Give up Coinflips Early and take Coinflip late instead

[secretbonus]

Hi guys, I've read these forums before, but I finally decided to sign up and make a post. I've heard many people talk about the debate over whether it's correct or not to take a coinflip early in order to get a stack that you can use towards accumulating chips. My thoughts on it are that a double up early isn't very useful at all, and is a very poor risk/reward to take.
Doyle Brunson was asked about this topic and he said he doesn't believe in it (doubling up early) because he says "really what difference does it make" . I have to say he's right here. You know Phil Helmuth wouldn't take it early. Daniel Negreanu wouldn't early either. Well there's many reasons on why this is... You could argue "well your chips compound, one double up leads to another, etc." But if you're playing a style that requires multiple double ups, and that's how you move up in money, you're not playing optimal anyways. Look if you get it all in with aces, and are still short stack everytime, you are expected to be knocked out half the time with 4-5 all ins. While this "double up early" bit might work out ok in smaller fields, in the big fields you simply can't expect to survive if you are risking it all, especially early. What about Scotty Nguyen, who's always consistant, who finished 11th in the main event... he NEVER likes to get it all in.

How do these players do it? They start out playing a tight game, but when they get involved, they play small pots. Throw in Ivey in that list of names for small pot players. But THEN they get to the bubble and that's where a lot of pros if they can just survive to, they can go from a short stack to a big stack very quickly and have a chance at going deep. A coinflip on the bubble isn't bad at all. What's the difference? Well first of all taking it all in early and then "coasting" into the money is simply NOT worth your effort, you all know how top heavy they pay out these tournaments. You might get an extra 2000 from doubling up early, but by then the blinds are like 250/500... and with the ante that's less than 4 rotations of chips. On the otherhand, a double up on the bubble not only means a lot more chips (assuming you can accumulate chips) from the double up as you'll have a bigger stack and the blinds will be bigger... But a double up on the bubble also means knocking out or crippling someone who is your only competition at the moment to steal the blinds. You knock down or out someone who's raising every pot near the bubble, and now you have control of the table. I might even take a risk with a small -EV in order to gain the opportunity to steal the blinds, figuring out the table is so much more ++EV if I can take that guy down before he amasses too much chips. Also, after the bubble chip position and your Q becomes so much more important. Usually after the bubble, all the short stacks and even others go all in a lot more after they make the money... Some people after making the money THEN decide to go all out and try to get a chance to go after the money that's all up in the top 3-5 places.

Well you're either going to need to have enough chips to call these players off to take your small edges without risking a large amount of your stack, or you're going to need enough chips to sit back and wait for a hand, or at least until everyone that's in all in mode knocks each other out so you can start stealing again. Blinds get big and it becomes easier to get back in it if you blind down a little bit, I like to gear down just a little bit, try to pick it up, and then I'll be much more cautious, and I'll do more trapping. When the blinds are this big, you aren't risking that much by letting your opponent see a cheap flop if you just say flat call a raise with aces. Trapping becomes Key.

Now don't get me wrong you can't just sit back and blind down to half your stack and double back to where you were either, but if you are a good enough player to survive the "donkfest" early, then gradually increase your stack after that by just chipping away at small pots, your double ups will mean SOOOoooo much more later on.
If you are good enough to accumulate pots risk free, by putting yourself in a situation where you're getting knocked out 50 or even 40% of the time early, you're missing on 40% of the future EV that you'll get from accumulating those risk free pots. The early that is, the more future EV you're giving up.

Additionally, lets compare.... just say for example that in tourney 1 you take a coinflip early, you end up getting it all in and doubling up 4 other times. So that extra 2000 you got became 16000 and you end up making the final table.
Now in tourney 2 you take the same exact course of action, except you FOLD the coinflip situation early, so you have 3 all ins. Now if all other actions are the same, lets just say for tourney 2 you have 160,000 at the final table for tourney 1 you have 176,000. But the blinds are 5000 and 10000 now. So which do you take? You pay a buy in and go to the final table with 160,000, or flip a weighted coin for the price of the buy in, heads you lose the buy in, tails you're at the final table with 176,000. If that's not clear enough, you can take a coinflip NOW with your 160,000, and you'll have 335,000(after blinds, not including the ante) with the SAME EXACT chances of survival as you did in tourney 1... AND even if you LOSE the coinflip now, you still cashed, and the blinds probably.
You may notice a patten with a lot of the players that do well in tournaments. They catch their rushes, and win big hands late. Even Chris Moneymaker had a talk about how he "played scared" the first couple days and he thought the pros had aces every hand. Steve Danneman(sp) and Joe Hachem were pretty low in chips towards the end. I think if I remember right Raymer won quite a few coinflips late. You'll see Helmuth play tighter than anyone LATE in the tourney.. (However doesn't seem to kick it into high gear when it gets 5 handed and less as you'll see against Matusow and Corkins at the TOC he wasn't able to adapt from his tight ways)

You'll even see Matusow slow down and although he's known to blow up, if he makes it deep he has a REAL shot at winning because he knows when to switch gears and slow down, and kick it into high gear short handed.
I think I heard that B Micon says the same thing about how late you'll be shoving all in with KQ and hands like these... It's one of the paradoxes in poker, it's only when you're to the point in a tourney where you're playing for the MOST money, that you have to put all your chips at risk, when you have to rely on luck when you have to take the most risks and play the least poker and really just find the range of hands that your opponent will call with, determine averaged distributions of hands, how much M you have and how much your opponent has... It really becomes an all in or fold math problem.

The bottom line is, don't risk it all on a coinflip early, while it's true you might want to widen your hand range and
And while it's true that if it allows you to play cash games that you're going to have a bigger edge, you may have an argument on "opportunity costs" and why it's better to go big or go out so you can play in the cash game, or not waste your time on an unknown...
There may be a certain point where you notice that you're being outplayed, and at that point you may want to wait for cards and shove in to minimize the edge the other players have on you, but if you really want to MAXIMIZE the edge you have over the donkeys early, see some flops, chop away with small bets, maybe hit your dream flop and get your opponents chips. Control the pot size, build up the pot big when you have it, keep it as small as you an when you don't.

[Sherman]

This is too long to read in it's entirety, but I get the gist of your argument. You are right...but mostly you are wrong.

Here are two major problems with your argument:

1) Most of us play online. And honestly, stacks aren't deep enough for a long enough period to play "small ball" poker and to pass up early edges.

2) Live poker players suck. Period. Most of these guys you are listening to play live poker. Well in live poker people fold getting ridiculous odds. That's why these guys play small ball poker. Because they can count on people making idiotic folds. Online, people don't fold. Period. So you have take advantage of the $ they are willing to give you when you can get.

The fact is, if the blinds never went up, playing small ball poker would be just fine. But they do go up and if you pass up your early edges you are going to find yourself crippled. If you want to play that style b/c you think it is correct, be my guest. Just know that you are going to get crushed in fast structures by people willing to gamble; with the best or the worst of it.

Sherman

[ademjohn]

I couldnt agree with op more. Dan Harrington is a great poker player and Im sure hoh is a great book, but you guys take ev+ and M much further than im sure its intended. Its a wonderful "theory" and sounds brilliant but if you get your chips all in 3-5 times pre-flop in a tourney you are out. maybe 6 times if you have aces each time. Please ignore this if you play on UB...keeep pushing. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[levAA]

secretbonus,

welcom to the forum and thank you for the post, which is in many points true.

the first point i'd like to comment is the "coinflip" in itself.

nobody is looking for a coinflip - as this is a 50:50 chance and you can't win money with it (therefor i don't like this term in poker at all).

in poker you are always looking for edges which give you a positive EV. still the question is how big has this edge to be.

for many players, also like me a 60:40 is more than enough. these edges can be found preflop, but can also be found postflop. whenever i find myself postflop with 17 outs i will gladly shove my chips in (i'll do it even with less, cause i get FE too).

the main question is which edge is the best for tournament play (in cash games this is much easier).

the second point is the same sherman has pointed out already. the players you use for your arguments are all live-players, with very,very deep stacks and extremly slow blind structures. playing these structures you can play smallball, catch tells by weak players and advance slowly.

just read the posts in the anthology about the Early Edges where you find some interesting arguments also from world class players.

The fact is that in faster tournaments you have to get a good stack early enough, cause the blinds catch you and than moves like stealing/restealing get very important, and therefor you need the stack.

[hamnegger]

the blind and chip structure of a standard online tourn don't allow u to avoid early conflict very often. you can maybe get away w it in a dbl stack tournament for the first hour. pros play hour blinds w 25-50 blinds and 10k in stating chips this is a marathon and u can play 5 hrs of cash game type poker.

[4CardStraight]

Hrmmm. I like what others have replied, and OP has some validity, I think tho that we all need to remember that what we really should be aiming for are:

COINFLIPS WHERE WE ARE 55% and they are 45%. No I am not talking about specifically always getting it in with an underpair when they have AK. I am talking about getting it in with an edge of our range vs their range. Maybe it is late game proper hand evaluation by position. Maybe it is getting it in with a set on the flop when they have a strong flush draw. Maybe it is getting it in with a huge combo draw when they have a set. Ideally when its even better, like when we can get it all in with KK or AA preflop, or when we can get them to push the turn into us when we have the nuts.

But we get it in when we have a 10% edge or so to our coinflip and it doesnt matter when the opportunity appears. It just appears more often to a pro later on in the tourney, since preflop hand evaluation is a rigorous thing to try to get down properly, and it changes with each BB difference between stacks.

4Card

[BarryLyndon]

Hello OP,

Play a few hundred online tournaments and get back to us on your theory.

Best,


Barry [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[halpgr]

You mentioned Doyle Brunson, Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen. They may have a skill advantage over the field that allows them to pass on coinflip situations in the early stages as they can win a big stack using lower risk methods.

Most regular players do not have such an edge over the field and probably should be looking to gamble to get involved in coinflip type hands as for us that's the most likely path to getting a big stack necessary to go deep in the tournament.

[BarryLyndon]

[ QUOTE ]
You mentioned Doyle Brunson, Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen. They may have a skill advantage over the field that allows them to pass on coinflip situations in the early stages as they can win a big stack using lower risk methods.

Most regular players do not have such an edge over the field and probably should be looking to gamble to get involved in coinflip type hands as for us that's the most likely path to getting a big stack necessary to go deep in the tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

Online, you could be the most skilled player on the planet, if you aren't taking a small edge early, good luck in winning.

Also, live, a lot of tournament structure suck, and if Daniel Negreanu or Doyle Brunson were playing in an $85 at your average casino, they'd take a 55/45 early too.

Barry

[rjsob]

[ QUOTE ]
You mentioned Doyle Brunson, Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen. They may have a skill advantage over the field that allows them to pass on coinflip situations in the early stages as they can win a big stack using lower risk methods.

Most regular players do not have such an edge over the field and probably should be looking to gamble to get involved in coinflip type hands as for us that's the most likely path to getting a big stack necessary to go deep in the tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this. But will add some more to it.

1) It is more likely that early in a tournament you are playing against less skilled players. So you are more likely to have the edge, especially if you are the one doing the AI push. In the later stages, there are less fish and you are less likely to be favored when you push and even less likely when you are being pushed.

2) Taking the risk early lets you build a stack where you are MUCH less likely to be AI when it comes to a coin flip. So you can survive the flip with the bigger stack.

3) And my personal favorite, if I'm going to risk getting knocked out on a coin flip, I'd rather do it early rather than spending hours playing tight, THEN getting knocked out on a coin flip.