make sure some of his comments are being understood because he's making a couple of excellent points about the pitfalls of waiting around for slightly higher percentage spots. Every MTT novice knows your last and final chip is the most valuable and that it goes downhill from there, and everyone knows that protecting your tournament life in any freeze out format is key. Not everyone realizes though just how beneficial it can actually be not having to hover around fairly dangerous stack sizes for a considerable stretch of the tournament, where one lost pot (for whatever the reason) of any substantial size can skull **** you quite thoroughly. Conventional wisdom advocates going after or stacking off with players who can't eliminate or severely cripple you, so ofc it's quite handy playing with a large stack at any blind level.
Too many MTT regs are frequently making bad folds with dead money in the pot and a fair amount of their own chips already invested, just because the blinds aren't putting enough pressure on them yet. They don't take opportunities to isolate weak players in position and again dead money abound, because they risk getting themselves in a marginal situation. The less risks you take early on the more you'll have to take later on. The best argument in favour of making such folds is that a lot of players are way too tight in the early going and if they jam on you (pre in particular) it's pretty reliably a monster. That's something I fully concede, it's just that the topic is discussing flips.
The sooner you can double up, the better. Even if you tighten up afterward (or suddenly stop getting any opportunities at all to play a hand, which happens) you still more or less have those chips with you once blinds are higher and most of the fish have given their stacks away... which is right around the time a much tighter player in the early going ends up looking to try and double their stack.
Being the one to jam as opposed to being the guy who calls if off is pretty important. It goes beyond fold equity. Anyway if you're called and your hand doesn't hold (or you run into something bigger) and it's early in the tournament it's pretty much gg and your buy in is gone. I get that, but if you're inching your way toward the bubble and your stack is such that you need to constantly steal, resteal, take any flips you end up getting, etc to stay afloat and one of those situations doesn't go your way and you don't end up cashing not only is your buy in gone but also several hours of your time on top of that. Time is money to any winning poker player, and this shouldn't be overlooked even though it often is. There is something to be said for having whether or not you're going to cash all but decided at a much earlier point in the tournament as opposed to much later.
Obv if you're running really well and you foresee that continuing you can forfeit all the spots with marginal equity and still have enough situations presented to you where you can get it in as a 3 to 1 favourite or better and have a very nice chip stack going into the bubble and beyond. The less idiots there are in the event you're playing, the less likely this is to actually happen.
zEric7x
Visionary
Silver Level
I only ever played free rolls so I wont try to pretend to be a good MTT player. I personally agree with the taking risk early strategy. I guess playing free rolls has to do with that. I am more likely to take risks because I know I have nothing to lose but time.
dgiharris
Rock Star
Silver Level
I love to use math in arguments. A little while ago I created a Live Tournament Winrate Calculator to figure out what your theoretical Live Tournament winrate would be. The calculator is 100% free to download (see below link
)https://www.cardschat.com/forum/pok...ournament-winrate-calculator-100-free-227041/
Lets look at exactly what my strategy does for your winrate vs the typical strategy of waiting till later to flip. Obviously there are various assumptions to be made but please for the sake of argument lets just normalize the conditions so we can compare apples to apples math wise.
For the sake of argument, lets assume that there are 2 players Doug and Ron with IDENTICAL winning stats as far cashout placements go. However, the difference between the two players is that Doug is aggressive early in the tournament taking flips and doubling up or busting out whereas Ron is aggressive later in the tournament doubling up or busting out. In this hypothetical scenario throughout the tournament both players take "three" total flips, its just that Doug takes his flips early whereas Ron's takes his flips later....
As a result, the majority of Doug's bust outs (75%) are Early in the tournament whereas the majority of Ron's bust outs (75%) are later in the tournament near the bubble. These figures are located in the "Players Bust Out Stats" section of the model on the bottom left corner...
Here are what the resulting winrates would look like.
Ron's winrate is $30/hr
Whereas Doug's winrate is $50/hr
Obviously in real life there would be other factors involved but this model just shows you the underlying trend.
Lastly, if you consider yourself a serious tournament player (especially a live tourney player) then you need to download my spreadsheet
play around with the figures and you will often be surprised at what your actual winrate is. And if you play cash games as well then you can compare your tourney winrate with your cash game winrate to figure out which tournaments are worth your time...
Paragon
Enthusiast
Silver Level
The middle stages of the tournament are when the coin flips really take place. In the early stages, just keep tight and only go in with the nuts, as the blinds as very low. You want to go into the final table with a large stack or nothing (lose a coin flip).
dgiharris
Rock Star
Silver Level
Here is something that I would invite us all to stop and think about.
Why do we "need" the blinds to pressure us into being aggressive.
I find it funny that a player can bleed down to 8bb near the bubble, get K6o in the CO and then shove all-in to try to steal the blinds and antes.
However, that same player early in a tournament will have 55bb, be dealt JJ, have a pot with 12bb dead money in it and is facing a shove from an aggro and said player has no problem folding citing its "too early" to flip...
But if you take that same player, give him JJ w 8bb in MP and both UTG and UTG+1 shove that same player would have ZERO problem being 3rd one into the pot with JJ for stacks because "He has no choice..."
So the question we need to ask ourselves is why is it that we need to have our backs to the wall and have "no choice" in order for us to be aggressive? Why do we need that "blind pressure" in order for us to be comfortable putting our tournament life at risk?
I think that the "conventional wisdom" about not risking our tournament life early is so prevalent that most players have never thought about the above and asked themselves why.
Why is it that later in a tournament we comfortable shoving for stakes with INFERIOR hands (15% - 40% equity if called) yet early in a tournament we are not comfortable shoving (or calling shoves) with hands that likely have decent equity (45% - 55%) if called???
Again, all this emphasis on blinds. Just because the blinds are low doesn't mean you won't have pots that are worth fighting for.
Lets say we are at Round 2, blinds are 50/100. Eff stacks and average stacks are at 8k chips.
V1 opens for 400, V2 calls, V3 calls, V4 calls, Hero is in the big blind with AKs. Hero???
If we shove for 8k the pot is 1600 and we can win it outright. But if we are called and are up against JJ/QQ then we are flipping 46/54
why not shove now? Shoving is +EV especially since there are plenty of players who will fold JJ/QQ in this spot because "its too early"
There are also ancillary benefits for shoving. We shove with AK now and win, then later when we get AA/KK we are so much more likely to get action pre and post flop. Its amazing how well that AK shove will stick in our villains' heads. We raise pre with AA get 2 callers, flop comes X Y Z and we shove and they will snap call us with TPGK because "they put us on AK"...
anyways, just saying, just because the blinds are low doesn't mean there won't be pots worth fighting for early in a tourney...
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