Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me

[David Sklansky]

When I bumped into Daniel at the Bellagio today I double checked with him about his view on gambling high proportions of his stack (without a big edge) early in a no limit holdem tournament. And of course he was against the idea, for him and all excellent players. Just as I said he would be.

I think the reason beginners and players with weak reading comprehension skills are under the incorrect impression that Daniel disagrees with me on this subject is that when I say to avoid big confrontations early, they incorrectly translate that into "play tight", and when Daniel writes that he "plays loose" they incorrectly assume that he means for big money as well as small.

Yes Daniel is an advocate of trying to build your stack up early. But only by playing "small ball" for the most part. With weak players starting the tournament, good players should get involved in a lot of pots if they can get in cheaply. And they should take small risks to double or triple their stacks in the first few rounds. Some pros don't do that and Daniel and I agree that they are wrong. But we also agree that if you have tripled that starting stack early you have no way tripled your equity if you are a good player. So big gambles with small edges are not part of the game plan.

If you still don't understand, (as apparently Arnold Snyder doesn't), you have no hope.

[FortunaMaximus]

No, I recognize the style he plays. He's limpaggro, if there is such a term. He likes seeing a lot of pots and extracting from his post-flop advantage. That's probably where you and he differ on the definition of "smallball"...

And even his propensity for having a loose image works well for him. He builds stacks as well as anybody, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of his stack builds came from getting paid off on his monsters in addition to trapping weaker players with very deceptive openers.

[Mr. Now]

[ QUOTE ]
When I bumped into Daniel at the Bellagio today I double checked with him about his view on gambling high proportions of his stack (without a big edge) early in a no limit holdem tournament. And of course he was against the idea, for him and all excellent players. Just as I said he would be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming the good player has an average stack, he has no need to expose 40% or more of his stack to gambles that are borderline on a risk-adjusted basis, as a mediocre player might. He can afford to wait-- to avoid +EV close gambles with a substantial portion of his stack. His skill allows him to opt out.

This is because an average stack, in the hands of a good player, early in a tournament, is much more valuable than that same stack in the same stage of this event, in the hands of a mediocre player. Why? Because those chips in the hands of the good player have much more implied earning power across the entire length of the tournament. The bad player needs to take shots at close gambles because the event is going to evaporate his chips-- because he can't see spots to get cute. He has limited ability to perceive opportunity, compared to the good player. His play is of lower quality because he literally CANNOT and DOES NOT SEE what the good player sees.

He has fewer plays in his bag of tricks. And the plays he does have are primitive, compared to the good player.

The chips of the mediocre evaporate over time and he has no choice but to engage in close gambles. His limited perception of opportunity makes each additional hand dealt a kind of nail in his coffin. The good player on the other hand (same stack, same stage) is consciously gathering edges and getting increased chances of survival with each hand played. Other players busting, the larger sample size, more observed data points on remaining and new opponents at the table all favor the good player-- who makes plays at small pots with good risk-adjusted properties early in the event. Note that the good player actually makes a more correct assessment of the true risk/reward ratio on a per-play basis than the merely competent player. Thus his "small-ball" plays are of MUCH higher quality than 95% of the players when he makes them. This greatly improves (risk-adjusted) Sharpe Ratio .

Note also that the mediocre player usually plays 100% correctly (for him) when he takes big gambles with small edges early. The good player-- fully knowing this-- gets out of the way.


[ QUOTE ]
Yes Daniel is an advocate of trying to build your stack up early. But only by playing "small ball" for the most part. With weak players starting the tournament, good players should get involved in a lot of pots if they can get in cheaply. And they should take small risks to double or triple their stacks in the first few rounds. Some pros don't do that and Daniel and I agree that they are wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is smart for good players to look for good risk-adjusted spots to gather chips in the early stages. This is because the potential earning power of chips held by good players makes it right to avoid large-magnitude gambles with them EARLY in an event-- and play "looser" when and where the risk-adjusted gamble (Sharpe ratio) makes sense.

This is not weak-tight play. Avoiding small-edge gambles with substantial stack consquences may look weak-tight but early in a tournament structure, it's not. The tourney structure favors (and yes, in fact rewards) this kind of play from good players in the early stages. (Sharpe)

[ QUOTE ]
But we also agree that if you have tripled that starting stack early you have no way tripled your equity if you are a good player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Q: David will you please explain why in 3 or 4 sentences? Is it because the good player merely keeping pace with the average-stack is not gaining any real equity advantage? Is it because he is not getting full compensation for his overlay in skills? Or both?

Or is it simply the classic arithmetic reasons behind why each incremental chip gained loses value (per TPFAP)?

[Shandrax]

I think there is a misunderstanding when I mentioned the name Negreanu. Daniel takes a lot of stabs at pots. That's in line with Snyder's suggested style. I didn't mean that Daniel would try to push people out with moving all-in all the time - something which has been recommended by Snyder also, if my memory doesn't fail me.

Also Daniel did make some "huge" calls in the HU match with Fossilman. I think the last hand was played for a ton of chips and he had something like 2nd pair - have to check that one though. I know by now that HU was out of scope of the discussion, but it was another reason why I mentioned him.

If we want to talk about more or less prominent examples, I would like to bring the name Tuan Lee into focus. Barry Greenstein has said more than once that Tuan would be either the first guy to bust out or get very far in a tournament.

Last but not least, I think it is vital for tournament success to have your mother bring you homecooked food to the table. Did I mention Negreanu yet?

[JJNJustin]

So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?

-J

[runout_mick]

[ QUOTE ]
So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?

-J

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily, because if you DO get action in this scenario, I'd be willing to bet that you don't want it...

JMO

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?

-J

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily, because if you DO get action in this scenario, I'd be willing to bet that you don't want it...

JMO

[/ QUOTE ]

And no TAG's going to be able to exploit Negreanu unless he resteals from him consistently, and in the span of 5 confrontations, Negreanu is going to be way ahead with one and the opponent will think he's going to felt him given action. And by the point those confronations start to happen, Negreanu has cushioned himself by already accumulating a stack advantage.

[Shandrax]

This whole chipvalue debate still makes me wonder about something. What is the chiplead, that ability to threaten the whole table with elimination, worth? Can we quantify it somehow?

If chips lose value the more you have of them, but having the chiplead gains you some sort of different value in terms of bully-steroids, what's the ratio between these aspects?

[FortunaMaximus]

I'm not certain, and let me toss in a few more variables to make it interesting. The chip lead at a table would have to be of a decided advantage to any other stack at the table.

And in any HU confrontation, the advantage would need to be at least 2.5-1 to assure the table CL a valuable advantage over the table average, even after losing the hand. This could create a scenario in which the CL could knowingly assume slightly -cEV post-flop expectation so he would be able to limp or call with a wider range of hands.

[NMcNasty]

[ QUOTE ]
So can we assume that the correct counter-strategy when playing against this type of professional player who plays well would be to make very large pre-flop raises that force him to gamble for a large part of his stack early on and negate his "small ball" strategy?
-J

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. If he's raising 70% or more of his hands (like he claims to in recent articles) all you really have to do is quadruple his bet preflop and he's going to have to fold a good majority of the time.