Mason Review: small pair, first in on button

[ptmusic]

In critiquing the Poker Tournament Formula's advice of almost always open-raising, Mason gives an example,

"So if you had an “M” of let’s say 25 or higher, are first in on the button with a small pair, the players in the blinds have lots of chips, you should raise and reduce your chance of winning a very large pot. I hope most readers see the fallacy here."

Reducing the chance of winning a very large pot is certainly not a good goal. But what is the correct play here? Limp? Fold? I don't see why open-raising on the button holding a small pair with M's of 25+ is wrong.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi ptmusic:

It's not necessarily wrong, but it doesn't have to be right either. When having a large M, increasing it by 1 doesn't do you much good. On the other hand, when you have a large M, doubling up or just adding a lot of chips is what you should be striving for.

On the other hand, if both you and the players in the blinds have large Ms and these are loose players who like to call a lot of raises, then a raise on your part might be the better play since it might allow you to win more chips in case you do flop a set since now all the bets from the flop on will be bigger.

Notice that this isn't really a tournament problem. Instead, it's a poker decision and has nothing to do with tournament speed.

best wishes,
Mason

[Mano]

Mason,
I read much of the debate about fast tournaments vs. slow, and your opinion that the speed of the tournament should not effect a persons strategy, but rather just rely on the M value. The question I would have is that since M is effectively a measure of how many rounds of blinds/antes one has left, wouldn't the effective M value be changed if the blinds went up very quickly? For example, say you have 45 betting units (BU's) and the blinds are 1 and 2 BU's. Your M value is 15, meaning you have enough chips for 15 rounds of blinds. But suppose that the blinds double every orbit. Now you pay 3 BU's this round, 6 BU's the following round, then 12 then 24. So we actually only have enough chips to pay for 4 rounds of blinds, thus an "effective M" of 4, vs. the M calculated by just looking at the current blinds of 15, and it seems that more aggressive play would be called for than if the blinds were being increased every 5 or 10 orbits. This seems reasonable to me, but I am by no means a poker or tournament expert, so if my reasoning is flawed I would welcome you pointing out my mistakes. Thanks.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
Mason,
I read much of the debate about fast tournaments vs. slow, and your opinion that the speed of the tournament should not effect a persons strategy, but rather just rely on the M value. The question I would have is that since M is effectively a measure of how many rounds of blinds/antes one has left, wouldn't the effective M value be changed if the blinds went up very quickly? For example, say you have 45 betting units (BU's) and the blinds are 1 and 2 BU's. Your M value is 15, meaning you have enough chips for 15 rounds of blinds. But suppose that the blinds double every orbit. Now you pay 3 BU's this round, 6 BU's the following round, then 12 then 24. So we actually only have enough chips to pay for 4 rounds of blinds, thus an "effective M" of 4, vs. the M calculated by just looking at the current blinds of 15, and it seems that more aggressive play would be called for than if the blinds were being increased every 5 or 10 orbits. This seems reasonable to me, but I am by no means a poker or tournament expert, so if my reasoning is flawed I would welcome you pointing out my mistakes. Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I mentioned the same idea in one of the threads in the Books forum.

Harrington says you should lower your M when the table becomes shorthanded, because your "effective" M is lower: you have fewer orbits to play with your stack. A fast blind structure lowers your effective M as well.

If M were always defined as the number of orbits remaining, we would not need any more debates about tournament speed.

[EstavanCruz]

Let's see here. Have you actually sat down with a notepad and recorded your results raising off the button first in with low pairs? And furthermore, record the results separately to include tight player, aggressive player, call station, etc when you do? I usually always raise to steal from the button ifI have any kind of hand to fall back on, but remember to protect your chips and don't go crazy with the bet amount. Consider stack sizes too. Against a big stack in the blind you are likely to get called with any two paint cards, and likely to be raised all in by the dangerous short stack with any two paints. Big stack and short stack are dangerous to you. However, a medium stack can afford to fold, but not afford to call loosely with mediocre hands. Bet what you think will win the pot against hands like K8, A4 etc..keeping in mind the pot odds you are offering them. But if you get played back at what do you do then? 22-99 not looking so great if you get re-raised more than 5X the blind, but you are still somewhat of a coinflip unless running against higher pairs. I find that I win more than I lose raising from the blind with small pairs. As far as taking away the chances of winning a big pot hmmmm....How many times do you flop trips with low pairs? I know that when you do it is going to be a big pot, so I do try to vary my play. I raise more than I limp. Limping almost inspires someone to play back at you from the blinds with any A, KQ, JQ, JK etc. AND... if you get played back at how do you know you are not up against a bigger pair? I think it is always better to have more info to make decisions, therefore by betting you can see where you stand most of the time. Will cost you less in the long run if have the info you need to make a good laydown, or good bet to take the pot. A lesson I learned early on is that when I have a decent stack, why give somebody else 50% chance to take my chips? I would rather be giving a 35% chance, and according to Sklansky, let them make a mistake calling without odds/good cards and capitalize.

[EstavanCruz]

OK, I read the otherposts and have something to add. As far as M goes...When the blinds are 25 50, and you have 5000 then you have 50 times the blind right? You obviously don't have to take as many risks to steal the low blinds-what does it get you anyway? risking chips for such a small return. I am not saying that when the opportunity presents itself not to steal-by all means do! Just why take the risk early on that could damage your stack for such a low return compared to when the blinds are higher. When the blinds are at 300 600 then that changes things. 6 orbits with 5000 chips and you are toast if you don't do something! We all know cards come and sometimes they don't! YOu just can't wait, and you must not give up on the opportunity to get those blinds as aften as you can.

Now you have invaded that comfortable zone and orbits become an issue. How many times must I win the blinds per orbit to stay ahead and keep building my stack, and what happens (how much do I lose) if I do not keep up? My first tournaments were a classic exaple of not doing the math to figure my play. Sure, the hands I was in I won most, but was not going after the blinds aggressively enough to try to stay ahead of the ante and the blind and I was going broke. I could make it to the last 15 or so players, but my stack was pitifully small andI had to take bigger risks earlier to go on. I would much rather have a bigger stack, and so would you. I plugged this leak in my game, and I am aware of where I stand at all times in relation to how many orbits I have left in me and what I have to try to accomplish to stay in it. I think this is a very important concept in a tourney. It is no fun being blinded out.

[EstavanCruz]

my math is wrong, and yes I am embarrassed. 25 50 with 5000 chips is 100X BB not 50. And 66 orbits without ante. Never forget the ante either,it keeps eating you up, chipping away like a hatchet on a big tree but it still hurts.

[ptmusic]

When you calculate the 66 orbits, you are not only leaving out antes out of the equation, you are also leaving out the blind structure, aka the tournament speed. And that is precisely the issue at hand.

There may be 66 orbits in your stack, and there may be 5 orbits in your stack.

[jjacky]

let's have a look at 2 situations:

1. the one you described in your post. we have a M of 15, but we can last only 4 rounds by folding because the blinds go up rapidly.
2. we have a M of 4 and the blinds go up much slower.

now we steal the blinds in both situations. what changes?

1. we have a M of 16 now, but we still last only 4 rounds when folding.
2. we have a M of 5 now and we will last one round longer.

i hope that makes your falacy clear: the risk reward ratio depends on the M, not the number of rounds you can last, considering the increasing blinds.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
let's have a look at 2 situations:

1. the one you described in your post. we have a M of 15, but we can last only 4 rounds by folding because the blinds go up rapidly.
2. we have a M of 4 and the blinds go up much slower.

now we steal the blinds in both situations. what changes?

1. we have a M of 16 now, but we still last only 4 rounds when folding.
2. we have a M of 5 now and we will last one round longer.

i hope that makes your falacy clear: the risk reward ratio depends on the M, not the number of rounds you can last, considering the increasing blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are other issues involved besides just "now we steal the blinds...."

- The blinds become more and more difficult to steal the more desperate your opponents believe you are. And that perception is not purely about your present stack size, it is also about your stack size in the near future.

- Stealing blinds is not the only goal anyway. You want to double up, which is a much bigger tournament effecting event in the larger M case. In a very fast tournament structure, you have few-to-no opportunities before your M dwindles to the point where doubling up still leaves you looking desperate.

So while it is true that the risk/reward ratio for stealing is lower for the lower M, one cannot ignore the high risk/reward ratio for playing too tight simply because at the moment you have a big M.

Regardless of the above discussion, I still contend that the definition of M needs to be clarified. Sometimes it refers to how many orbits you have left. Other times it refers to your stack to blinds&antes ratio. Sometimes that ratio is reduced based on the number of players at the table.