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

[THEOSU]

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I'm well known as the luckiest tournament poker player on the planet, it seems, yet somehow I keep winning.

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nath,

i read the official threads. you get out of line, then flop a set, then get top pair 4 kicker to get all in. ya lucksack.


nice post, but i do think some of your assumptions are off.

[Brandonjp13]

I think most of this is over my head for the time being, but with the right reads i've made simlar raises because I expected folds,

[jcm4ccc]

What you are doing is bullying a passive table. You're just doing it in spots that most of us wouldn't.

Only one outcome is positive for you: when everybody folds. You lose chips, on average, every time:
<ul type="square">[*]the button pushes[*]the sb pushes[*]the bb pushes[*]a big stack reraises[*]a big stack calls with position[/list]You only considered one situation (the bb pushes), and that was only marginally +EV (about one BB), given very favorable assumptions (only pushes with the top 21% of hands, when the whole table knows you've been raising like a maniac). The SB and Button have more chips than the BB, and you will on average lose more chips (and be compelled to call) when they push. I'm not convinced.

[jcm4ccc]

I ran some numbers with these assumptions:

You will be pushed by the BB 21% of the time.
You will be pushed by the SB 10% of the time.
You will be pushed by the button 10% of the time.

These seem reasonable assumptions that are slanted towards giving you chips. On average, I figured that you will win 1400 chips (less than 0.5 BB), given these assumptions. These ignore the times that:
Two of the short stacks push (which I estimate will happen about 4% of the time).
Big stack reraises
Big stack calls with position.

Also, the vast majority of the time that you win, you increase your chips from 156k to 161k. Every time that you lose, your chips decrease from 156k to about 135k.

I think if you will catch your breath on occasion and actually fold, you will be even more successful than you have been.

Nath -

Great post, my friend. I remain a doubter, unfortunately, but this is definitely a well-thought out topic worth disussing.

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You only considered one situation (the bb pushes)

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This was the first thing that I noticed.

Oh, and this

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There are some problems with your math. The BB has already posted the blinds, then he raises to 17617, which lead you to double count. So the amount you can win 23267 is wrong. I guess it should be 17617+1500+1050=20167. If this is the case though, the converter messed up the final pot size. Because, 20167+17617=37784. Hope you can sort this out. This is a pretty small error though and won't effect your bottom line much, just thought you should know.

It wasn't totally clear in your post, but the 32% (i think 31.1% if my correction is right) you estimated also applies to the short stacks. Though since you would be getting odds to call the short stacks, it might be slightly larger.

So what range would it take to reraise you 32% of the time, well, there are 5 players left (not including BB, which we already took into account). So, if they are equally likely to push (which they aren't, but you can fool with that). Then on average they need to push 32/5 = 6.4% of hands, so if everybody pushes 77+,AQ+,AJs. You break even. It seems likely they'll push more often than that. Plus, someone could just call. I don't think you'll be able to play this hand out of position against someone with a much stronger hand without it being -EV, which may hurt your bottom line too. Also, against this range you are like a 2.7 to 1 dog, so the effect from above doesn't count since you are better off folding than calling if the other short stacks ranges are actually this tight.

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is a great post from wagon30 that is worth discussing more.

edit: And not that it affects anything terribly, but isn't the starting pot amount 5550, not 5650? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[nath]

Sigh.

You're all too focused on the 74 hand. I'm trying to use it an an example to explore the ideas and philosophy by my tournament thinking-- the things I believe give me an advantage.

If someone else wants to do the math to prove me wrong, fine. Math isn't my strongest suit. Come up with a range for BB to push and a frequency for everyone else to do that makes this play negative-expectation.
Even if you do, you'll find that tournaments have a broader context than individual hands. Mostly, you should make the +cEV play when it is afforded to you, but occasionally you'll want to err on the side of aggression, even when it might costs you chips in the short run.

I'm more interested in discussing tournaments on a conceptual and strategic level, with regards to my general approach, than wondering about the marginal effectiveness of any given move. I make a lot of moves-- one of my rules of thumb for tournaments is "When it doubt, err on the side of aggression"-- and my aggression and unpredictability both picks up enough chips to keep me ahead of the game and builds monster pots when I have a big hand.

I don't think about tournaments like most people do. I'm trying my best to articulate ideas that aren't very common or easy to articulate. This time I tried to use the math to explore the concepts behind my play. Whether or not you can prove the math is wrong in this case, I'm pretty sure I'm still doing something right.

[adanthar]

Nath,

On a conceptual and strategic level, when you have a big stack and are at a table where you are almost guaranteed to play zero postflop poker, raising 74s UTG hoping to steal the blinds "for table image reasons" is a bad play.

This does not mean that being very aggro as a CL is uncalled for. It merely means that, when you already have a very big lead like the one you had, it is a much better idea to (for example) push your folding equity to the limit vs. the medium stacks than it is to attempt to take every 5000 chips that come your way with a 74s raise UTG.

[nath]

See, it seems like a bad play on the surface, but I'm trying to demonstrate that at the right table it may not be.
I was hoping this would spawn discussion about my general approach to tournaments, about finding the hidden EV, about seemingly inane moves as part of an overall strategy, but so far it hasn't.

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.

[DLizzle]

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Nath,

On a conceptual and strategic level, when you have a big stack and are at a table where you are almost guaranteed to play zero postflop poker, raising 74s UTG hoping to steal the blinds "for table image reasons" is a bad play.


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

[NHFunkii]

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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?