Is TPFAP misunderstood?

[betgo]

I wanted to respond to shermn27's post in MTTC. However, rather than letting the thread be hijacked, I thought I would start a new thread. I thought it was a little more appropriate here than Books and Publications.

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"Tournament Poker" by Sklansky. Only about 1/4 of it is on NLHE. Also, it constantly emphasizes playing to survive. Still some key concepts.

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/Hijack/ Anyone else think that TPFAP (assume that is what you are talking about) is the most mis-understood text on tournament poker...ever?

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People do a lot of dumb things that may be misinterpretations of TPFAP like playing too much for survival, overbet open pushing, and overbet reraising allin with AK. However, some of the people doing this are probably donks who haven't read the book. Is that what you mean?

[wpr101]

I read this book about 4 years ago. Back then I didn't know what I was doing. But I thought the book sucked; I cannot stand how Sklansky writes. However, a few years later I noticed that some of the better players I respected liked the book a lot. That being said I have no real input because I don't remember the contents of the book that well.

[Sherman]

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I wanted to respond to shermn27's post in MTTC. However, rather than letting the thread be hijacked, I thought I would start a new thread. I thought it was a little more appropriate here than Books and Publications.

[ QUOTE ]
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"Tournament Poker" by Sklansky. Only about 1/4 of it is on NLHE. Also, it constantly emphasizes playing to survive. Still some key concepts.

[/ QUOTE ]

/Hijack/ Anyone else think that TPFAP (assume that is what you are talking about) is the most mis-understood text on tournament poker...ever?

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People do a lot of dumb things that may be misinterpretations of TPFAP like playing too much for survival, overbet open pushing, and overbet reraising allin with AK. However, some of the people doing this are probably donks who haven't read the book. Is that what you mean?

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Actually, I meant even good players mis-understand what he is saying.

Personally, I believe nearly 100% of what he said in that book (given that it is a bit out-dated) is accurate. However, I feel like people mis-apply because it wasn't nearly as clear as some books like HOH.

For example, the "don't raise with AQ" only applies if you don't know what to do against a re-raise. However, often modern tournaments with re-stealing and light 3-betting, we often know that we will be calling/4-bet-shoving with AQ.

So what he is really saying is don't raise with a hand if you don't know what to do against a re-raise. Not, don't raise with AQ. I think this often gets misunderstood.

Additionally, the example on p. 20 seems to imply that good players should pass up small edges early. However, as we know on the forum, you almost never know that you will get an opportunity to make a bet as a 2:1 favorite. Ever more rarely do we know that we are getting our money in as a 2:1 favorite (when ranges are assigned).

Beyond that, the example on p. 20 doesn't make much tournament poker sense to me because it isn't talking about being a 2:1 favorite. It's talking about getting paid more than you are betting. This never happens in tournament poker (at least that I can think of). Both you and your opponent have to put the same amount of $ in the pot. It's not like your opponent is ever risking $200 to win $100 more from you. You have to risk the same $200.

I think there are other spots that are mis-understood as well, but this post is long enough already.

[betgo]

The don't raise with AQs/TT is good advice, meaning sometimes raise with marginal hands, but don't raise medium hands. What is a hand that gives you a borderline decision to a reraise varies by the situation, and is not always AQs/TT. Sklansky selected these two hands, because they have high value, but you can also flop a big hand or draw with them.

However, from early position with deep money, I usually raise AQ, particularly AQo, with the intention of folding to a reraise. If you don't get reraised, you are probably not dominated. From late position with shallow money, I would usually raise AQ with the intention of getting allin to a reraise, which is often a resteal.

[luckychewy]

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The don't raise with AQs/TT is good advice, meaning sometimes raise with marginal hands, but don't raise medium hands. What is a hand that gives you a borderline decision to a reraise varies by the situation, and is not always AQs/TT. Sklansky selected these two hands, because they have high value, but you can also flop a big hand or draw with them.

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my problem with this is that with tens you want to limit the number of players going to a flop because your hand rates to be best and with the usually shallow stacks in the freezeouts we play online, people are giving up significant equity edges preflop by calling a 3x raise. same for ace queen because it's not uncommon to see people calling ep raises with qk/qj/qt/q9/ax type stuff and again they are giving up a significant equity edge preflop. i know you said it's not limited to aq/tt but the equity edge you gain by raising pf with these hands and slimming the field seems to far outweigh the reason to not raise them because you have to fold to a reraise.

especially because when you do get re-raised, you are usually dominated and your opponent has a significant equity edge vs you pf. if this is not the case and you are against a wild player who is re-raising a lot of pots or specifically you, there are other ways to counteract that, though imo limping is not a horrible way to do so, just not the way i usually do...but with hands as strong as these you generally WANT him to re-raise you if you have a read he is doing it lighter than what a standard range is. also, this is usually irrelevant because in tournaments worrying about counteracting constant 3-betting is usually not an issue.

[betgo]

I didn't really take Sklansky to mean don't open raise with AQs/TT. I thought he meant don't 3-bet AQs/TT, because a 4-bet puts you in a bad position.

[WarDekar]

How often do you even have the opportunity to 3-bet AQs/TT and have it NOT be a push? I mean realistically stacks aren't deep enough online to be doing 4-betting all that often, and I really don't see a problem with 3-bet pushing AQs/TT depending on situation obvi. I think it's a pretty rare occassion that we 3-bet AQs/TT when stacks are deep enough to risk being 4-bet all-in as it clearly just isn't worth it and kinda retarded, although depending on OR is definitely a possibility.

One thing I disagree with TPFAP on is bubble play. I can't remember any specific examples off hand as it's been quite a while, but I'm pretty sure he advocates the "get into the money" style by being a nit on the bubble when I think most of us realize abusing the bubble is a necessary thing and can gain a lot of +EV (both the $$ bubble and the FT bubble)

[betgo]

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How often do you even have the opportunity to 3-bet AQs/TT and have it NOT be a push? I mean realistically stacks aren't deep enough online to be doing 4-betting all that often, and I really don't see a problem with 3-bet pushing AQs/TT depending on situation obvi. I think it's a pretty rare occassion that we 3-bet AQs/TT when stacks are deep enough to risk being 4-bet all-in as it clearly just isn't worth it and kinda retarded, although depending on OR is definitely a possibility.

One thing I disagree with TPFAP on is bubble play. I can't remember any specific examples off hand as it's been quite a while, but I'm pretty sure he advocates the "get into the money" style by being a nit on the bubble when I think most of us realize abusing the bubble is a necessary thing and can gain a lot of +EV (both the $$ bubble and the FT bubble)

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I think Sklansky is assuming fairly deep money in a major tournament, and he is saying don't 3-bet TT/AQs when you will have a difficult fold to a 4-bet.

Sklansky emphasizes avoiding even gambles to survive and outplay opponents later and move up in the prize money. I don't think he advocates playing tight on the bubble at all. He doesn't address bubble issues much, but gives an example where as the big stack on the final table bubble, you might fold QQ to a push from a tiny stack to keep the short-handed bubble play going.

[WarDekar]

Yeah we're in agreement on AQs/TT, it's just not a situation that arises for us very often, and I think it's a very rare occasion that we decide to 3-bet it when there's a potential 4-bet, and I'd only be 3-betting if I was planning on calling a 4-bet.

I thought he also had examples of folding some decent hands on the bubble to try and make it ITM/to FT? Like if you're a real short stack and there's a guy all-in behind you, but you hold a nice multi-way hand, he says fold because someone could get knocked out? Whereas I'd be willing to shove those chips in there to try and triple up and make a run at the big prize.

As I said it's been a couple years since I've even looked at TPFAP so I'm probably fudging things in my memory a lot and combining it with advice from other places.

[betgo]

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Yeah we're in agreement on AQs/TT, it's just not a situation that arises for us very often, and I think it's a very rare occasion that we decide to 3-bet it when there's a potential 4-bet, and I'd only be 3-betting if I was planning on calling a 4-bet.

I thought he also had examples of folding some decent hands on the bubble to try and make it ITM/to FT? Like if you're a real short stack and there's a guy all-in behind you, but you hold a nice multi-way hand, he says fold because someone could get knocked out? Whereas I'd be willing to shove those chips in there to try and triple up and make a run at the big prize.

As I said it's been a couple years since I've even looked at TPFAP so I'm probably fudging things in my memory a lot and combining it with advice from other places.

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When you are real short stacked close to the bubble or any stacked ITM, it is often correct to fold slightly cEV+ opportunities.

I think Sklansky is giving concepts rather than specific advise. Any of it can be misinterpretted if you try to take it too literally.