[JammyDodga]

OK,Baltostar I'm going to engage your arguments. Please do me the courtesy of reading what I say and responding to it, not just assuming that I've misunderstood and just repeating yourself.


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Nobody *knows* marginal cEV+ scenarios. They perceive them. There's always a margin of error. The problem with marginal cEV+ scenarios is the margin of error can push you into cEV-.

But that's just one problem, the 1st order problem.

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Yes, sometimes you make mistakes. This isnt an argument for avoiding risk. Sometimes you make mistakes the other way and are actually further ahead than you think.

Good players acknowledge the fact they may have made a mistake. They will often make a marginal read, and then not act on it, because of the risk they have got it wrong.

Good players will weight the chance they are wrong and use it in their cEV calculations, whether implicitly or explicitly.

The marginal +EV situations that people are talking about are once they have adjusted for the margin of error.

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The 2nd order problem is analyzing marginal cEV+ scenarios as if hand-isolated cash game situations, rather than understanding them relative to the avg scenario you can expect to receive during the remainder of your M-bracket.


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Firstly, you arent making yourself particularly clear on this. What I think you are saying is that at any particular stack size (M-Bracket) you will have an average expected value per hand (average oppurtunity). This is correct.

Firstly however, your average expected value per hand is not a theoretical future event, indepenent of how you play your hands, and how you play this hand in particular. It is a sum of all the hands you play. The way to maximise your average oppurtunity (EV per hand) is to play them all optimally, which is to maximise EV on each and every hand.

On a slight tangent, I think people do have an average EV per stack size, and this is dependent on a lot of things, including the players at your table.

Consider if you ahve an M of 2, and you are UTG. Your EV for the next 2 hands is going to be very negative. In this case it might be +EV overall to make a -EV play on this hand, simply because this is your least worse option.

Secondly consider that you have a big stack, on the bubble, at a table ful of medium stacks, who have all shown that they realy want tomake the money. This big stack is incredible +EV per hand.

Now consider that at the above table, you are a just above average stack, someone offers you a 50/50 chance to double up. You would take this every time, because doubling your chips much more that double syour $EV because your EV per hand will be so much higher. In fact, at the above situation I would even take a 55/45 bet, or worse.

Finally, you are the same table, with a nice re-stealing stack of 16BBs, there's one big-stack who's bitchslapping the weak tight nits arounds, but you know that he's raising with alot of crap. However, he plays very good post flop, and you dont think you could outplay him.

Here, your short stack has a high +EV per hand, because you can push over the big stack raised. If someone was to offer me a 50/50 EV neutral bet here, I wouldnt take it, if I thought that my EV per hand would go down if I doubled up.

Baltostar, the point is that the value of stack, is really complex and changes all the time and slanksy's "proof" you refer to really does not shut down the debate. For you to try to say this without reading what a lot of other people have said shows some real arragance.

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The 3rd order problem is purusing lines in marginal cEV+ scenarios that *tend* to scale stakes until the risk is inappropriate for the relative opportunity during your M-bracket, committing your stack to opps that are significantly sub-par.


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This is really the crux of the argument, if an oppurtunity is +cEV on this hand, and also in relation to the size of the stack you could get, then you should make it.

Your ideas on risk avoidance are really wrong. There is nothing wrong with taking increased variance if it increases your overall EV.

Comparisons with banking are really wrong. In my poker career, I've played 1000s of tournaments, and plan on playing 10s of thousands more. I can play for the long run, I can play to maximise my EV over all this tournaments.

In banking, I doubt anyone avoids profitable risk, if they are only gambling with 0.01% of the funds capital.

There are people out there, who can't play the long run, and might want to avoid variance. They are however definitely playing sub-optimally.

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The three add-up to sub-optimal play. Right now this sub-optimal play works. But as the player ecosystem continues to transform it will no longer work nearly as well.

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You seem to completely misunderstand what we are talking about here. +EV is not dependent on the "player ecosytsem" and who you are playing against. It is a theorteical concept which all good players will adjust to the particulars of any situation.

If I'm thinking about pushing, and I think it is marginally +cEV, this is based on the table. If the "player ecosystem" evolves, then what plays are marginally +EV will change. But it will still be correct to make those plays, once I have adjusted for the circumstances.

Finally you make a point about players escalating stakes to punish risk averse players, and that this will stop being profitable as people adjust. This is correct, but the reason it will stop certain plays being correct is that it will make the plays -EV, a +EV play will alyways be a +EV play.