Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

When I bumped into Daniel at the Bellagio today I double checked with him about his view on gambling high proportions of his stack (without a big edge) early in a no limit holdem tournament. And of course he was against the idea, for him and all excellent players. Just as I said he would be.

I think the reason beginners and players with weak reading comprehension skills are under the incorrect impression that Daniel disagrees with me on this subject is that when I say to avoid big confrontations early, they incorrectly translate that into "play tight", and when Daniel writes that he "plays loose" they incorrectly assume that he means for big money as well as small.

Yes Daniel is an advocate of trying to build your stack up early. But only by playing "small ball" for the most part. With weak players starting the tournament, good players should get involved in a lot of pots if they can get in cheaply. And they should take small risks to double or triple their stacks in the first few rounds. Some pros don't do that and Daniel and I agree that they are wrong. But we also agree that if you have tripled that starting stack early you have no way tripled your equity if you are a good player. So big gambles with small edges are not part of the game plan.

If you still don't understand, (as apparently Arnold Snyder doesn't), you have no hope.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

No, I recognize the style he plays. He's limpaggro, if there is such a term. He likes seeing a lot of pots and extracting from his post-flop advantage. That's probably where you and he differ on the definition of "smallball"...

And even his propensity for having a loose image works well for him. He builds stacks as well as anybody, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of his stack builds came from getting paid off on his monsters in addition to trapping weaker players with very deceptive openers.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
When I bumped into Daniel at the Bellagio today I double checked with him about his view on gambling high proportions of his stack (without a big edge) early in a no limit holdem tournament. And of course he was against the idea, for him and all excellent players. Just as I said he would be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming the good player has an average stack, he has no need to expose 40% or more of his stack to gambles that are borderline on a risk-adjusted basis, as a mediocre player might. He can afford to wait-- to avoid +EV close gambles with a substantial portion of his stack. His skill allows him to opt out.

This is because an average stack, in the hands of a good player, early in a tournament, is much more valuable than that same stack in the same stage of this event, in the hands of a mediocre player. Why? Because those chips in the hands of the good player have much more implied earning power across the entire length of the tournament. The bad player needs to take shots at close gambles because the event is going to evaporate his chips-- because he can't see spots to get cute. He has limited ability to perceive opportunity, compared to the good player. His play is of lower quality because he literally CANNOT and DOES NOT SEE what the good player sees.

He has fewer plays in his bag of tricks. And the plays he does have are primitive, compared to the good player.

The chips of the mediocre evaporate over time and he has no choice but to engage in close gambles. His limited perception of opportunity makes each additional hand dealt a kind of nail in his coffin. The good player on the other hand (same stack, same stage) is consciously gathering edges and getting increased chances of survival with each hand played. Other players busting, the larger sample size, more observed data points on remaining and new opponents at the table all favor the good player-- who makes plays at small pots with good risk-adjusted properties early in the event. Note that the good player actually makes a more correct assessment of the true risk/reward ratio on a per-play basis than the merely competent player. Thus his "small-ball" plays are of MUCH higher quality than 95% of the players when he makes them. This greatly improves (risk-adjusted) Sharpe Ratio .

Note also that the mediocre player usually plays 100% correctly (for him) when he takes big gambles with small edges early. The good player-- fully knowing this-- gets out of the way.


[ QUOTE ]
Yes Daniel is an advocate of trying to build your stack up early. But only by playing "small ball" for the most part. With weak players starting the tournament, good players should get involved in a lot of pots if they can get in cheaply. And they should take small risks to double or triple their stacks in the first few rounds. Some pros don't do that and Daniel and I agree that they are wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is smart for good players to look for good risk-adjusted spots to gather chips in the early stages. This is because the potential earning power of chips held by good players makes it right to avoid large-magnitude gambles with them EARLY in an event-- and play "looser" when and where the risk-adjusted gamble (Sharpe ratio) makes sense.

This is not weak-tight play. Avoiding small-edge gambles with substantial stack consquences may look weak-tight but early in a tournament structure, it's not. The tourney structure favors (and yes, in fact rewards) this kind of play from good players in the early stages. (Sharpe)

[ QUOTE ]
But we also agree that if you have tripled that starting stack early you have no way tripled your equity if you are a good player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Q: David will you please explain why in 3 or 4 sentences? Is it because the good player merely keeping pace with the average-stack is not gaining any real equity advantage? Is it because he is not getting full compensation for his overlay in skills? Or both?

Or is it simply the classic arithmetic reasons behind why each incremental chip gained loses value (per TPFAP)?

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

I think there is a misunderstanding when I mentioned the name Negreanu. Daniel takes a lot of stabs at pots. That's in line with Snyder's suggested style. I didn't mean that Daniel would try to push people out with moving all-in all the time - something which has been recommended by Snyder also, if my memory doesn't fail me.

Also Daniel did make some "huge" calls in the HU match with Fossilman. I think the last hand was played for a ton of chips and he had something like 2nd pair - have to check that one though. I know by now that HU was out of scope of the discussion, but it was another reason why I mentioned him.

If we want to talk about more or less prominent examples, I would like to bring the name Tuan Lee into focus. Barry Greenstein has said more than once that Tuan would be either the first guy to bust out or get very far in a tournament.

Last but not least, I think it is vital for tournament success to have your mother bring you homecooked food to the table. Did I mention Negreanu yet?

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?

-J

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?

-J

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily, because if you DO get action in this scenario, I'd be willing to bet that you don't want it...

JMO

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]

If you still don't understand, (as apparently Arnold Snyder doesn't), you have no hope.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL The brutal honesty. Well said.
Regards,
Carl

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?
-J

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. If he's raising 70% or more of his hands (like he claims to in recent articles) all you really have to do is quadruple his bet preflop and he's going to have to fold a good majority of the time.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

Well obviously why would negraneau risk his tourney life on flips when he generally builds a pretty huge stack without doing so playing small ball. Not a surprise.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?

-J

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily, because if you DO get action in this scenario, I'd be willing to bet that you don't want it...

JMO

[/ QUOTE ]

And no TAG's going to be able to exploit Negreanu unless he resteals from him consistently, and in the span of 5 confrontations, Negreanu is going to be way ahead with one and the opponent will think he's going to felt him given action. And by the point those confronations start to happen, Negreanu has cushioned himself by already accumulating a stack advantage.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

This whole chipvalue debate still makes me wonder about something. What is the chiplead, that ability to threaten the whole table with elimination, worth? Can we quantify it somehow?

If chips lose value the more you have of them, but having the chiplead gains you some sort of different value in terms of bully-steroids, what's the ratio between these aspects?

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
When I bumped into Daniel at the Bellagio today I double checked with him about his view on gambling high proportions of his stack (without a big edge) early in a no limit holdem tournament. And of course he was against the idea, for him and all excellent players. Just as I said he would be.

I think the reason beginners and players with weak reading comprehension skills are under the incorrect impression that Daniel disagrees with me on this subject is that when I say to avoid big confrontations early, they incorrectly translate that into "play tight", and when Daniel writes that he "plays loose" they incorrectly assume that he means for big money as well as small.

Yes Daniel is an advocate of trying to build your stack up early. But only by playing "small ball" for the most part. With weak players starting the tournament, good players should get involved in a lot of pots if they can get in cheaply. And they should take small risks to double or triple their stacks in the first few rounds. Some pros don't do that and Daniel and I agree that they are wrong. But we also agree that if you have tripled that starting stack early you have no way tripled your equity if you are a good player. So big gambles with small edges are not part of the game plan.

If you still don't understand, (as apparently Arnold Snyder doesn't), you have no hope.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the reason why we think they disagree with you is because players like Paul Phillips, William Chen, Matt Matros, Greg Raymer and Dan Harrington have stated they they disagree with you (or at least make statements that contradict yours).

I don't many here regard Danial as a great poker theorist.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

I'm not certain, and let me toss in a few more variables to make it interesting. The chip lead at a table would have to be of a decided advantage to any other stack at the table.

And in any HU confrontation, the advantage would need to be at least 2.5-1 to assure the table CL a valuable advantage over the table average, even after losing the hand. This could create a scenario in which the CL could knowingly assume slightly -cEV post-flop expectation so he would be able to limp or call with a wider range of hands.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

I don't disagree, however, he's not the most articulate of writers when it comes to describing how he plays.

But you can't take away from the fact that he is consistently one of the better tournament players on the circuit. And when it comes down to it, he steps up his game to a level that no fundamental theorist can really quantify or even match in a tournament.

Let's be frank here. Given a 100-tournament comparsion, Negreanu's going to come out ahead in +$EV valuation over Harrington, even if Harrington's consistency will assure him of a more accurate estimate on their comparable ROI's.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

what's the over/under on how many threads sklansky will start regarding this topic? because i would like to take the over, regardless.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

As much as is necessary to update TPFAP, perhaps? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
what's the over/under on how many threads sklansky will start regarding this topic? because i would like to take the over, regardless.

[/ QUOTE ]As many as it takes, I hope. I think this is a very useful discussion and I'm glad he's starting these threads.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don't disagree, however, he's not the most articulate of writers when it comes to describing how he plays.


[/ QUOTE ]

He has also been known to have gigantic swings in his chips stack during events.

I would like to know how many times he has actually folded a hand to an allin when he thought he had an edge.

Some things are that being missed here are any discussions of pot sizes and % of stack already committed.

Perhaps in a dry pot with nothing committed he would fold, but in a pot where he had 15% or more of his chips already in play he would call even if the estimated EV where the same.

Maybe David had bad breath and Daniel just gave him an answer he thought would shut David up so he would leave him alone?

No one that plays poker for a living "likes" getting all in without a big edge at any point, but that doesn't mean they will fold it either. Look what happened to Helmuth when it became known he was an easy fold target.

Harrington's KJs hand is a good example from his first book or gambling early on.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

"I think the reason why we think they disagree with you is because players like Paul Phillips, William Chen, Matt Matros, Greg Raymer and Dan Harrington have stated they they disagree with you (or at least make statements that contradict yours"

About successive chips being worth less? I don't think so. And it would only matter if William Chen did.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
"I think the reason why we think they disagree with you is because players like Paul Phillips, William Chen, Matt Matros, Greg Raymer and Dan Harrington have stated they they disagree with you (or at least make statements that contradict yours"

About successive chips being worth less? I don't think so. And it would only matter if William Chen did.

[/ QUOTE ]

All five of the players mentioned have a better understanding of the mathematics and strategy of MTTs than Negreanu. Why do most of their opinions not matter but Negreanu's does? Negreanu is a better tournament player than any of them, but he is not a better strategist.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

"Perhaps in a dry pot with nothing committed he would fold, but in a pot where he had 15% or more of his chips already in play he would call even if the estimated EV where the same."

You don't know what you are talking about. Obviously if he had 15% of his chips in the pot, to call 85% more means he is getting at least 115-85 odds. So he would call with some hands that he would fold getting even money. But there is no way he would call early in a tournament if his stack is reasonable and his positive EV is small (in this case say a 47% shot). If Raymer, Harrington, Phillips, Chen, or Mattros do it, they are either confused or think they have little playing edge against their opponents.

As to Daniel saying what he thinks I want to hear, you should know that he gave permission for me to write what he said. Not something he would do if he didn't mean it.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

Well, of course. More so than table selection, choosing when and where to apply your edges in a deepstacked MTT simply comes down to recognizing situations instead of pushing every edge.

He doesn't assume, he knows his postflop edge is much bigger than that of the aforementioned players. I wouldn't be surprised if he busted out of very few tournaments in the early stages, but that his busts occurred when he was trying to build a gigantic stack. And he has such huge expectation with the style he plays, in which his core game revolves around implied odds and the ability to take massive hits to his stack and rebuild...

That is a style that works for a rare, rare breed of players. It may even be mathematically wrong, but I'm not sure you can contradict his results. He simply goes for the win. Every tournament... Of all theortical opponents, I think that kind of limpaggro opponent is the hardest to adjust to and play against, especially since it's incredibly difficult to induce mistakes from him postflop.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

"Why do most of their opinions not matter"

Because David believes that William Chen may be the smartest poker player alive.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

i'm surprised he left paul phillips out of the "opinions mattering" post though.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
i'm surprised he left paul phillips out of the "opinions mattering" post though.

[/ QUOTE ]

read his MIT thread from way back. reputation >>>>> truth.

though he is right on the substance of his claims this time around.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

i don't know what thread that refers to. link?

wasn't paul phillips listed as sklansky's 10th smartest player? it's always seemed fairly obvious to me that paul phillips has a brilliant poker mind, and if he actually disagreed with sklansky, i would be very interested to hear the arguments.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
"Perhaps in a dry pot with nothing committed he would fold, but in a pot where he had 15% or more of his chips already in play he would call even if the estimated EV where the same."

You don't know what you are talking about. Obviously if he had 15% of his chips in the pot, to call 85% more means he is getting at least 115-85 odds. So he would call with some hands that he would fold getting even money. But there is no way he would call early in a tournament if his stack is reasonable and his positive EV is small (in this case say a 47% shot). If Raymer, Harrington, Phillips, Chen, or Mattros do it, they are either confused or think they have little playing edge against their opponents.

As to Daniel saying what he thinks I want to hear, you should know that he gave permission for me to write what he said. Not something he would do if he didn't mean it.

[/ QUOTE ]


Actually, you dont know what I am talking about.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
"I think the reason why we think they disagree with you is because players like Paul Phillips, William Chen, Matt Matros, Greg Raymer and Dan Harrington have stated they they disagree with you (or at least make statements that contradict yours"

About successive chips being worth less? I don't think so. And it would only matter if William Chen did.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think most of these arguements are more about semantics than substance. I would like to see some specific examples of what is being discussed.

William Chen wrote a pretty good article in a "intelligent gambler" issue on the edge needed for taking a chance for all your chips.

I think on RPG you even agreed with him that in large field tournaments that chip EV is pretty close to $EV in the early stages.

Unfortunately, I have not been following all of your posts on the subject, so I do not know what kind of overlay Daniel agreed to, and I really do not know why you care so much about Daniel agreeing with you.

Does this mean if he disagrees with you elsewhere that is proof you are wrong?

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

Tournaments Negreanu plays in =/= tournaments Snyder plays in. One would think this is ridiculously obvious.

By and large none of the big pros are going to agree, because the big pros play in much less repeatable events with extrinsic value, and it makes sense to try to maximize one's individual event finish in that circumstance.

Snyder's advice is specifically tailored to B&M dailies/weeklies, repeatable events with no extrinsic value. If you're playing in those, the only appropriate measure of success is hourly rate, and taking early coinflips will increase that.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

"Snyder's advice is specifically tailored to B&M dailies/weeklies, repeatable events with no extrinsic value. If you're playing in those, the only appropriate measure of success is hourly rate, and taking early coinflips will increase that."

Finally a correct statement. It WILL increase your hourly rate. That's of debatable importance if busting out early means you go home early. But is important if you will stay to play either a side game or another tournament. Concepts I mention specifically in my book. (Does Snyder?)

The problem is that it is completely off the subject. The ONLY thing that I'm discussing here is that Snyder wrote tons of words about how I was wrong when I say that smaller stacks, above a certain threshold are worth more per chip than larger stacks. Given you arebetter than most of the field. That's stupid even in winner take all events. Stupider still when there are multiple prizes. And when you add in that he claimed that smaller stacks are worth less than than their rightful proportion in head up games you are moving beyond stupid (because the disproof is so elementary and ironclad.)

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

I don't dispute that maximizing hourly rate is perhaps an optimal approach for low buy-in tournament players playing the Vegas circuit. Good for them. They're more likely to be the grinders who play an unimaginative, fundamentally boring, exploitable game.

I'm with Negreanu solidly where his tournament approach is concerned. Simply because, personally, as a MTT player, I'm capable of breaking out of the TAG/LAG mindset and simply playing the best poker for the situation. And I'm also good enough postflop to maximize my advantages against weaker, predictable opponents.

And as far as the mathematics of the game are concerned, that's why I came to 2p2. I, personally, as I mentioned in a MTT thread in my criticism of the general player's interpretation of the Gigabet dilemma...

Playing perfectly is not unattainable for someone like me. And that's hardly hyperbole or ego-stroking. I have those capabilities and am focusing on the disclipine and the money management skills necessary to get to that level of competition.

Poker, for me, first and foremost, is an intellectual challenge, and I think it's possible for an individual, in theory, to play perfectly. We'll see.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
"Snyder's advice is specifically tailored to B&M dailies/weeklies, repeatable events with no extrinsic value. If you're playing in those, the only appropriate measure of success is hourly rate, and taking early coinflips will increase that."

Finally a correct statement. It WILL increase your hourly rate. That's of debatable importance if busting out early means you go home early. But is important if you will stay to play either a side game or another tournament. Concepts I mention specifically in my book. (Does Snyder?)

The problem is that it is completely off the subject. The ONLY thing that I'm discussing here is that Snyder wrote tons of words about how I was wrong when I say that smaller stacks, above a certain threshold are worth more per chip than larger stacks. Given you arebetter than most of the field. That's stupid even in winner take all events. Stupider still when there are multiple prizes. And when you add in that he claimed that smaller stacks are worth less than than their rightful proportion in head up games you are moving beyond stupid (because the disproof is so elementary and ironclad.)

[/ QUOTE ]
There is a lot I agree with here. First of all, Snyder's arguments are mostly silly, particularly his claim that the player with less chips has an advantage HU. Snyder recognizes that the theory Sklansky and others propound about more chips being worth less does not always hold, but he gives the wrong reasons and tries to argue that the theory is wrong in general, which it is not.

Secondly, the hourly rate issue is important. Even if Sklanky is right in the example about doubling up at the beginning of a $500 tournament that the buyin is worth $1000 to a good player and the double up is worth $800, it would still be advantageous for the player to gamble, because if he busts out, his time is available for something else. This is the way typical ordinary pros and semipros think, particularly online, where they can fire up another tournament, or they are multitabling 7 tournaments at a time or the tournament with a bunch of cash games.

Also, Brunson said in "Super System" that he learned by watching Moss that it was better to avoid big gambles early on and survive at the WSOP. This was counter to Brunson's cash game style. Now Brunson and Moss both had huge skill advantages at the early WSOPs, strong though the field may have been. The average poster in the MTT forum has a significant skill advantage in the tournaments he plays in, but not on the level of Moss and Brunson. Even in the tournaments he plays in, Negreanu has a very large skill advantage over the field, which may lead him to avoid gambling. Also, the survival approach works better in a small event such as early WSOPs than in a large event, such as recent WSOP MEs and many online tournaments.

The other point is the nature of typical late tournament play. Early tournament play tends to be excessively loose, particularly online. Late tournament play tends to be excessively tight and survival oriented. This is particularly true approaching any kind of bubble, where typical play is extremely weak/tight. This extreme weak/tight play leads to strategies which would be incorrect otherwise becaomming correct. It is easier to take adavantage of that tight play with a big stack, particularly since weak/tight players tend to avoid a confrontation with a big stack. Therefore it may be advantageous to gamble to maintain a stack atleast twice the average stack to increase one's ability to acquire more chips.

I think TPFAP really does not address this issue much. At that time, people generally did not play NLHE tournaments full time, and certainly Sklansky didn't. At this point tournament players have more experience with typical conditions and have developed strategies to suit the conditions.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]

By and large none of the big pros are going to agree, because the big pros play in much less repeatable events with extrinsic value, and it makes sense to try to maximize one's individual event finish in that circumstance.


[/ QUOTE ]

That is only true if they only have a +EV in tournaments, and do not have a bankroll to support them in periods with of no cashes.

If the player is a great poker player, there is no reason to maximize an "individual event" finish at the detriment of long term $EV - if that is what you are saying.

For a great poker player, the gambling isn't over when the tournament ends. Why spend 3 day playing an event to end up with 20k in profit (or a 10k loss) when you can play side games where you have a good positive expectation.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

Great, cEV =/= $EV to an exact degree.

Anyone with any understanding knows that your equity doesn't increase on a scale perfectly similar to your stack.

That is not the debate (or at least isn't the meaningful one), the question is what kind of edge should be passed up. Not just conjecture, math.

2007 WSOP ME
You have t70,000
Avg stack is t22,000
You are Daniel Negreanu

Please put a number on what kind of edge should be passed up on a AIPF decision for a player of his caliber against a field the strength of the average ME. Disregard the hourly rate discussion, I am looking for the answer with the highest $EV specific to this one tournament.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

Ou, you could certainly pass on some 55/45's, perhaps some 60/40's. But not very often.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
Brunson and Moss both had huge skill advantages at the early WSOPs, strong though the field may have been. The average poster in the MTT forum has a significant skill advantage in the tournaments he plays in, but not on the level of Moss and Brunson.

[/ QUOTE ] Here's what Mason Malmuth had to say, a few years ago, about Mr Moss:

***

Posted by
Mason Malmuth
Grand Poobah
Reged: 08/28/02
Loc: Nevada

12/29/03 07:19 PM

Felicia:

I played a bunch of times with him [Johnny Moss], and his poker skills were just awful. It's hard to describe how truly bad he played. My best guess is that he averaged losing $500 to $1,000 a day at the $20-$40 limit, and a number of players got pumped up because of him. To me it's almost a crime the way he is eulogized as some type of special poker person.

By the way, I just happen to know someone, whose name I can't mention and who I don't think you would have heard of anyway, who worked for Johnny Moss as a shift manager at one of the cardrooms that he ran years ago. I think my favorite story is how Moss would empty out the drop boxes in front of the customers on an empty table at the end of a bad day so that he could keep playing poker. (He leased the room so the casino didn't care if he grabbed all the money.)

Best wishes,
Mason

***

Posted by
Mason Malmuth
Grand Poobah
Reged: 08/28/02
Loc: Nevada

12/29/03 09:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Mason, by the time you played with Moss he must have been close to 75 and perhaps the game had passed him by. But Doyle Brunson and Benny Binion thought he was top notch, as did others of his generation. And he did win the WSOP three times. And place a bunch of others. He just can't have been as clueless and bad a player over his whole career as you say. Now, maybe he was a clueless player and a nasty one as an old man -- although even here Alvarez played with him and doesn't say it was that bad in his books.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi MRBAA:

I've had this argument made to me before, but I don't believe it. Someone who would call three bets cold because he has an ace in his hand isn't someone who got old and had the game past him by. This was someone with absolutely no clue of how limit hold 'em was played.

I have been told that he just didn't understand limit but was pretty good at no limit. Perhaps that's the case, but I find it hard to believe.

As for his tournament results, I think he was probably an overall loser there as well, but I'm not sure. In the beginning, a few players did well in tournaments simply because they played way too loose. They unknowingly took advantage of better players who didn't know how to adjust to tournament play. I believe Moss was in this group.

And finally, he made most of his lifetime income running cardrooms as opposed to being a successful player. Even when I played against him, he got $200 a day to be the host. He also tried to get two or three dealers fired everyday for dealing him losing hands.

Best wishes,
Mason

***

Posted by
Mason Malmuth
Grand Poobah
Reged: 08/28/02
Loc: Nevada

12/28/03 11:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Moss cherished his reputation as honest and trustworthy, and worked to make the games he played in fair for all players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi StevieG:

I've never read the book but I got a kick out of that quote. Did it have a section about how polite he was at the poker tables, especially to the women?

Best wishes,
Mason

***

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

[ QUOTE ]
Great, cEV =/= $EV to an exact degree.

Anyone with any understanding knows that your equity doesn't increase on a scale perfectly similar to your stack.

That is not the debate (or at least isn't the meaningful one), the question is what kind of edge should be passed up. Not just conjecture, math.

2007 WSOP ME
You have t70,000
Avg stack is t22,000
You are Daniel Negreanu

Please put a number on what kind of edge should be passed up on a AIPF decision for a player of his caliber against a field the strength of the average ME. Disregard the hourly rate discussion, I am looking for the answer with the highest $EV specific to this one tournament.

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No it is not a question of what edge should be passed up. Yes, cEV != $EV. However, there is no agreement as to which is greater. I argue that in some cases taking an even gamble is $EV+ and in other cases it is $EV-. Sklansky seems to think it is usually $EV-, whereas Snyder argues it is generally $EV+.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

This is off-topic, but didn't Moss win a few million in the 50s playing Nick the Greek HU. Moss was considered the best player in Texas and Nick the best in the northeast. Winning the first WSOP by a vote in also an indication of his strength.

I have no direct knowledge, but I understand by reputation he was atleast as strong as Brunson, Ivey, or anyone around today.

Perhaps at the time Mason wrote this, Moss was pretty old and not at his peak level.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

David,
I don't think that any good player is really going to disagree with your assertion. However, what I and lots of other good tournament players will say is that early on in tournaments the divergence betwenn cEV and $EV is so small that it really has little to no impact on strategy other than the very specific case of a truly 0 EV gamble. In order for it to be correct to pass up any edge we woulod need to be able to quantify exactly how much chips decrease in valuse and prove that they decrease enough to turn a normally +EV opportunity into a -EV one. That to my knowledge has never been done.

So while yes there is an important theoretical distinction to be made, practically it his very few applications.

Re: Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me
 

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As to Daniel saying what he thinks I want to hear, you should know that he gave permission for me to write what he said. Not something he would do if he didn't mean it.

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...maybe he wants a publishing contract with you and Mason [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]