The Freakonomics of Tournaments: A Preview (74s UTG at final table)

[adanthar]

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I may be wrong, but I don't think the move was made for table image reasons.

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It's not +EV in a vacuum (the ranges used are too narrow, strassa/the later math using people are absolutely right here)
(I hope) it's not to collect the blinds

So...yeah, there's no other reason left, really.

[nath]

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I don't know. I win more when I make more wild plays and do more things that most people think are donkey moves. I'm trying to understand why.

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are you sure about that? No offense, but quite often in the official threads/your blog I see you post something like 'I played that one like a huge donkey, I deserved to lose' blah blah blah

are you sure you're not being results oriented?

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There's a difference between me knowing I played a hand like a donkey and everyone on the rail thinking I'm playing like a donkey.

[InternetJunky]

Nath, interesting post for sure. Aren't you worried though that in one single hand your table image can go from TAG to "maniac who will push any two" with a play like this? All of a sudden, you're getting played back at with far more than 21% of the hands that BB would have called with before and the +EV of any similar play just went down the toilet.

[Roothlus]

When I have a huge stack like this, I will take advantage of UTG even when there's a shortstack on the BB. For the simple fact that you are a UTG raiser, they are forced to give you more respect than normal. On top of that, you are a big stack, so they once again have to give you a little more respect. If that's not enough, this seems like there are either 7 or 14 people left in the tourney. So with 7 left there are money implications and with 14 left some people just want to make the final table and will tighten up considerably even the shortstacks.

That being said, I'd raise a ton of hands in this spot. Having a big stack and utilizing the UTG position pretty late in the tourney is a beautiful thing.

[nath]

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Nath, interesting post for sure. Aren't you worried though that in one single hand your table image can go from TAG to "maniac who will push any two" with a play like this? All of a sudden, you're getting played back at with far more than 21% of the hands that BB would have called with before and the +EV of any similar play just went down the toilet.

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LOL at the idea that my image is ever TAG. My image is usually that of a complete lunatic who is not only raising all sorts of random garbage but also calling with it. And who wants to take a hand that might be marginally +cEV against a psycho who's definitely calling and might have you crushed?

If I folded to reraises all the time people would play back at me much more frequently. But since they KNOW I'm calling that keeps them in line.

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I don't know. I win more when I make more wild plays and do more things that most people think are donkey moves. I'm trying to understand why.

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I mean this in the least sarcastic, nicest way possible..................It's called running well.

You're doing two dangerous things here, nath. First, you're making conclusions from what I'd imagine is a rather small sample size. Second, you're confusing correlation with causation.

If, for example, Rizen, during his latest sick run, realized that he was making this small-ish mistake. I don't know, let's say he was calling with in situations where he was an uber-slight dog because he felt like it. The worst thing he could do after uncovering this leak would be to assume that he was running well because of the leak. The second worse thing he can do, IMO, is to not acknowledge the fact that he is, in fact, running well.

Nath, you're obviously a great player. You also obviously have a contrasting style that may go against how most winning players approach MTTs. But I think it's important to not simply chalk up potential leaks to a differentiated style.

[InternetJunky]

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LOL at the idea that my image is ever TAG. My image is usually that of a complete lunatic who is not only raising all sorts of random garbage but also calling with it. And who wants to take a hand that might be marginally +cEV against a psycho who's definitely calling and might have you crushed?

If I folded to reraises all the time people would play back at me much more frequently. But since they KNOW I'm calling that keeps them in line.

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This makes sense to me if you were talking about attacking middle stacks this way, but if I were short-stacked facing someone like yourself I'd be willing to go to war with far more than 21% of my hands in the blinds.

[nath]

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This makes sense to me if you were talking about attacking middle stacks this way, but if I were short-stacked facing someone like yourself I'd be willing to go to war with far more than 21% of my hands in the blinds.

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Hey, you and everyone who says "I'd play at you with way more than 21% of my hands":

GIVE ME A [censored] RANGE OF HANDS YOU WOULD PLAY BACK WITH, KNOWING I WILL CALL, AND TELL ME WHAT % OF TOTAL HANDS THAT IS. I DID.

[nath]

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I don't know. I win more when I make more wild plays and do more things that most people think are donkey moves. I'm trying to understand why.

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I mean this in the least sarcastic, nicest way possible..................It's called running well.

You're doing two dangerous things here, nath. First, you're making conclusions from what I'd imagine is a rather small sample size. Second, you're confusing correlation with causation.

If, for example, Rizen, during his latest sick run, realized that he was making this small-ish mistake. I don't know, let's say he was calling with in situations where he was an uber-slight dog because he felt like it. The worst thing he could do after uncovering this leak would be to assume that he was running well because of the leak. The second worse thing he can do, IMO, is to not acknowledge the fact that he is, in fact, running well.

Nath, you're obviously a great player. You also obviously have a contrasting style that may go against how most winning players approach MTTs. But I think it's important to not simply chalk up potential leaks to a differentiated style.

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At what point do people stop assuming I just run well and start considering that maybe I understand something about tournaments that most people don't?

It might be that there's some bit of conventional MTT wisdom that may be turned on its head. It may be possible that in large field events it's okay to take slightly the worst of it to build a big stack because it improves your ability to continue accumulating chips. It may be possible that it's okay to take slightly the worst of it in an all-in situation when you have a big a big stack if doing so allows you to continue to pick up pots at will.

It may be that I've been running well for the last year and my strategies will soon be revealed for the crackpot alchemy they are.
Or it may be that people struggle to understand things that go against conventional wisdom and aren't getting what I say or how to apply it.

I think it's equally important to not chalk up a potentially valuable vein of strategic knowledge to running well.

I was "running well" when I was at 480% ROI over a 3 month period last fall. I'm playing well now, too, and that is all the difference. I play better poker and I also use aggression to club my way to the pot because I consider accumulating all the chips to be the goal.

nath -

I'm not arguing the vailidity of your play. In all honesty, I really haven't had a chance to analyze it yet. And on top of that, I have the feeling that it is one of those things in poker where, depending on your assumptions, it can be made out to be a +EV or a -EV play quite convincingly. And since no one seems to want to discuss validity of assumptions here, the whole argument seems to be rather moot.

You're right. It's important not to fall into the trap of "chalk[ing] up a potentially valuable vein of strategic knowledge to running well," which is argubably equally dangerous as my aforementioned trap. But I'm not the one that started this thread with this hand in question, so I thought my comment about avoiding the pitfall of associating a -EV play with positive equity simply because you have been pwning MTTs in the last 3 months was a little more relevant at the time.

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At what point do people stop assuming I just run well and start considering that maybe I understand something about tournaments that most people don't?


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When you've played 10,000 tournaments. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Anyway, I didn't intend for my post to stymie the discussion in the forum. And, as always nath, I've already told you that I'm always more than willing to argue to the death about a poker hand if it means we might uncover even a tiny nugget of poker knowledge. But I still thought my comment was necessary and appropriate in order to ground this conversation.

With that said, let's continue the discussion, becuase I for one am eager to learn about new approaches to the game. [censored], someone had to be the first one to realize 22 was ahead of AK pre-flop, right?