Amateur Poker Association & Tour
Poker Forum => Strategy => Topic started by: AAroddersAA on July 28, 2012, 15:03:10 PM
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A spin off of a popular question interested in the answers people give
Tournament = WCOAP Main Event April 2013
15K Starting chips
45 Minute clock with all the levels
First hand of the event
We are in the BB and have been dealt QQ
It folds to the SB (an unknown player) who open shoves 15K chips and forgets to protect his hand, which is AKs
Call or fold????
Why???
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Call, free chips.
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Eh? Fold, obviously.
You could construct a tougher decision with different cards.
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Not sure why this question would be popular, it"s pretty pointless.
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Seriously? Fold.
400 runners - you would flip to try increase your cEV from 0.25% to around a whopping 0.48%.
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If you know you suck at poker - call.
But given most of us will believe, rightly or wrongly, that we have an edge on the field. Then it"s a fold.
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I remember reading somewhere that the closest 50/50 pre you can have is something like
AT vs 3 3 sharing one of the suits...
Might be wrong, memory not what it was.
Either way. I"m folding.
If you know you suck at poker - call.
Actually..... on second thoughts....
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Seriously? Fold.
400 runners - you would flip to try increase your cEV from 0.25% to around a whopping 0.48%.
How did you come to that answer?
I actually think there are a lot of advantages to having a big stack early. Winning the flip would give you a lot more than double the chance of winning the tournament for several reasons. I just didn"t fancy the downside.
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Seriously? Fold.
400 runners - you would flip to try increase your cEV from 0.25% to around a whopping 0.48%.
How did you come to that answer?
I actually think there are a lot of advantages to having a big stack early. Winning the flip would give you a lot more than double the chance of winning the tournament for several reasons. I just didn"t fancy the downside.
Obviously the hand itself would never happen but the situation it creates is that we double up and win 15,000 chips about 54% of the time, and as John says it more than doubles our chance of making it into day two, the cash and the final table, especially if we have the edge that we are all saying is the reason we should fold.
Does your answer change if the tournament is a re-entry?
How much of an edge do we think we need in the tournament to turn this down?
Those of us who think it"s a fold, do you believe you double your stack in this kind of event more than 54% of the time playing small pots or by just getting it all-in in a better spot.
What sort of an edge do we need to fold here and is it realistic to think that we have it?
Also what do we do if we are holding the AK and our opponent is holding QJ?
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Do you seriously believe that doubling up in the first hand doubles your chance of winning the tournament? To win the tournament, you need to gather 100% of the chips in play. In a 400 runner tourney, you start with 0.25% of the chips in play, and if you double up you have 0.5% of the chips in play. It"s a helluva long way to get from 0.5% to 100%!
So - ultimately, you"re risking your entire tournament equity, with a potential return of a quarter of one percent of the chips in play. If you believe you have any kind of edge in the game, calling to take the flip here would be awful play.
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If the small blind is willing to do this then I would laugh out loud and fold ... I would expect to have a reasonable edge on the individual concerned ... in this example has he declared that "he" has AKs.
If he has not shown his hand ... then non-trivial to discount AA or KK ... so you have to fold ...
It"s amazing how much of a field think they do have an edge (probably including consistent losers!) ... how many of these will end up in a race after 10 hours of play with their mythical edge?
Question is how much advantage could you make of the double stack in the slow structure - if you could take a lot of advantage then worth flipping.
What would you do with the rest of the day if you lose ... if you could make some money playing cash or working then looks like a great call ... (but why did you enter in the first place?)
For the insta folders - what winning hand % would you want before you called?
L
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Do you seriously believe that doubling up in the first hand doubles your chance of winning the tournament? To win the tournament, you need to gather 100% of the chips in play. In a 400 runner tourney, you start with 0.25% of the chips in play, and if you double up you have 0.5% of the chips in play. It"s a helluva long way to get from 0.5% to 100%!
So - ultimately, you"re risking your entire tournament equity, with a potential return of a quarter of one percent of the chips in play. If you believe you have any kind of edge in the game, calling to take the flip here would be awful play.
No, I think it more than doubles your chances. Your reply suggests that you will just bank the chips and then carry on playing exactly as otherwise for the remainder of the tournament. It"s not about still having to collect 99.5%. It"s about having 30k v everyone else"s 15k. This gives you significant advantages against your table, such as:
- You have the chips to slap the others about if that is your thing - they cannot afford some of the risks that you can
- If it is your inclination, you can nit it out for a big hand for much longer without having to get into marginal situations
- Huge cushion - drop 10k for whatever reason once the blinds start going up and you"re in a spot with 5k, but you"re still good with 20k
- Best of all, score big against another big stack and you can maximise the outcome, ie potentially go to double-double rather than just doubling at that point
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If the small blind is willing to do this then I would laugh out loud and fold ... I would expect to have a reasonable edge on the individual concerned ... in this example has he declared that "he" has AKs.
If he has not shown his hand ... then non-trivial to discount AA or KK ... so you have to fold ...
It"s amazing how much of a field think they do have an edge (probably including consistent losers!) ... how many of these will end up in a race after 10 hours of play with their mythical edge?
Question is how much advantage could you make of the double stack in the slow structure - if you could take a lot of advantage then worth flipping.
What would you do with the rest of the day if you lose ... if you could make some money playing cash or working then looks like a great call ... (but why did you enter in the first place?)
For the insta folders - what winning hand % would you want before you called?
L
Top response.
In the example he has AK he has held his hand up and you have accidentally seen it. You know you are about 54% fav in the hand is the important thing.
(I agree QQ is a fold if you have not seen his hand, probably KK as well, although I would call KK. It really doesn"t matter I just wanted a situation where we were a little bit better than 50% early on and gave the most extreme example)
Talking about the edges people have, that"s kind of what I am asking about here. Personally I don"t believe I have a large enough edge to justify a fold here and would call. Yeah, I reckon I could use the large stack as well. The one thing I will say about losing a flip after 10 hours of play, this might be fine as it might very well have been correct to take the flip at that point, knowing that is all part of your edge.
What would we do if we lose the flip, that"s why it is set at DTD at WCOAP. Whatever we like pretty much, play cash, play a tournament go to the bar, we are not going to get bored. I entered the tournament to win it, for the gold medal and the trophy and that is my main goal. A smaller goal is getting to the final table. Calling is the best option for me to do this.
What % would I want to make the call? About this, I would not call on an exact 50/50.
I just find it interesting how many people believe their own edge to be enough to make this spot a fold. I think this claims quite a significant edge, certainly more than I believe I have.
Also +1 to what John said, doubling up at this point MORE than doubles your chance of winning/finaling the tournament
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... yes ... I probably should have said the "hopeful" race after 10 hours ... sometimes it is AJ vs AK ... so early races are bad ... but you end up crushed ... perhaps missing earlier spots (with added advantages).
Calling for the race with very little value add does make it super marginal though.
L
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Some links to strategy articles (hope you don"t mind the links mods (Paulie))
In favour of flipping: http://www.pokerisrigged.com/general-poker-forum/flip-not-flip-775.html
A wishy-washy argument from a couple of crooks: http://www.thehendonmob.com/poker_tips/coin_flip_two_sides
Against: http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/poker-strategy/tournament-poker/8073/tournament_strategy.html
You can make up numbers to support either argument, and whilst I believe the "maths" in favour of flipping isn"t great, it"s still the best argument of the three, with the last article being an absolute pile of rubbish. It still underplays the other potential factors imo, like blind and payout structure, skill level of opponents, experience (it"s social for many people after all).
I would suspect that there would be a very limited number of scenarios in an APAT/small buy in tournie where someone"s edge would be significant enough to turn down this 53.8% chance of doubling. Go back a few years and there"d be more of these scenarios, however the average skill level has increased to such a point where edges are being eroded.
Whilst we know from ICM that doubling up does not double your $EV - for the first hand of the tournament this is as near zero a consideration as you"re going to get. Impossible to calculate long term ROI as it is, let alone perceived additional edge from doubling, whilst isn"t great when the blind levels are low. So will you get a better chance to reach the same chip position long term by level 6, 8, 12 (when the blinds matter) or whatever if you don"t take the flip? If the blind levels are 15 minutes, probably not. If 2 hours, there are more arguments to say you may do.
Incidentally, if it"s a re-entry and you"re rolled - get it in! :D
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People underestimating the knock on effect of winning here and overestimating their hedge.
(http://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq267/ppokerfan/ac54e48f.jpg)
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Wow lots of claims itt about "our edge", "doubling up more than doubles our edge[citation needed]" etc and no sums to back up those estimated edges!
The bottom line is that ROI is the truest indicator as to our edge, a confident sample size is likely not achievable for live play and impossible for our ROI specifically in instances when we double up first hand.
If you know you suck at poker - call.
But given most of us will believe, rightly or wrongly, that we have an edge on the field. Then it"s a fold.
^^ This about sums up the dilemma.
What we can confidently consider are the factors or skills that give us an edge.
If the assumption is that we make better decisions than our opponent and since we are in a decision making contest with them, the more "rounds" we play in this decision contest the more our edge accumulates. Conversely, reducing the contest to one round reduces that edge.
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Also +1 to what John said, doubling up at this point MORE than doubles your chance of winning/finaling the tournament
It"s the chip stack and structure that decide whether this is true.
If the big blind is 50 and you have 15,000 chips and your opponent has 30,000 chips - you"re not going to play any differently.
Therefore having the 30k doesn"t give you that much of an advantage - obviously it gives you a safety margin, if you get unlucky or mess a hand up you"ve got more chips to throw away;
but if the blind goes up to 100 and the 15k player has lost 5k and the 30k player has lost 5k; you"ve both still got deep enough stacks to play your own game - if you going for the double up because there"s a danger you"re going to lose 10k in the first level - that"s probably the right indication of skill level where you should be taking the flip after all.
There was some game theory concept that addresses this about risk/reward - but you have to accept that you can"t win a 2 day tournament in the first hour (only lose it)
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OK, thank you very much for your help on that guy"s.
This is one of those where you can"t really show who is right or who is wrong, there is no mathematics for it really comes down to personal opinion. I wanted to know how people felt about taking a large gamble in a "high variance" spot.
I personally believe that given a double chip stack I could adjust my game to increase my chances more than double but not massively. You can push certain spots harder when you have a large chip stack and do it more often as it matters a lot less when you are wrong as you have more chips to exploit more of those spots. You will eventually make chips this way but might lose some in the short term.
I can"t say how much of an edge calling here gives you over folding but it is obviously going to be pretty small. The fact is, it is an edge though. This is shown by the fact most people would say if it was a re-entry to get it in, although the fact it is a re-entry does not make a difference. It just means you can enter an identical tournament immediately instead of having to wait until next month.
Now I could easily be totally wrong on this one as I know it"s not the opinion of most people. I was interested in the arguments for folding, which have been made. I disagree with folding but some good players do indeed believe it is a fold (as I knew would happen) so I will respect that.
fwiw I think most poker player"s think they are better than they really are (me included) and that why we so often here fold and find a better spot. Out of interest would anybody be prepared to say what % of apat tournament they have played in they have actually doubled their starting stack in? I have played 15 and doubled my stack in 9 of them so 60%. To do it first hand 54% of the time looks pretty good in comparison.
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Not nearly as pointless as your reply though eh?
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Not nearly as pointless as your reply though eh?
Loses its impact a when the ban master has removed the post ;D
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Yea, now I just look like more of a loon than usual :)
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Hmmmm INSTA-CALL. You have a Q and another Q. Whats the problem ???
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Hmmmm INSTA-CALL. You have a Q and another Q. Whats the problem ???
that a poker hand is made up of 5 cards and not 2?
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if u read the theory of doubling up in the book mathematics of poker, u will see there after reading about size of field and the players perceived edge in buy in"s that u can begin to work it out...
go to page 316 and there example of QQ v AK in a 250 player mtt, the maths works out that in which to decline the perceived flip you would have to have a edge of 3x the avg equity in the mtt... as they go on to say, to have such an edge of 3x in a typical mtt field u would be amongst the best players in the world...
losing players should encourage variance, as it is their best chance to win. The more that other players get a chance to
apply their skill, the worse off the losing player will be. Hence, they should be willing to commit
all their chips in zero-EV situations or even slightly bad ones.
good book, math intensive but worth persevering with....
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if u read the theory of doubling up in the book mathematics of poker, u will see there after reading about size of field and the players perceived edge in buy in"s that u can begin to work it out...
go to page 316 and there example of QQ v AK in a 250 player mtt, the maths works out that in which to decline the perceived flip you would have to have a edge of 3x the avg equity in the mtt... as they go on to say, to have such an edge of 3x in a typical mtt field u would be amongst the best players in the world...
losing players should encourage variance, as it is their best chance to win. The more that other players get a chance to
apply their skill, the worse off the losing player will be. Hence, they should be willing to commit
all their chips in zero-EV situations or even slightly bad ones.
good book, math intensive but worth persevering with....
Serious question:-
Are you saying that if you hold AK vs QQ you should call going by this? I would have assumed that to be a fold.
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how many players in the mtt, how good are they, are we on a good table, do we have the skill to pick up chips in other ways besides hoping to pick up good hands, how good are we?
how many times do we need to double up to even get into the money?
factor in all the above [plus more] and yes sometimes call with QQ...