Push all small edges or not if you could only play one MTT?

[RobDoral]

I've read many of the threads here and those linked here to archived threads about whether it is correct to always push your edges if you're getting about 55% to 45% over another player (and I'm not trying to restart such a thread). Obviously if you push a small edge each time you'll be a long term winner if you keep applying your edge. But what if there is no long term for you?

While that may sound more ominous than I intended (no, no terminal illnesses) what I'm asking is what you'd do if you could only play in one of the major 10k buy in events once in your life? And let me break this down into two scenarios:

1) You won a WSOP ME event ticket and you can set aside two weeks this year, but with family obligations, you probably won't get to play in the ME again (assuming you are even lucky enough to win another ticket) until the kids are through college and you're retired (25 years from now for the sake of the discussion, which might make it a once in a lifetime event)

2) You were fortunate enough to win a WSOP ticket, you CAN play in other major events but you can only do so IF you win enough to play in another major event (for the sake of the discussion say you'd have to finish ITM to ever play again). This seems the mathier scenario for all of you number crunchers. Can you apply the ICM across more than one event? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Now I know much of this boils down to one's level of risk aversion. A game theorist would say a 100% chance at 10k is the same as a 10% chance at 100k but what does the average Joe decide when their car starts making a horrible clunking sound and pouring smoke? A poker pro would probably take more risks knowing that if they accumluate a lot of chips early they are more likely to finish in the top 3 of an event where the money is but they also know that there will be ANOTHER event for them if they bust out early.

If y'all think this is kind of a dumb thread on a forum that is focused on tournament strategy I imagine you'll let me know real quick but this does sort of get to the underlying psychology of tournament poker. I did win a ME ticket, and while making the FT at the ME would be life changing money for me and my family, simply making it ITM would be life improving money as well. Just wondering what y'all thought and if you would deviate from optimal tournament strategies based on these two scenarios?

[flyingmoose]

If I were playing in the WSOP just once then I would want to give myself the best chance of succeeding in it. That would mean pushing small edges.

Now, for the sake of the experience, if someone went all-in on the first hand and flashed AK, I would fold a pair because I would want to spend at least a few hours enjoying the event. But on day 2 or 3, etc, I would never pass on an edge. I would want to look back and think I had given myself the best possible chance to make the final table.

[Spee]

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I did win a ME ticket, and while making the FT at the ME would be life changing money for me and my family, simply making it ITM would be life improving money as well.

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If you aren't willing to get your stuff in there when you think you have the best of it, then you probably won't make it to either, unless you have a miracle run of cards and situations that anyone could win with.

You can't play a tournament thinking about the money. The chips are pieces of clay and each hand is just another hand. You try to maximize your yield when you think you can, and minimize your risk when you feel you should.

Not having ever played in a big time tournament except online, I can't speak from experience. But if you have a 55/45 edge or 60/40 edge and have a chance to get your stuff in there and get a caller, then you have to do it about 99.99% of the time.

Good luck. I hope you get lucky and make a nice score.

[locutus2002]

You cannot have any expectations in a single tournament. It should not alter your behaviour.

I can't imagine getting my chips in as a favorite on a regular basis.

[A_PLUS]

I think you should have avoided the 'theoretical' aspects of you post and just expanded the last paragraph.

Any way you slice it theoretically, it is unlikely that the strategy you would employ early in a tournament would be any different, if you were maximizing $EV over one tournament or over many tournaments where you only start with a single buy-in. Thinking about tournaments in a long term sense, doesnt really require any number of trials. It is really just a mental construct we use to make it easier to visualize. What you are really doing is deciding on the probability distribution of your finishes for this tournament.

When you take a close +CEV gamble early on, you are shifting some probability towards the higher spots, how much you shift is open for discussion.

What you are implying is that you can somehow manipulate your distribution where you cash more often at the expense of higher finsihes and at the expense of not cashing.

Is this possible? Sure, once you reach a certain point of the tournament. That is what you see when players start to stall and tighten up on the bubble of major events. If you get to that point, (say 700 people left, 600 pay, you are above average) then yeah, passing an edge is reasonable. It is not max $EV, but it is certainly rational in a risk reward sense. The problem is early on, you are probably hurting both your chances of cashing and your chances of going deep by passing on an edge.

If you had a choice between starting level 3 of the WSOP with 20K 55% of the time, busting the first hand 45% of the time, or L1 with 10K 100% of the time. I think the first option would give you the best chance of just cashing in the event in a single trial, if that was your goal.

You will most likely need to more than 8x your stack to have a reasonable chance of cashing. Do you think you will be able to do that without taking a 55/45 flip 16% of the time? I find it highly unlikely.

Passing small edges feels like it is the safer route to cash , b/c it lessens the 6000-4000th place finsihes but when you accept that 6000th and 601st pay the same, and you should be indifferent between the 2, the you can take an objective look at what your goals are, and how taking the gambles most likely increase your odds of 'just cashing'.

[Mi_T_Sharp]

Thinking about playing it safe before entering a tounrnament of any buyin seems like suicide to me. What is the point? This relates to when you take "shots". Let's say you have a roll of 2000, which is good for the $22 180 man tourneys. If you decide to take a shot at a 50, 100, or 150 buyin tourney, you better play with as much risk as you would normally play in the 20. If not, you should just save your money and not bother taking the shot at all. Do you see why?

It's counterintuitive especially to play the ME "safer" than you would play any other MTT. The field is enormous and even to make the money is a huge feat that would require you to accumulate ridiculous amounts of chips. If you go in thinking about playing it safe, you should not be playing the event - plain and simple.

You won your way in. Have fun. Take some risks. Have some balls. See what happens. You'll most likely lose no matter what you do (no offense, most everyone will).

This post is making me think about how incredibly lucrative the money bubble must be in this specific tournament. All of the internet satellite qualifiers must really tighten up when they know that they are about to get 10 grand. If you get a good table of ameteurs, you could rape them blind. Just try to forget about the measley $10,000.

Think of it this way, 10 grand, while nice, will not improve your life that much at all, while 7.5 million will change it forever. Plus, you might even get your picture up on PokerStars!

[RobDoral]

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I think you should have avoided the 'theoretical' aspects of you post and just expanded the last paragraph.

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Just my personal mental crutch and I didn't want to burden this thread with too many personal details. If I bust out early employing a sound theory it's a little less likely to gnaw at me forever than if I play like an idiot and bust out early even if the end result is the same.

[ QUOTE ]
What you are implying is that you can somehow manipulate your distribution where you cash more often at the expense of higher finsihes and at the expense of not cashing.

Is this possible? Sure, once you reach a certain point of the tournament. That is what you see when players start to stall and tighten up on the bubble of major events. If you get to that point, (say 700 people left, 600 pay, you are above average) then yeah, passing an edge is reasonable. It is not max $EV, but it is certainly rational in a risk reward sense. The problem is early on, you are probably hurting both your chances of cashing and your chances of going deep by passing on an edge.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of my "duh" moments and you've summed it up nicely. Risk averse or not I'm going to have to take some significant risks to even make it in the money let alone worry about the rest of it.



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You won your way in. Have fun. Take some risks. Have some balls. See what happens. You'll most likely lose no matter what you do (no offense, most everyone will).

This post is making me think about how incredibly lucrative the money bubble must be in this specific tournament. All of the internet satellite qualifiers must really tighten up when they know that they are about to get 10 grand. If you get a good table of ameteurs, you could rape them blind. Just try to forget about the measley $10,000.

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[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] See, I knew there was some strategy in this thread. Now you got me thinking about bubble raping. That's going to look a bit weird on my written game plan and I probably won't read that one out loud on TV if I get the chance.


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If I were playing in the WSOP just once then I would want to give myself the best chance of succeeding in it. That would mean pushing small edges.

[/ QUOTE ]

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If you aren't willing to get your stuff in there when you think you have the best of it, then you probably won't make it to either, unless you have a miracle run of cards and situations that anyone could win with.

You can't play a tournament thinking about the money.

[/ QUOTE ]

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Think of it this way, 10 grand, while nice, will not improve your life that much at all, while 7.5 million will change it forever. Plus, you might even get your picture up on PokerStars!

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When I first won my ticket I was telling my wife and some others that I'd think of this like winning the lottery except that my odds at winning a million or more aren't quite as bad as 16 million to 1. But seeing how much it's going to cost me to get to Vegas and stay a while started to add that little nugget of fear in my mind that I'm going to take this possibly once in a lifetime shot and not only blow it but end up a little worse than I started. And more than likely that's exactly what's going to happen (my package from CheckNRaise only gave me $1000 spending cash, and heck, I already spent that [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] ) On the other hand I can't quit my day job if I just win a 20-40k so I might as well swing for the fences. Thanks for the feedback. Oh, and except that I think CnR OWNS me now, I'd gladly whore my likeness out to Stars should I win the ME. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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You cannot have any expectations in a single tournament. It should not alter your behaviour.

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The ME alters behavior even when it comes to the pros. A tournament is just tournament but win the ME and you're immortalized. On the other hand if I consider that people might be playing differently BECAUSE it's the ME then my best strategy is to figure out HOW they're playing differently and exploit it if I can. If I think about capitalizing on the other player's fears maybe I can worry less about my own. Thanks for the response.