180 man $20+2 SNG final table deal

[McMelchior]

[ QUOTE ]
Playing or chopping protects his investment equally.


[/ QUOTE ]Wrong. Chopping reduces the extremely high variance substantially and thereby protects the investment of time and money - playing doesn't.

This is especially true when the blinds are high relatively to the stack sizes. Even if you're a somewhat better HU player than your opponent variance will wipe 33% of your profit close to 50% of the time - and the higher the blinds, the closer to 50%.

And, BTW - why is it that players posting/reading twoplustwo is automatically supposed to assume they're better than other players? There's like a million poker bulletin boards out there, tons of good books, training sites, "boot camp" type courses and unlimited options of playing and improving.

The biggest mistake a player can make is to under-estimate the strenght of the opposition, believing himself to be better than he really is. When you meet another player at a FT, unless you have seen this player displaying really poor judgement the most prudent strategy is to assume that you're up against a thinking, skilled player, and not automatically assume that you have the upper hand.

Even seing a player making what you believe to be poor moves is not necessarily a fool-proof indicator of your own superiority. Before he passed away Andy Glazer (at least I believe it was him) wrote an excellent article in CP about poker-ability as an amassment of insights into discrete and mutually independent concepts. The point was, that if you don't understand a certain concept and see it applied by an opponent you will not be able to appreciate it's strengh; because only the very best players understand a majority of important poker concepts applied most players will under-estimate an opponents skills even after watching him play for a while.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

[Black Aces 518]

[ QUOTE ]
Unless he knows he's not a good heads up player, or knows his opponent is very good, then the expectation of playing heads up is better than chopping. If he feels no one has a significant advantage then its a push. Playing or chopping protects his investment equally.

I thought both the top prizes were significant to the OP, not THE DIFFERENCE between the top prizes. As the difference isn't that significant by any reasonable standards (i.e. 1st isn't even double 2nd).

[/ QUOTE ]

I probably misstated in the OP what the money meant. When I said both prizes were significant, what I was trying to convey was that this is a significant amount of money to me. I don't have a 20K bankroll, and I'm not 8 tabling these tourneys like some people might be.

I probably would have never proposed a chop on my own, but when my opponent asked if I wanted to deal, I thought that reducing variance and securing as much significant money as I could might be a good idea.

I didn't feel like I was outclassed HU (nor did I significantly outclass my opponent). But think of it this way: we ended up allin with my KK against his AJ suited preflop. I'm 1 in 3 to lose my entire lead on that one hand. Guaranteeing myself at least 1/2 the difference between 1st and 2nd (and playing for another $100, where I still have my chip edge to get that) sounded appealing.

I really appreciate the discussion, as this is the first time I've been in a situation to deal. The only other FT I've made the top 3 in, where the payout was $500+, I really did have such a significant chip lead that I wasn't going to deal.

[JoaoPinto]

I actually play in the tournament your talking about a lot and have won it very recently. I'd never consider chopping in it because the difference between the prizes is not that great. It only had 180 runners. A deal is really only worth it when the top prize is double 2nd or if there are say 4 or 5 people left in a tourny with a big pay out and everyone would like to make sure they get a $1,000 or so. I'm a $5-$20 and $1/2 limit player as well and the $360 difference your dealing with is not a big deal. You've already taken a monster pay out for those limits with $720. Thats 32 Buyins.