A further explanation of my red zone theory

[betgo]

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The most damaging argument I can recall from the initial thread, to which I've not yet seen a good response, is that you win less when you do pick up a monster hand. Your argument seems to be that one you should not take a bit more risk to maintain a 10-11 BB stack rather than getting blinded down to 8-10 BB's because the small edges you lose are offset by larger edges as you get shorter and by the inherent value of your last chip. But those small edges you pass up early get compounded when you later do not have as many chips to invest in your AA.

If you're going to keep bringing this up, it's time to put some math behind it. Please give us an example of a +EV push that you would advocate passing up, calculate the edge you think you are losing, and then give us some demonstration of where your future edge is coming from.

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For example, if I have 10xBB M of 5, I might not make a marginal push, like pushing a small pp from early position or J8o from CO.

Once I am down to about 7xBB, I can push steal with a variety of hands and it is cEV+. With 5xBB, I can push almost anything. So it is easy for me to steal enough to maintain that stack.

It depends on table dynamics, but since you don't need a great hand to push steal with 5-7xBB, you usually do get some opportunities to make cEV+ plays.

Having a really small stack like that is not a disaster, and is actually a good situation for keeping alive in the tournament and waiting for an opportunity.

Obviously, if you get AA with 10xBB and get action and win, you get a bigger stack than with 7xBB. However, you are more likely to get action for AA with 7xBB and you don't get AA often.