David Sklansky - A question on tournament odds

[Borodog]

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It wouldn't reduce his chances of winning, it would just reduce his chances of cashing. It might not even do that. Variance won't impact the EV, so it can't impact his chances of winning.

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That isn't what I said. I said his EV is higher because people are playing poorly against him. But they are also increasing his variance. If his chance of not cashing is increased by the increased variance (which it should be), yet his EV has gone up, then the poor play against him should reward him with more chips when he is not unlucky and busted out, which increases his chances of winning in those instances.

[ALawPoker]

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It wouldn't reduce his chances of winning, it would just reduce his chances of cashing. It might not even do that. Variance won't impact the EV, so it can't impact his chances of winning.

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Ya, this sounds about right. Variance shouldn't impact EV. I originally thought that Sklansky just meant that it ceiling'd their EV to a point where they were more at the mercy of their hands because people were more involved with them, and that less famous players could find more equity.

I'm not really sure how well people are actually able to adjust to a famous player just cause they've watched him on TV, but I'll take Sklansky's word for it. I mean, they'll know things like "Negreanu plays a lot of hands" but these are all things they'll have figured out in an hour anyways, and DN knows what they know, so it's his own fault if he can't adjust for it. I don't think many players in the field actually have sophisticated insight into what to do against famous pros. But like I said, I'll take DS's word for it.

[ALawPoker]

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If his chance of not cashing is increased by the increased variance (which it should be)

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Why should it be? I think it's debatable, but it's not like you can cash just by staying out of trouble. You have to have your chips at risk, and effectively, get lucky to finish ITM. So +EV variance can help in the same vein that we all agree it helps your overall equity.

[Borodog]

I could be wrong.

Haven't got time to think about it any more now.

[tolbiny]

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The famous top pros have a smaller chance of winning than unknowns who play a tad worse than them. Do you see why?

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No.

Collusion? Isn't that illegal in most tourneys?

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I can see why they'd have more variance, but not why they'd have a lower EV.

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David probably feels that people will play better against famous players.

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Seems pretty obviously false, I'd bet he meant something else.

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They will have more idea of how the famous player plays so will do better against them then against a nearly as good unknown.

chez

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I figured the "trying my hardest to knock out Hellmuth because what a story!!" factor would more than offset a few dozen hands you've seen them play on TV. I might be wrong though.

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Think of what the most common types of mistakes poor players make are. Playing their cards and not their opponents, and playing to passive are way up there, the types of adjustments that the poor players are making when up against Hellmuth could well be improving their game. The other 9 players are going to pay more attention to hands with a famous player in a pot, more likely to try a bluff (who doesn't want to bluff a pro of their hand?), more likely to play well overall on those hands.

[chezlaw]

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I see. Although I think gunning also has a deleterious effect on famous players. Even though the gunner is usually getting the worst of it, he increases the variance of the famous player, and in a tournament, where the risk of ruin is high, higher variance can be very bad.

[/ QUOTE ] given that the person doing the gunning is probably bad in the first place it may be that they're playing better when they gun for someone.

chez

[tolbiny]

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I see. Although I think gunning also has a deleterious effect on famous players. Even though the gunner is usually getting the worst of it, he increases the variance of the famous player, and in a tournament, where the risk of ruin is high, higher variance can be very bad.

[/ QUOTE ] given that the person doing the gunning is probably bad in the first place it may be that they're playing better when they gun for someone.

chez

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Your equine has inadequate velocity.

[slickpoppa]

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The famous top pros have a smaller chance of winning than unknowns who play a tad worse than them. Do you see why?

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Yes; gunning.

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There were probably twenty players who had slighter better than a one tenth of one percent chance.

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Thanks; that's about what I figured in terms of "top pros", i.e. of order a couple dozen, but slightly more pessimistic in terms of odds against. I figured they would be off order 500:1 dogs.

But you have still won the argument for me.

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I can't believe your declaring victory on this.

David said that there are maybe 20 players who are slightly better than 1000:1, which is much closer to my estimation than yours. I said that the best players are at best 6 times more likely to win than the field, which corresponds to 1000:1. You thought that best pros are 500:1, which means that the pros would have to be 12x better than the field, which is clearly ridiculous given the preflop odds in holdem and the near inevitability of being allin preflop in a tournament. So how is that winning the argument? And btw, you did not even state that you thought the pros were 500:1 until AFTER DS gave his estimate of slightly better than 1000:1. Given that this debate arose in the context of me pointing out the ridiculousness of 30:1 lines on the pros, and you implying that 30:1 wasn't too far off because the true number is somewhere in the "triple digits," leads me to believe that you actually thought the odds to be closer to 100:1 than 999:1.

But if you want to declare victory because DS estimation was something in the triple digits, then go ahead. I even admitted as much when I said 999:1 was a possibility.

The bottom line is that my estimate was much closer than yours.

[ALawPoker]

I have to agree with slick. I sort of chuckled to myself when Boro said "You've won the argument for me." Haha.

And ya, "if by triple digits you mean 999:1 then maybe" is the key line. Slick was basically exactly right.