[baltostar]

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I dont know what the 'avg hand risk distribution curve' is, but ignoring that, I can't tell whether you think that adding variance to move your mean to the right (presumably you're talking about increasing profit here) is a good or bad strategy. To clarify, it is in fact a good strategy. I also don't know what 'an achievable shape' means, so I dont know whether you think added variance that adds to your expected profit counts as better quality variance or not.

basically I have no idea wtf you're talking about, shocker.


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NHFunkii : if I had some pictures, I bet you'd find my argument easy to follow. It's not advanced stuff. My bad for not having pics.

"Avg hand risk distribution curve" is easy to picture: play 100,000 tournament hands and graph the magnitude of gain/loss (x axis) against the frequency each magnitude of gain/loss occurs (y axis).

We're in total agreement that the principle way aggressive players get such an advantage over donks and tight players is by adding variance to the curve in an advantageous manner: they scale-up risk when they perceive cEV+.

Compared to a tight player's avg hand risk distribution curve, the aggressive player's curve is squashed down and spread-out and skewed to the right (the mean is positive).

So, yes, I agree with you, adding cEV+ variance is good.

However, as a flood of similar-styled aggressive players enter the game, when the aggressive player picks a line that tends to scale risk, more and more often it's against another aggressive player, and so your FE doesn't work as hard for you -- the aggressive guys just don't lie down as much as the donks and the tight players.

This is fine in significant cEV+ scenarios. But in marginal perceived cEV+ scenarios, it's very easy to be a little off in your cEV+ perception and, without the FE working as hard for you, you tend to kill off a lot of stack-utility.

The flood of similar-style aggressive players flattens your curve, and because your FE is blunted it causes the curve to lose some of its rightwards skew.

How to combat this ? By pursuing a curve that has somewhat less variance, but better quality.

You still have an awful lot of variance compared to the tight players, but you have less than the avg aggressive player.

If you can avoid scaling risk in the significantly sub-par opportunities then, on avg, when you do scale risk it doesn't matter so much that your FE isn't as powerful a weapon as it once was. You don't mind getting it allin when you have good confidence that you're ahead.

So, your flat squashed curve perks up a bit, it transfers some fat from its tails to its midsection, and it adds-back some rightward skew. You have a "better shaped" curve than the avg aggressive player: it has less variance and a more positive mean.