3SP: A new NLHE format that requires skill, not recklessness.

[2Fast]

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Vorlin

If you are going to maximize your expected win in an MTT, you NEED to accumulate chips. Sure, all you need to do is to stay around for as long as possible, but the blinds will increase and the only way for you to actually do this is to build your stack.

If you want to build your stack, the best strategy is to always look for certain situations and accept them once you see them. I am talking about situations with a positive expected value (+EV)

If you are in the big blind with 75 bb's and AKo, and the SB maniac who has you covered pushes all-in with QJs, you should be happy about it. It is true that a fair amount of the time he will catch a pair and you will be eliminated. However, most of the time you will double up and be in terrific shape. Thus, on average you gain and he loses.

You can not just sit around in a multi table tournament hoping to survive long enough to make the money. First of all, because you will become short stacked very often, and bust out anyway (same result as if you had taken a +EV situation early but somehow busted out in that way because of variance). More importantly though, barely making the money gives you only like 2-3 times your buy-in. However, if you have spent the tournament accumulating chips, you have a large stack. That stack can be used to battle your way through the rest of the field, and win many many multiples of your buy-in. This is the strategy that has the highest $ expected value.

There is no magic way to pass up +EV situations without also decreasing your expected cash. I could write examples and explanations on this forever. PM me or read the Anthology sticky at the top of the MTT forum if you still don't understand.

"You can't lose what you don't put in the middle. But you can't win much either.

- David Levien -

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nicely done Fiksdal!

[Tortuga]

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The only thing I really don't understand is why anyone would be happy to be surrounded by people who go all in all the time. Once in a while is great, sure. I'll take that 5:1 at least twice, if not three times... but not 7 or 8 times.

It's just not profitable in the long run.

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This statement right here shows you have no clue as how to play MTTs.

[nath]

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The way you talk about poker lends to the idea you dont really get it, when you say stuff like "avoiding the all in idiots early".

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[13ball]

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An all-iniot two seats over who uses all-ins to steal pots, and has already been all-in more twenty times, calls his bet and shows J6o.

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Why on Earth would you want to stop this from happening?

[Beachman42]

lol I still think OP has found the most innovative way to cross-pollinate BBV into MTT.

NH, sir!

[Emperor]

ummmm... so you would rather get your AA in vs all-iniot's QQ, with only a small percentage of your stack, instead of all of your stack? Isn't his backwards?

Solution to your problem:

1. Play higher buy-in tourneys where there are less "all-iniots" (however I doubt you play well enough to win if you are whining about the variance of +EV plays)

2. Player lower buy-in tourneys, only play a few hundred a day so you can overcome the variance you are whining about.

3. Read the articles in the MTT Anhology on not passing up small edges.

[Ben K]

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I look at it this way:

The only thing I really don't understand is why anyone would be happy to be surrounded by people who go all in all the time. Once in a while is great, sure. I'll take that 5:1 at least twice, if not three times... but not 7 or 8 times.

It's just not profitable in the long run.


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I think is where you go wrong. each time you survive (which you admit happens more often than not) you increase your chances of making the money by reducing the number of players you're up against - you've bust one, by collecting chips - you're doubled up and by generally improving your position relative to the remaining players.

This is what you want. The maniacs will get knocked out eventually and you need to be in a good position relative to who's left in order to continue to get into the money.

Yes, your suggested changes lower the incidence of manical allins early but the advantage from doubling up more than outweighs the loss of the tourney especially since most pay out at least twice the buyin. In the simplest case if you cash every time you win and bust every time you lose then taking the 70% chance is good. Across 10 tourneys you win 7 making double the buyin = 14bi and you lose 3 for (3) making a total of 11bi.

Fact of tourney poker - it is profitable in the long run.

[FlyingCarpet]

One of the things that really changed my views on poker and consequently my decisions on individual hands is to look at the odds over the long haul. If you are a 5-1 favorite and you take those odds every single time you get the opportunity, you will lose some of them but over the long haul it will be a profitable decision.

Personally, I play poker for the long haul and expect that I will suffer some bad beats over the short term but ultimately I will come out ahead.

[That Foreign Guy]

So a moron putting all his chips in with a lousy hand is a bad thing?

Did I miss a memo?

This format of the game is a somewhat clever idea (doesn't mean it's good, just clever) but I think it would mostly attract the kind of table-coach ego-driven nits who are really what ruins online MTTs.

If you can find me a tournament where all my opponents are going all in every hand I will play that tournament until my fingers fall off.

+EV situations are +EV.

You have to answer one simple question. Do you play poker to make money or to feel clever? From your posts, it looks like you'd rather feel clever than win money. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just different from most of us here.

[duh]

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Once in a while is great, sure. I'll take that 5:1 at least twice, if not three times... but not 7 or 8 times.


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WTF???