Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]


What I'm saying is more complex though. Part of the problem is this communication problem.


[/ QUOTE ]

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

OK. I've finally got what Baltostar is saying. I would make a few points:

1. Baltostar: whatever your previous experience and qualifications to coach, you really do not explain yourself very well. These are difficult concepts to articulate and I have failed myself on a fair few occasions. I actually respect the fact that this has not dimmed your confidence in the ideas themselves. OTOH, whatever my merits as a poker player, I'm a pretty bright guy and a lot of my work involves the evaluation of written communication - you simply don't communicate very well through prose.

2. I would also commend you for taking a stance and defending it on these boards. A lot of the analysis that takes place on these boards is somewhat simplistic, indicative of a herd menatlity and places way too much stress of what you call dynamic hand reading and cEV in a given hand. MTTs, I am pretty sure you are correct, do not reward this approach as highly as they do others. Or, at least, this should definetly not be the only approach.

3. Braodly speaking, I agree with what you are saying. However, specific hand posts must always be considered with the proviso that, on these boards, what we can generally establish is the specific chip expectation for a particular play. It is often difficult to include enough information about the other relevant factors to indicate which play has a higher $EV. These other factors are legion - our position relative to weak spots of the table and the chances that we can exploit these more profitably and with less risk than this one (which may offer are higher cEV with more risk), the relative values of stack sizes at differing stages of the tournament, the advantages of creating and manipulating a specific image, when the table will break, how well we are playing tonight, how well we know our opponents, a gut feeling (often based on valid information but information that is not deteriminable at a concious level) etc. etc. The concept of 'risk' in MTTs is generally not discussed enough and this is why I am happy for you to post. All too often, concern over risk management is dismissed with jokes like "ZOMG tournament life on the line".

4. The good players here already 'get' what you are saying. This hand is a good example. Hero has played enough poker and plays poker well enough, to have established for the reasons that he has outlined, that playing a rag ace from the SB offers a higher expectation when limped (for him). He's also good enough to get the maximum value from the hand as played, when he concludes, through dynamic hand reading that he is ahead. A weaker player, posting on SSMTT forum, might be well-advised to raise pf for the reasons that you outline.


In conclusion, keep posting. Post more concisely and more cogently. Post specific examples from your own play which illustrate your points. Understand the limitations of public hand posting as a way of discussing and refining strategy. Never forget that the best 'players' in any pursuit (perhaps less so with poker than tennis but I believe that the assertion still holds) are the best because they do things which cannot be coached and do not rely soley on formulas.

Off all the advice I have listed, posting cogently and concisely is the most important, IMO.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

baltostar's posts in this thread might be the best he's written (that I've read anyway, haven't read all of them obv) in HSMTT.

I'd like to add to registrar's list that communicating with way less arrogance is paramount if you actually want people to pay attention. Newcomers on these boards are often ridiculed, as is pretty standard anywhere there is a group of respected regulars and tons of (mostly clueless) newcomers that drop by. I find it very unsurprising that you've been dissed relentlessly with the attitude you have, and with ideas that are less than coherent.

On another note, your ideas are probably incoherent partly due to the fact that your knowledge is largely theoretical, and thus you have problems being concrete and provide examples - which is largely the best way to communicate with groups not sharing a common language and to express theoretical, often tacit, ideas.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Never forget that the best 'players' in any pursuit (perhaps less so with poker than tennis but I believe that the assertion still holds) are the best because they do things which cannot be coached and do not rely soley on formulas.


[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree with this, but agree that these 'things' are hard to express on a forum and is better suited to an apprentice/master-type learning situation (ghosting, discussing live, HH video reviews etc).

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the best players cannot benefit from coaching, but that often the best things they do cannot be coached. At present, I can't think of an example from a sport that would be recognised by the whole forum so I'll use one that no one understands. Ronnie O'Sullivan is the greatest snooker player to have walked the Earth. I would suggest that coaching helps him in some ways (temperament and concentration on particular) but it has nothing to do with the fact that, on his game, he can pull off any shot (using either hand) and that he will just beat everyone else if he's playing his best game. There's not much use telling him that he should hold his cue differently or whatever.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

My intention wasn't to coach anyone, per se.

What I am good at is standing on the periphery of something and spotting self-reinforcing patterns that have become an objective unto themselves even as their benefit to the real goals have become marginal or even negative.

It does seem that on these boards the following pattern have pervasively embedded itself:

When directions a hand could go become murky, there is this total concentration of effort on figuring out how play the hand optimally **in the context of that hand only**.

Perhaps it is better in certain hands in which uncertainty regarding how it might play out and associated risk have both suddenly widened well beyond initial expectations to switch gears and play the hand with risk mitigation as the sole objective ?

In most cases, doing so would be EV-, and apparently that's taboo on these boards.

An analogy from trading:

Sometimes a setup looks very solid but once you put the trade on you become aware of small but significant risks that could cause the trade to go wildly wrong.

There is one camp of very good traders who will choose to dynamically respond to the situation as it unfolds, and they are very good at this. But the approach often involves scaling their trade size.

However, there is another camp of very good traders who prefer to immediately hedge out the extreme scenarios they just became aware of, and not touch the trade after that until targets are met. In doing so, they give up a good part of their anticipated profit, but they also avoid outsized risks.

And by doing so in many cases the trade does become relative EV- for them in the sense that its return on capital becomes less than some super-low-risk bread-and-butter trade they can put on at any time.

These tradres know that most likely in the very near future will come comparable setups that very likely will not become an ugly hydra as soon as they put them on. And they know their capital is better utilized on those trades.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

Baltostar,
Risk management is borderline irrelevant in MTTs.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

Balt,
I kind of thought thats where this was going. The idea of turning down risky high EV situations in order to allow yourself to profit from later high EV situations that to entail that level of riskiness in the arena of a poker tournament is generally a bad idea. There is a lot of literature in the archives about it. While you are right that you should be considering exactly how much ev you are gaining my upping your varience, you should very very rarely (especially early in a tournament) be passing up ev to reduce risk.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Baltostar,
Risk management is borderline irrelevant in MTTs.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are replying to a poster that in a recent thread wrote: "If you don't assign goals to hands, you run the risk of letting a single hand take control of your tournament".

I'm really not interested in the old and rather boring discussion of "ZOMG putting your tourney life on the line!", and of course you should have "goals", or better: "plans" for a hand, but general statements like the above, which baltostar is making again and again and in different ways, are really wrong and misleading, as most of good players know. You cannot, simply cannot, be a significant winner in MTTs if you don't, rather occasionally, "run the risk of letting a single hand take control of your tournament". OF course, strong players know how to pick these hands and spots, bad players don't.

Baltostar's "risk ideas" with regrard to MTTs are much much more relevant to MTT bankroll management than to any specific MTT hand in some random mid-stage spot in a tournament. Taking ideas from trading and artificially implementing them into MTT-poker situations is usually absurd (and again, it's not the first time I'm seeing this phenomenon, which is actually very interesting. "Smart" trading theoreticians who become rather weak-tight poker players, who have tons of "risk management" rationalizations for their play).

Anyway, I wouldn't like balto to stop posting or anything, not at all. If people find his vaguely articulated "ideas" interesting or stimulating, well, great.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

BAaaaLLLLOOOOSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR RRRRR

related to ?

SAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAZZZZZZZZAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
While you are right that you should be considering exactly how much ev you are gaining my upping your varience, you should very very rarely (especially early in a tournament) be passing up ev to reduce risk.

[/ QUOTE ]

For really vague reasons that I am unable to articulate in any meaningful way, I think it is possible that the 'passing up small edges' argument needs to be reconsidered in view of the tougher but more standardised fields we have seen over the past year or so.

I also think that many players (or quite possibly only me) become sloppy - assuming that the most +cEV play is the best play. This is obviously usually the case, but not always.

There are a load of tired cliches (tournament life on the line, pick a better spot etc.) that we've all considered many times before. But what I haven't seen discussed, more or less at all, is how the assumptions drawn from the arguments in the archive (don't pass up small edges) are affected by the fact that far more of any given field, certainly on Stars, are more or less competent, less intimidated by a large stack, have less concern for their tournament life but are now exploitable in different ways.

I don't think anything in this thread particularly addresses this, which is a pity.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]

An analogy from trading:

[/ QUOTE ] I think your fundamental error is using trading as an analogy for tournament poker. A more apt analogy is to compare trading to cash poker. You can stay in the game as long as you have cash, and there can be multiple big winners and multiple big losers.

For example, in a cash game, if you have a bankroll of $10000 and are facing an all-in bet of $1000 with an expected return of $1, then you would be stupid to take the bet. Losing that bet will probably have a large negative influence on your future earnings. In cash, variance is your enemy when it threatens your bankroll.

But early in a tournament, if you are faced with an all-in bet with an expected return of 1 chip, then you almost certainly should take it. Losing your stack is not the big a deal (most tournaments you lose your stack with no gain). Doubling up early is huge, and can have a large positive influence on the EV of future hands. In tournaments, variance is your friend even when it threatens your entire stack.

At the final table of the tournament, however, the dynamics can change and your ideas might have more merit, where a bet that is +cEV can also be -$EV at the same time.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
For example, in a cash game, if you have a bankroll of $10000 and are facing an all-in bet of $1000 with an expected return of $1

[/ QUOTE ]

Meh, you probably shouldn't be playing with $1000 on the table to begin with if your BR is 10K. In normal cases taking a ~0EV proposition for a stack in a cash game can be good or bad, depending on different considerations.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
While you are right that you should be considering exactly how much ev you are gaining my upping your varience, you should very very rarely (especially early in a tournament) be passing up ev to reduce risk.

[/ QUOTE ]



For really vague reasons that I am unable to articulate in any meaningful way, I think it is possible that the 'passing up small edges' argument needs to be reconsidered in view of the tougher but more standardised fields we have seen over the past year or so.

I also think that many players (or quite possibly only me) become sloppy - assuming that the most +cEV play is the best play. This is obviously usually the case, but not always.

There are a load of tired cliches (tournament life on the line, pick a better spot etc.) that we've all considered many times before. But what I haven't seen discussed, more or less at all, is how the assumptions drawn from the arguments in the archive (don't pass up small edges) are affected by the fact that far more of any given field, certainly on Stars, are more or less competent, less intimidated by a large stack, have less concern for their tournament life but are now exploitable in different ways.

I don't think anything in this thread particularly addresses this, which is a pity.

[/ QUOTE ]

well if the players are better overall, you should be willing to take more high-variance risks early on since your skill advantage is not as big.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

reg,
all those factors can change what the most +EV play is, but they do not change that we should still be taking the most +EV course of action.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Baltostar,
Risk management is borderline irrelevant in MTTs.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you guys think of the idea that certain stack sizes maintain an "x" value in ability to steal chips w/o showdown.

Does maintaining that value versus getting involved in borderline high variance ev+ or ev- situations have merit?

Clearly though this hand villians calling range according to op, is wider than balto assumes.

fwiw I don't really play much higher levels so maybe the edge of gaining chips w/o showdown is smaller at high stakes

Joseph

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

My post is rubbish. I am totally unable to articulate, or even properly conceptualise, this idea. Every so often I read a post that awakens the feeling that there is a better approach that there is a better way of playing MTTs than simply calculating exploiting the cEV of each hand we are dealt. It kind of ties in to Nath's Freaknomics thread, and various other threads, and a particularly good trip I had last year before I went on a hot streak.

As I say, I can't express what I mean but, in short, I do find this idea of manipulating volatility and a pf risk management strategy interesting and potentially useful.

DJK, FWIW, when talking about improved fields, it's more the standardising of the way that improved field plays that I find interesting. It's not 'everyone's better therefore I should take more flips because I have less overall edge' but something more like 'everyone's going to play the same so I will profit more overall by deviating from the pattern in considered way'. To use an STT analogy, the same formula of playing tight early and then going batshit on the bubble is still profitable, as it was when I started playing, but I think that this suggests that other strategies are more profitable nowadays when 6 and not 1 of the table is playing essentially the same strategy (if perhaps not as optimally).

Anyway, these are inchoate ramblings and I will shut up now. Baltostar has not made me see the light but I'm willing to give him the chance.

FWIW, I don't know much about stock trading but it doesn't seem especially relevant to MTT poker.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
You cannot, simply cannot, be a significant winner in MTTs if you don't, rather occasionally, "run the risk of letting a single hand take control of your tournament". OF course, strong players know how to pick these hands and spots, bad players don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't really what I'm getting at.

There is a big difference between letting/allowing/being drawn into and pursuing.

If at a time when the pot size implies small-to-moderate damage to your stack, you mis-perceive the risk of stakes-escalation, and you **allow** yourself to be drawn into playing the hand bigger simply because you perceive that it is marginal EV+, you soon may find yourself pot committed in a marginal situation (some combination of marginal hand, marginal read, marginal EV+, etc.)

The above is massively different than **pursuing** a situation where you believe you can escalate the stakes and remain nicely EV+ or even improve your EV+.

That's why I am advocating some sort of warning/alarm system based on reasonable expectations for goals/scenarios. It's all about protecting the player from himself.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
BAaaaLLLLOOOOSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR RRRRR

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[/ QUOTE ]
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Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
But early in a tournament, if you are faced with an all-in bet with an expected return of 1 chip, then you almost certainly should take it. Losing your stack is not the big a deal (most tournaments you lose your stack with no gain). Doubling up early is huge, and can have a large positive influence on the EV of future hands. In tournaments, variance is your friend even when it threatens your entire stack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Completely utterly wrong. Wrong.

For lack of a better name, I dub this the "Greg Raymer school of EV+" and it is wrong.

I engaged a super smart poker player friend of mine in this argument and I played devil's advocate.

The way this line goes is you should never pass up EV+ because there's always another tournament.

His response was, "Yeah but there's not an infinite amount of time in your life and most of us don't have an infinite amount of money."

That statement effectively kills the argument for absolute chip gain. More precisely, your time and bankroll risk to play in a tournament is worth more than 0.1% EV+

And here's what kills the argument for stack utility gain :

Utility/chip is an inverse function of stack size. (Sklansky was the first to prove this: if you accumulate 100% of tournament chips you do not receive 100% of buy-ins as your prize).

Obviously, your stack as a whole does gain utility from an early double-up, but it's less than double the utility of your original stack. If you're only 0.1% EV+ to double-up you are overpaying for the expected utility gained.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]


Obviously, your stack as a whole does gain utility from an early double-up, but it's less than double the utility of your original stack. If you're only 0.1% EV+ to double-up you are overpaying for the expected utility gained.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't matter if it is worth less than double your original stack. Just as in a rebuy, spending extra for double the stack can lower your roi and still be +$EV.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
That's why I am advocating some sort of warning/alarm system based on reasonable expectations for goals/scenarios. It's all about protecting the player from himself.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, now I see what you mean: You are the HSMTT messiah, coming here to protect us from ourselves. Thank you, your posts in this thread are perceived as escalating to new boundaries of hilariousness. Please keep it up.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't matter if it is worth less than double your original stack. Just as in a rebuy, spending extra for double the stack can lower your roi and still be +$EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

The rebuy analogy doesn't work out. Here's why:

I can see a rational player choosing to rebuy/add-on to increase his $EV even if it reduces his expected ROI. He might do this because ROI is a very long-term concept but he needs a payoff soon (for whatever personal reason).

For rebuys to be $EV+ the player must be better than the avg player so that his $/utility/chip cost is less than that of the avg player.

But risking your stack is not the same as rebuying.

When you rebuy, your expected gain in stack utility per rebuy $ spent is very large. Not as large as your gain in stack utility per buyin $ spent, but still quite large (and if still in 1st level, the two are very close).

But when you risk your stack for a cEV of 0.1%, your expected gain in stack utility per effective $ spent is tiny.

Let's say you do this on the first hand: so effectively the $ risk of this play is your buyin. So, you are risking your buyin for an expected gain in stack utility of less than 0.1%.

(Less than 0.1% because for positive expectations, cuEV < cEV always, where cuEV = expected value of chip utility.)

Conclusion: The $/unit cost of expected gain in stack utility is far far higher for a marginal cEV+ allin than it is for a rebuy.


Interesting aside: for any allin play, your effective $/unit cost for expected gain in stack utility is astronomical compared to the real $/unit cost of the stack utility gained in your initial buyin. And this is why if tournaments allowed cashouts at any time at a $/chip rate equivalent to the initial buyin, no rational player would ever play a single hand.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]

But risking your stack is not the same as rebuying.



[/ QUOTE ]

Essentially it is, if you can open up a new, equivalent tournament immediately.

[ QUOTE ]

I can see a rational player choosing to rebuy/add-on to increase his $EV even if it reduces his expected ROI. He might do this because ROI is a very long-term concept but he needs a payoff soon (for whatever personal reason).


[/ QUOTE ]

The personal reason in this case would be a desire for money.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously, your stack as a whole does gain utility from an early double-up, but it's less than double the utility of your original stack. If you're only 0.1% EV+ to double-up you are overpaying for the expected utility gained.

[/ QUOTE ]

This paragraph from my earlier post is misleading. I wasn't thinking about this quite right.

For *any* normal play (normal as in another player doesn't dump his chips to you), your $/unit cost for expected gain in stack utility is far higher than the $/unit cost of gain in stack utility of a buyin or a rebuy.

The problem arises for the case of an early allin of marginal EV+. These plays have an expected $/utility cost which is astronomically higher than at time of buyin.

The way to understand why this is a bad play is to compare it to simultaneously entering another identical tournament at the exact moment before you make the allin:

Your $ cost of entering the 2nd tourney is only slightly more than your effective $ cost of making the allin play.

Your starting M in the 2nd tourney will be only slightly less than it currently is in the first.

But your $/unit cost of stack utility for entering the 2nd tournament will be far low than the $/unit cost of expected stack utility for the allin play.

Clearly, entering a 2nd tournament is a better use of the $ cost of a buyin (effectively equivalent to your current stack) than making the allin play.

Since MTTs are games of forced assumption of progressively greater risk, you should avoid plays which are probabalistically roughly equivalent to starting over but which have a higher $/utility cost.

To think otherwise is to value your personal time and bankroll risk at zero.

And that is why early allins of marginal EV+ are $EV- and should always be avoided.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

But risking your stack is not the same as rebuying.


[/ QUOTE ]

Essentially it is, if you can open up a new, equivalent tournament immediately.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting that we were both writing posts about this at the same time.

But the two are not equivalent. See my post above.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

baltostar, the recent points you are making were discussed on these boards to death from around 2004 and on. Your "side" was usually the losing side, and for very good reasons. If you are so passionate about MTT theory, go read the archives before bombarding this forum with your long winded posts.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

baltostar is like the kryptonite for hsmtt.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
baltostar, the recent points you are making were discussed on these boards to death from around 2004 and on. Your "side" was usually the losing side, and for very good reasons. If you are so passionate about MTT theory, go read the archives before bombarding this forum with your long winded posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? So, the "never pass up EV+" side was *sometimes* the losing side ? Did determination of which side won/lost depend on who was reading the thread ? Did it depend on which day of the week it was ? What the price of gold was ?

One thing is clear: if it's a hotly debated theory, and neither side can gain a decisive edge, or provide an ironclad proof, then these boards certainly should not adopt it like a puppy and apply it ad infinitum letting it pee all over the house. This is madness.

Do you really believe that no matter the tournament context, no matter the hand scenario, that a player should be willing to scale his variance to maximum whenever he perceives he even the tiniest EV+ edge ?

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Huh? So, the "never pass up EV+" side was *sometimes* the losing side ?

[/ QUOTE ]

It was pretty much always the winning side. And as I said, for very good theoretical reasons. Go read the archives, you'll enjoy it.

[ QUOTE ]
One thing is clear: if it's a hotly debated theory

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it was a "hotly debated theory" somewhere in 2004.

[ QUOTE ]
Do you really believe that no matter the tournament context, no matter the hand scenario, that a player should be willing to scale his variance to maximum whenever he perceives he even the tiniest EV+ edge ?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course not. However, in most normal circumstances, in early-mid stages, regularly passing up small +CEV edges, even if it's for your entire stack (!) is a big mistake.

Anyway, there's absolutely nothing new or interesting in your perspective, it was discussed to death, and if someone here wants to discuss it further with you on this thread or elsewhere, I'll let them do that. For me, and I'm sure for many others long time posters/readers, this is just a boring deja-vu.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
For me, and I'm sure for many others long time posters/readers, this is just a boring deja-vu.

[/ QUOTE ]

How can it possibly be boring deja-vu when endlessly and innumerably advice is given on these boards to pursue perceived EV+ without any regard to the impact of scaling tournament variance ?

As you know, massively scaling up variance gets you more big plus results than not scaling up variance (all else being equal).

I think what is going on here is that a lot of players who don't understand the prob theory behind this stuff have chosen to go with scaling up variance at every perceived EV+ opportunity because it puts them in the winners circle more often. Bragging rights kick butt, especially amongst young players.

But in the long run it is not near optimal, nor maybe even a winning, strategy.

As the voice of reason in poker, 2p2 should not be fueling "gambling it up" as the preferred approach to MTTs.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think what is going on here is that a lot of players who don't understand the prob theory behind this stuff have chosen to go with scaling up variance at every perceived EV+ opportunity because it puts them in the winners circle more often. Bragging rights kick butt, especially amongst young players.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you actually knew anything about online MTTs, not just all this theoretical mumbo jumbo, you'd know that the nature of the payout scale makes playing to win the most +ev strategy. Whoever is in the "winner's circle" most often is going to make the most money.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

Sigh.

It's amazing to me that you seem to actually believe that you are the first one to consider these ideas. Absolutely amazing.

[ QUOTE ]
I think what is going on here is that a lot of players who don't understand the prob theory behind this stuff have chosen to go with scaling up variance at every perceived EV+ opportunity because it puts them in the winners circle more often.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it simply makes them (us, me) a lot more money than any other attitude. Regardless if some of the winning posters/players here understand the "prob theory" behind it, or just intuitively use it.

[ QUOTE ]
But in the long run it is not near optimal, nor maybe even a winning, strategy.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sir, you simply have no idea what you are talking about. Good luck.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

Baltostar,
I see you consistently conflating two similar, but crucially different ideas.

1. People scale up varience at every perceived +EV opportunity. Which I interpret to mean that people think that simply increasing their varience will increase their EV. You are saying, this is not the case. I agree, people can often get way too caught up and being aggro and throwing chips around, and that many times it does not increase their EV nearly as much as they expect it to.

2. A player should sacrifice his EV in order to reduce variance. This is almost always a huge mistake. And is always a huge mistake early in a tournament. That debate as has been pointed out to you has been held frequently here over the years (if you look in the archives and anthology you will see me consistently arguing my case over and over and over again). There are lots of reasons for this. While the mathematical arguments you state are true, the fact remains that the impact on strategy early in a tournament is so small as to be negligible.


I will say one other thing, and I think it may be the point you are getting at. For a long time, players in MTTS by and large were bad in a very specific way. They were weak tight, especially when faced with a decision for all their chips. Therefore playing in a manner which increased your own varience almost definitionally increased your EV. That in my opinion is no longer the case. That doesnt mean that you should turn down EV ever, it just means that increasingly the most EV strategy may not be the most aggresive one.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

anyone else think this thread should be locked? nothing new has been added in the last like 50 posts. if baltostar doesn't wanna listen, then there's no need for everyone to waste their time.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

djk,
its still a public message board, he's allowed to have his thoughts and ideas. Its easy enough to ignore somebody youve lost patience with.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

ya that's true, but he's basically said the same exact thing in every post. oh well. have fun!

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

I agree that there's no reason to lock this thread. Especially since MLG has the patience and will to reply to baltostar, which is v nice of him considering baltostar's general attitude.

Re: A5s in blind battle.
 

[ QUOTE ]
That doesnt mean that you should turn down EV ever, it just means that increasingly the most EV strategy may not be the most aggresive one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bravo.