Grade the June Magazine
 

In anticipation of a new 2+2 SnG book and the start of the World Series of Poker, the June issue of the Two Plus Two Internet Magazine is heavy on tournament articles. A book excerpt will allow you get your first look at Colin Moshman's work. I'm particularly interested in readers' reaction to Chip Ferguson's article.

Strategy- 6
Book Excerpt: Steals and Re-Steals by Colin Mosman
Playing Through a $110 SnG by Chip Ferguson
Psychology, Blocking Bets, and Value Bets by Robin Lindsay
Examining a Difficult Situation in Pot-Limit Omaha & Devising an Unexploitable Play by Andrew Albright
Limit Omaha 8 or Better: Post Flop Theory Part 1 by Frank Jerome
Advanced Concepts in NLH MTTs by Adam Kozak

General Poker- 3
How Big is Big Enough? by Marcel Vonk
Game Selection for Tournament Players by Andrew Brokos
Poker Tournament Evaluation System by Dene Tribe

Poker and Other Fields
More on Skill and Individual Differences by Ryne A. Sherman
Classic Article: Probably Guilty by David Sklansky

Non-Poker- 1
Solving Sports Debates by King Yao

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Loved the Ferguson article. The Moshman excerpt looked pretty good as well.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

I thought the Tournament Evaluation System article was very weak.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

I thought the article by Adam Kozak was very poor. I kept waiting for the 'advanced concepts'. What he basically says is that you want to finish first (duh) but does not analyse at all the changing value of your chips at different stages of the tournament. Saying that you should just try to make the play with the most immediate gain in chips is plainly wrong, but I can't see what else he could be saying -

'Firstly, every decision you make will be to maximize your EV and win the most amounts of chips in every situation. Second, you should have no fear in bubbling or moving up the prize ladder as you get down to the final few tables. Remember: your goal is to WIN 1st.'

The problem here of course is that maximising your EV and winning the most chips is not the same thing in tournaments like it is in a cash game - you're damn right you should be afraid of bubbling out if by playing aggressively you decrease your EV, which is nearly always the case on the bubble. This is why the big stack has such a huge advantage at this stage. I'm sure he knows this - hell I don't even play tournaments and I know it. This is why the article is disappointing imo.

He then goes off on tangent about blind battles and floating which I can't see is very relevant. Seems like he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

More complaining follows [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I also didn't like David's article at all. Well, it's not that I have anything specific against the article itself exactly - I didn't like where it was published. Of course I can't tell 2+2 what to publish but isn't it supposed to be a gambling magazine and not 'Mind' or 'The Philosophical Quarterly'? My two cents.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
More complaining follows [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I also didn't like David's article at all. Well, it's not that I have anything specific against the article itself exactly - I didn't like where it was published. Of course I can't tell 2+2 what to publish but isn't it supposed to be a gambling magazine and not 'Mind' or 'The Philosophical Quarterly'? My two cents.

[/ QUOTE ]

I remember that David wrote a post or article similar to this some time ago. However, it was more targeted at this idea: "A lot of smart people are on this forum. They can help society. Poker players can help society." It then went on to talk about some similar trial issues where people make probabilistic estimates. I wish I knew where that post was. I really liked it. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Dynasty,

I want to quote the comment I made for the March magazine in the thread & poll for that one"

"This is the best magazine yet under your editorial mantle. And I think it provides the winning recipe for future ones. Namely having one, but only one, article in non-poker categories like other +EV gambling/sports, psychology and poker stories, and the rest poker strategy, with a mix from the various forms of poker."


I believe that is the winning "formula", but which isn't applied to this month's magazine, with two non-poker articles, and three on tourneys, and which I believe doesn't make this month's issue as good as some others.

Obviously as we all know, you are limited somewhat by the submissions you receive. Even so, it seems critical to me, in order to allow you to choose a good mix each month, to build up a backlog of articles. This is a standard best practice of other magazines. While that might be frustrating to some authors, in having to wait a few months to see their article used, it is what is best for the magazine. Again though, that presumes having enough such submissions in the first place, and then enough of the total that are good enough to be published in the second place.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Most of the articles I've read so far seem okay, but I don't typically play those games so they don't really help me too much. The Skalansky article was a total waste of time.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

I would be interested in reading some opinions of the June issue from Ray Zee, Mason Malmuth, David Sklansky, and other TwoPlusTwo experts.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
I thought the article by Adam Kozak was very poor. I kept waiting for the 'advanced concepts'. What he basically says is that you want to finish first (duh) but does not analyse at all the changing value of your chips at different stages of the tournament. Saying that you should just try to make the play with the most immediate gain in chips is plainly wrong, but I can't see what else he could be saying -

'Firstly, every decision you make will be to maximize your EV and win the most amounts of chips in every situation. Second, you should have no fear in bubbling or moving up the prize ladder as you get down to the final few tables. Remember: your goal is to WIN 1st.'

The problem here of course is that maximising your EV and winning the most chips is not the same thing in tournaments like it is in a cash game - you're damn right you should be afraid of bubbling out if by playing aggressively you decrease your EV, which is nearly always the case on the bubble. This is why the big stack has such a huge advantage at this stage. I'm sure he knows this - hell I don't even play tournaments and I know it. This is why the article is disappointing imo.

He then goes off on tangent about blind battles and floating which I can't see is very relevant. Seems like he couldn't think of anything else to say.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this is a fair assessment of the article. All you're really saying here is that he didn't address one particular concept about tournament poker as it relates to the topics he did address. I guess this could have been articulated more clearly, but I read his article as a sort of rebuttal to the popular idea about trying "survive" in tournament poker, which is often used as a justification for overly tight, passive, and all-around weak play. Blind battles are good examples of instances where people's passivity can be exploited by an appropriately aggressive player.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
The problem here of course is that maximising your EV and winning the most chips is not the same thing in tournaments like it is in a cash game - you're damn right you should be afraid of bubbling out if by playing aggressively you decrease your EV, which is nearly always the case on the bubble. This is why the big stack has such a huge advantage at this stage. I'm sure he knows this - hell I don't even play tournaments and I know it. This is why the article is disappointing imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your paragraph quoted above is exactly why Adam wrote the article. Because most people "fear" bubbling out. And you are absolutely wrong (assuming you are playing within your bankroll) that you should "fear" bubbling out. In large MTTs, making it in the money is of little value. The key to making profits, as Adam's article makes very clear, is winning MTTs. To win you must get all of the chips.

Most MTT regulars advise that you should always make the play that has the greatest positive chip expectation in multitable tournaments. The only exceptions to this are at the Final Table where the payout structure dictates that survival actually has a lot of value and in multi-seat satellites where bubbling is a disaster. Otherwise, Adam's article makes it very clear that you should play to get all of the chips. Most people don't play (or think) that way as you have clearly demonstrated.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

When I said you should be 'afraid' of bubbling out I didn't use the word to denote an emotion - I meant that you should play more passively than usual if that increases your EV. I was using it in the sense that you should 'fear' playing passively if that decreases your EV too. If you have a dominant stack on the bubble of say a SNG it's often correct to open-shove repeatedly with any two cards. I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

In tournaments whoever finishes with all the chips doesn't win all the money. This in effect is a penalty for finishing first. You still want to finish first of course, since first wins the most money. But tournament payout structures certainly affect optimal strategy.

'Most MTT regulars advise that you should always make the play that has the greatest positive chip expectation in multitable tournaments.'

But who do the MMT regulars advise this to? This is fine advice for someone who knows nothing about how tournament structure affects optimal strategy in relation to a cash game and has decided to play a style completely different and super-passive/survival-orientated from how they play in a cash game. Playing exactly the same in a tournament as in a cash game is close enough to not make someone adjust to the tournament too badly but it's certainly not optimal. Just because some MTT regulars advise it and maybe take that approach themselves doesn't mean it's the best way to play. Besides, I honestly don't think there is too many people reading 2+2 magazine who don't know enough about the general math governing how optimal strategy for tournaments is affected by the structure of the tournament for this generic advice to be a revelation to them.

It's an interesting topic though. I read an article by Steve Badger who seems to present the same generic, misleading advice. I found this surprising as most of the articles on his website are excellect imo and I learned a lot from reading them. Here is a link

http://www.playwinningpoker.com/articles/03/06.html

The only person who seems to have gotten this right(ish - because he still doesn't present it very clearly) in print who I've read is, I hate saying it [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img], Mike Caro. Here is a link to the relevant article.

http://www.poker1.com/absolutenm/tem...0&zoneid=3

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
The only person who seems to have gotten this right(ish - because he still doesn't present it very clearly) in print who I've read is, I hate saying it [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img], Mike Caro. Here is a link to the relevant article.

http://www.poker1.com/absolutenm/tem...0&zoneid=3

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of the worst, if not the worst, discussions of tournament strategy I've ever read.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
When I said you should be 'afraid' of bubbling out I didn't use the word to denote an emotion - I meant that you should play more passively than usual if that increases your EV. I was using it in the sense that you should 'fear' playing passively if that decreases your EV too. If you have a dominant stack on the bubble of say a SNG it's often correct to open-shove repeatedly with any two cards. I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

In tournaments whoever finishes with all the chips doesn't win all the money. This in effect is a penalty for finishing first. You still want to finish first of course, since first wins the most money. But tournament payout structures certainly affect optimal strategy.

'Most MTT regulars advise that you should always make the play that has the greatest positive chip expectation in multitable tournaments.'

But who do the MMT regulars advise this to? This is fine advice for someone who knows nothing about how tournament structure affects optimal strategy in relation to a cash game and has decided to play a style completely different and super-passive/survival-orientated from how they play in a cash game. Playing exactly the same in a tournament as in a cash game is close enough to not make someone adjust to the tournament too badly but it's certainly not optimal. Just because some MTT regulars advise it and maybe take that approach themselves doesn't mean it's the best way to play. Besides, I honestly don't think there is too many people reading 2+2 magazine who don't know enough about the general math governing how optimal strategy for tournaments is affected by the structure of the tournament for this generic advice to be a revelation to them.

It's an interesting topic though. I read an article by Steve Badger who seems to present the same generic, misleading advice. I found this surprising as most of the articles on his website are excellect imo and I learned a lot from reading them. Here is a link

http://www.playwinningpoker.com/articles/03/06.html

The only person who seems to have gotten this right(ish - because he still doesn't present it very clearly) in print who I've read is, I hate saying it [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img], Mike Caro. Here is a link to the relevant article.

http://www.poker1.com/absolutenm/tem...0&zoneid=3

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok I am going to try to make this as clear as possible. You said yourself you don't play tournament poker, yet you are claiming to be a somewhat expert on the topic. Myself and Foucault (both MTT regular posters) have pointed out that your logic about playing passively on the bubble is in general wrong. Yes there are exceptions; I'll make an exhaustive list right here:

1) It is a satellite with every person recieving the same prize who gets ITM. Of course you shouldn't play to win.

2) It is at the Final Table where the prizes increase dramatically. It may be better to take a more passive approach because sneaking up the pay ladder means a lot here. Consider Joe Hachem's WSOP ME win. He didn't do much at the FT until late.

3) You are so incredibly short stacked that you have no chance of making any significant payout levels no matter what you do. Then of course you should just try to fold into as much money as possible.

Note that situation #3 very very rarely occurs. We are talking like less than 2BBs on the ITM bubble. Otherwise, you should try to double up a few times to get yourself back in contention for big prizes.

Anyhow, that's it. Those are the exceptions where one should not play to get all the chips. Otherwise, playing not to get all the chips in an MTT costs you money. Maybe this is why tournament poker is so profitable? Despite efforts to express appropriate strategy, people still hold onto to their own conceptions about what "must be right and wrong" for tournaments. Hmmm.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When I said you should be 'afraid' of bubbling out I didn't use the word to denote an emotion - I meant that you should play more passively than usual if that increases your EV. I was using it in the sense that you should 'fear' playing passively if that decreases your EV too. If you have a dominant stack on the bubble of say a SNG it's often correct to open-shove repeatedly with any two cards. I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

In tournaments whoever finishes with all the chips doesn't win all the money. This in effect is a penalty for finishing first. You still want to finish first of course, since first wins the most money. But tournament payout structures certainly affect optimal strategy.

'Most MTT regulars advise that you should always make the play that has the greatest positive chip expectation in multitable tournaments.'

But who do the MMT regulars advise this to? This is fine advice for someone who knows nothing about how tournament structure affects optimal strategy in relation to a cash game and has decided to play a style completely different and super-passive/survival-orientated from how they play in a cash game. Playing exactly the same in a tournament as in a cash game is close enough to not make someone adjust to the tournament too badly but it's certainly not optimal. Just because some MTT regulars advise it and maybe take that approach themselves doesn't mean it's the best way to play. Besides, I honestly don't think there is too many people reading 2+2 magazine who don't know enough about the general math governing how optimal strategy for tournaments is affected by the structure of the tournament for this generic advice to be a revelation to them.

It's an interesting topic though. I read an article by Steve Badger who seems to present the same generic, misleading advice. I found this surprising as most of the articles on his website are excellect imo and I learned a lot from reading them. Here is a link

http://www.playwinningpoker.com/articles/03/06.html

The only person who seems to have gotten this right(ish - because he still doesn't present it very clearly) in print who I've read is, I hate saying it [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img], Mike Caro. Here is a link to the relevant article.

http://www.poker1.com/absolutenm/tem...0&zoneid=3

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok I am going to try to make this as clear as possible. You said yourself you don't play tournament poker, yet you are claiming to be a somewhat expert on the topic. Myself and Foucault (both MTT regular posters) have pointed out that your logic about playing passively on the bubble is in general wrong. Yes there are exceptions; I'll make an exhaustive list right here:

1) It is a satellite with every person recieving the same prize who gets ITM. Of course you shouldn't play to win.

2) It is at the Final Table where the prizes increase dramatically. It may be better to take a more passive approach because sneaking up the pay ladder means a lot here. Consider Joe Hachem's WSOP ME win. He didn't do much at the FT until late.

3) You are so incredibly short stacked that you have no chance of making any significant payout levels no matter what you do. Then of course you should just try to fold into as much money as possible.

Note that situation #3 very very rarely occurs. We are talking like less than 2BBs on the ITM bubble. Otherwise, you should try to double up a few times to get yourself back in contention for big prizes.

Anyhow, that's it. Those are the exceptions where one should not play to get all the chips. Otherwise, playing not to get all the chips in an MTT costs you money. Maybe this is why tournament poker is so profitable? Despite efforts to express appropriate strategy, people still hold onto to their own conceptions about what "must be right and wrong" for tournaments. Hmmm.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is kind of an extrapolation from (1), but as I mentioned in my article this month, I think it can also be correct when the payout structure offers a steep jump on the money bubble followed by a long, slow climb to the top prizes. Last year's WSOP ME payouts were a great example of this, where busting on the bubble would cost you like $17K, but after the bubble, payouts jumped by like 1K for every couple of tables that busted. This is very similar to a satellite payout.

In general, though, I of course agree with everything you're saying, Sherman.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

I am Adam Kozak.
When i was writing this article about tournaments, i began trying to evaluate when I did the best in tournaments and what i did. I noticed that the times I went deep is when i did not play textbook, super tight style. I noticed that When i played 18-25% of pots I put myself into many more situations where the cards didn't matter and i could pretty much lean on these tight guys who would stare at their cards and make a decision. Often times, weak players enter the pot with a raise, or some limp and i would have position, look down and find like Js 4c or some garbage and fold. But then i started to raise to isolate these tight weak players who will only continue with top pair and i found out that you MUST do these things throughout the tournamewnt if you're going to put yourself in a good spot to win the tournament . This was what i was tyring top convery in my article, you MUST pick up chips once in a while when you have no cards to play with. Playing my cards was getting me NO-WHERE. Not even survival because my definition of survival is surviving until the last player. I tried my best to focus on good situatoins where i was playing IN POSITION against abc type players ,regaredless of my cards and looking for spots where they continually act weak. This was what i was trying to get through in my article because it happens so much in MTT's. Just remember that tight players only want to go broke with really good hands so if you can continue to force them to either go all the way or avoid the possibility of pain and fold, they will fold way more times than they put it on the line. People in life or on the poker table will act much more in ways that avoid pain than a chance to experience pleasure.

Also, in regards to players saying that there are times you should slide into the money, this is very rare. In certain types of tournaments for example Focault's example of the ME, yes you should slide in if you can and THEN gamble. But in pretty much every tourney online this is not the case. Often a double up when you're the short stack can be huge because then you have open push fold equity. Or you double up from a short stack and you have RE raise fold equity. By doublng up, you increase your chance of winning chips preflop, which in a situation of the bubble, good/decent open push chances will come up frequently. hope some of you got something of out of it ,later.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Chip Ferguson's article was excellent. Anyone wanting to learn about STT's could do far worse than to base their study around understanding all of the hands in this article.

Colin Moshman's article was good too, although I'm not sure that I agree with his analysis of restealing in stts.

The article by Marcel Vonk on variance and standard deviation was terrible (I have pointed out the errors elsewhere in this forum). You really should get a mathematician/statistician to check out articles like this before publishing them.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Some articles are excellent as always. There are some top notch articles and many worthless ones.

I wonder why 75%+ of the articles are about other stuff but hold'em(NL+LHE). I am sure that players at HE is 90%+ and that should be the percentage that is accounted to HE. YGSHE(?????) etc is worthless cause noone cares, even if they are top notch articles they are not print worthy due to lackness of ineteressents. It is like, why would I read an article of baseball if I am interested of icehockey, noone cares. Try to keep the articles in the right areas(75%+ in HE and others in other poker disciplines and money management etc).

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Sherman - I never suggested playing passively in tournaments or playing passively on the bubble full-stop. This is what you seem to be attributing to me and you are putting words in my mouth if so. I don't have a 'logic about playing passively on the bubble'. I have have a logic about playing on the bubble in such a way as to maximise your EV - whether that be passively, hyper-aggressively or whateverly. My only point is that how to play cannot be decided simply by playing the same as in a cash game, though that may be close depending on the structure - I don't know. I'm no expert, as you imply, another claim you misattribute to me. The examples you give as exceptions to cash-game style play are fine and I don't want to dispute them. To see why these are exceptions or if they are exceptions in some tournaments and not in others, you need to refer to the structure of the tournament and how that affects optimal strategy for that tournaments or stages within it. That was basically my main point and I can't see anything substantial that we disagree on. My main complaint about Adam's article was that he doesn't seem to make clear that tournament structures influence correct strategy for the tournament. If that wasn't clear from my posts I apologise.

Adam, Sherman, Foucault - I think I may have been harsh in my evaluation of the article. If what Sherman is saying is true - that most or some people think you should play super-passively in tournaments by default, then recommending otherwise - something more in line with generally applicable strategy, cannot hurt. I wasn't aware that this belief was commonplace. But such a belief is just another example of not understanding that, or how, specific tournament structures affect strategy for those tournaments.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

i'm a little torn on this MTT "chip accumulation" vs. "survival" debate...... i'd say both have worked well at different times for me. so maybe it depends on the competition ,the depth of stacks and the buy-in. i'd say the more the tournament is shallow, cheap and easy-to-replace (last point = cheap online tourney), then i'd just play ABC TAG poker to some degree (the shallow argues otherwise).... deeper tourneys that cost more money and people have travelled to, my limited experience says people really, really don't want to bust out early.... i think greenstein has made similar comments (i.e. better than mine) that big tourneys there's more room for moves.

i'm also thinking caro's major experience may predate today's tourneys where online players have some pretty aggressive accumulation strategies. they make alot of moves (sometimes successfully, other times not so successfully)

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
Colin Moshman's article was good too, although I'm not sure that I agree with his analysis of restealing in stts.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you disagree with?

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Colin Moshman's article was good too, although I'm not sure that I agree with his analysis of restealing in stts.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you disagree with?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I think the resteal is really more of an MTT move. I think that z32 makes the point in his article that STT players (even at moderately high buyins) are just much more likely to call your resteal with marginal hands like KQ or AT etc... They are much less afraid of busting out than an MTT player is and this really makes the resteal dangerous. I'm not saying that you should never resteal, but it should be used more infrequently than Colin suggests. I think a lot depends on table dynamics and how close you are to the bubble.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
Well I think the resteal is really more of an MTT move. I think that z32 makes the point in his article that STT players (even at moderately high buyins) are just much more likely to call your resteal with marginal hands like KQ or AT etc... They are much less afraid of busting out than an MTT player is and this really makes the resteal dangerous. I'm not saying that you should never resteal, but it should be used more infrequently than Colin suggests. I think a lot depends on table dynamics and how close you are to the bubble.

[/ QUOTE ]

yes, this is what i was trying to say last night in my drunken stupor... don't drink and post [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img].... yes, in alot of MTT's people don't want to die. in lower $$$$ SNG's, there's a "what the heck" attitude that pervades (word??) until bubble time.... not sure about $100+ SNG, then maybe people care about getting knocked out but then also in most SNG's many stacks get pretty short.....

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Thanks for the input. I've not given much attention to restealing. I just fold unless I have a really strong hand. I'm sure I'm giving up some opportunities in doing so.

What Colin makes sense, about targeting whether a raise is for value or not, and then trying to resteal if it's not for value. The question of what hands one will call with makes a big difference, of course. You're saying the flaw with Conin's article is that it assumes the stealer will just fold, when he might make a loose call. Therefore just having a better than average hand, like Q9s, might not be enough. I'll have to play around with the numbers some here. Since you can't just feed them into SNGPT, it will take some work.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

I did an ICM calculation assuming a resteal of an opponent who would steal with anything and call with the best 25% of those hands, which would include hands as bad as K6s and K9o. (I used pokerstove, setting at 25%). I had to make up chip amounts, etc., but assuming this scenario restealing with Q7s was clearly profitable. In the scenario I did, the resteal would be just over 25% of hero's stack.

The calucaltion was roughly

a.Just under .14 equity to start with
b.Equity rises to .155 if resteal works
c.Equrity rises to over .23 if called and win
d.Equity goes to 0 if called and lose

Probability of winning is 1/3 if called.
Probability of opponent folding is 3/4.
Total equity rose from just under .14 to about .19, a huge gain.

The precise numbers aren't important, of course, but it gives a feel to what is happening. Most of the equity gain comes from the fold equity, but a good chunk comes from 1/3 of the time when called.

I used a serious simplication here which favor the restealing calculation, which is that no one behind will call. Also I assumed the stealer would steal with any two. However, the assumption that the stealer would called with hands as bad as K9o is a conservative one.

I would be happy to do other calculations with any given assumptions, but based on a preliminary trial, it appears to me that if one is correct in the assumption that the opponent will steal with any two, restealing with Q7s in a scenario similar to the one Colin laid out would be clearly profitable.

Out of curiosity, I redid the calculation assuming restealing with 32o. This was also profitable, raising the equity from just under .14 to almost .16.

It would probably be more accurate to weight the calculation. Something like x% of the time it's a steal, and y% of the time it's a value steal. That is, villain might not have been intending to steal, but woke up with a hand, and our guess that his raise was a steal was incorrect.

I redid the calculation assuming that villain would be raising with a legitimate hand (top 10% hand) 1/3 of the time, and any two 2/3 of the time. Under this assumption, the resteal with Q7s was still profitable, raising the equity from a little under .14 to .15.

So one's guess that the villain was restealing would have to be way off for the resteal with Q7s not to be profitable. If one were absolutely certain that villain would raise with any two, and fold hands worse than K6s, then restealing with 32o would be profitable in the scneario I ran. Having a hand as strong as Q7s allows one to be wrong by quite a bit in the guess that villain is stealing, and still have that be a profitable play.

Of course, even though villain is stealing, he might not steal with any two. He might steal with top 50% or something like that, so there's many different assumptions that could be made. But it appears to me that regardless of the assumptions one makes, Q7s will be a profitable resteal, given that your guess that villain's raise is a steal is reasonably accurate.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

I should amend this by saying that since Colin didn't include chip sizes for everyone, I just made up my own scenario. In my scenario, hero had 16 x BB, which seems to be a far better stack size for a resteal than around or under 10 X BB, which Colin was suggesting. There's a discussion of the resteal plan in the STT forum. Colin said he would post a reply to this forum (i.e. the magazine forum) soon.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

[ QUOTE ]
I should amend this by saying that since Colin didn't include chip sizes for everyone, I just made up my own scenario. In my scenario, hero had 16 x BB, which seems to be a far better stack size for a resteal than around or under 10 X BB, which Colin was suggesting. There's a discussion of the resteal plan in the STT forum. Colin said he would post a reply to this forum (i.e. the magazine forum) soon.

[/ QUOTE ] I guess that my main objection to the extract is that it doesn't seem to take enought account of table dynamics at or near the bubble. I think that this is one of the crucial factors when considering a resteal in a STT. It's not just the stack sizes of the two players involved that are important. If you are on the bubble then you can sometimes resteal with really bad hands if the situation is right. On the other hand, if you are still 6/7 handed and the stacks (of all players) are fairly even, then I think that you should resteal far less than you would in an MTT. Chip accumulation is less important in an STT than it is an MTT. The important thing in an STT is chip preservation.

I think that the resteal really comes into its own as a chip accumulation technique in MTTs

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Thank you for your comments.

I don't think what you wrote is entirely accurate. Both STT's and MTT's are about taking advantage of +EV situations. Because of differences in the tournaments (both in terms of structure, and the way people play), what is +EV for one may not be +EV for another. In particular, in the context of our discussion, an MTT resteal might be profitable whereas the same resteal would not be in an STT.

I redid the resteal calculations I had done, assuming the action was not near bubble (so that chipEV could be used as as a good aproximation in place of the ICM model), and indeed the resteals were FAR more profitable than in an STT, so one could justify more aggressive action in an MTT, but the reason, I would think, would primarily be because the plays are so +EV, and one would not want to pass up such plays.

However, even though the plays are much better for an MTT, that still doesn't mean they aren't profitable for an STT. Looking at a range of from 20xBB to 12xBB, assuming villain would steal (3xBB raise) with top 50% of hands, and fold half of those, raising with Q7s would raise your equity by at least 25%. Assuming the calculations and assumptions are correct, this seems too good an opportunity to pass up, even in an STT.

The most important part of this would be getting the raising range of the villain correct.

Re: Grade the June Magazine
 

Solid June issue. Based on the excerpt, the Moshman book looks very promising.