What's your WSOP overlay?
Aug. 1st, 2006 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI was idly wondering to myself; suppose I was a good tournament player, a really good player of big tournaments with slow structures. What would my overlay be in the WSOP "big one"?
Well, why not break the tournament down into single table satellites? It's not perfectly accurate, but the percentages might come out fairly similarly.
The question here is, what kind of overlay would you have in STSs if you, like, man, really owned the rest of the field? I reckoned that you might think to win between one in three and one in four of the 10-table satellites.
So, if we have 8,800 runners, that makes you between 25% and 33% to be at the 880 stage, and so on to the 88 stage, and so on to the final table, and so on to win it.
But, of course, your dominance will erode as you get nearer the finish (although it will probably increase around the bubble stage).
So, let's make you 25% for the first stage, 33% for the second stage, 30% for the third stage and 12% for the final table.
That gives our hypothetical brilliant player a one in four chance of making the money, a one in 12 chance of making the last nine tables, a nearly 4% chance of making the final table and a half a percent chance of winning it.
In other words, even with probably the most optimistic overlay in the world, you could only expect to win the current WSOP big one once every 200 years, although you could expect to reach the final table once every 25 years.
What does this mean for the players who have done well in the first day? Well, it means that that a one-in-25 year event has become a one in six-year event, even if you are only on average chips. If you are on significantly more than average chips, you have cut things even further, perhaps to a one-in-four-year event, while your chance of winning it has been cut to about 40-to-1.
That's a lot better than when you started Day 1A, 1B, 1C or 1D with $T10,000.
Monthly figures to follow, I've got some hands to grind.
I really felt that I played some of the best poker of my life this month. Of course, it's easy to think that you are playing well when the cards come, and it is actually easier to play well when the cards come. You can far more easily say "this is a bad spot, I'll wait for a better one" when you are confident that a better spot is just around the next hand or so. When all that you have been seeing for three hours is "bad spots" then you tend to try to make something of them.
But it was here that I was pleased with myself. When the cards were not going right, I did not panic, did not "try to make the best of bad spots". Neither, when the cards were going well, did I try any clever stuff that comes from overconfidence. And, most importantly, I used far fewer examples of Fancy Play Syndrome.
I just looked for the good games, looked for my "buddies", and played solid poker, staying while the games were good and getting out when the games were good no longer. And it worked.
Secondly, although BDD came up with the principle at limit that "the more hands you play, the more you win", this has to come with two important caveats.
1) Your margin is thin. Just because you can beat a game, does not mean that you automatically will beat a game. In June I made the mistake of moving up to four tables and playing on auto-pilot. As a result, I made occasional errors, enough errors, I suspect, to turn me into a break-even player.
2) "the more hands you play, the more you win" also needs to have the added caveat that you only have so much stamina. When you are younger, you probably have more of it. Long hours bring in the threats of ennui (see, "autopilot") and mental tiredness. You are not a robot. I think that my limit in limit hands per month is something like 14,000, with perhaps a couple of thousand or so more if I have a week off from work. At the moment, three tables is the limit on Party, two tables on Ultimate (where the hands go too fast for me), and two tables of NL on Virgin.
Ah yes, the No Limit. Well, $5 an hour is quite pleasing at a very low-stakes game where I am learning new things every time I play, even if I am two-tabling. In 13 hours of play (probably equal to a thousand hands or thereabouts) I only lost my original buy-in once. I also only went up to more than $100 from my $50 buy-in once. As with limit, my technique seems to be to win more than my fair share of pots that no-one else really seems to want to argue about. I'm playing very conservatively with the "big" hands until I get a greater feel for the game. I made one big call with top pair top kicker, and I was right. Earlier I was making too many automatic calls for about 30% of the pot with this kind of hand, and they were losing every time. I'm beginning to get some kind of judgement on this, though, so things should improve.
Curiously, I was getting more of a buzz out of winning $22 pots in the NL than I was from winning or losing $60 pots in the limit. Still new to me, you see.
+++++++++++++++
Omigod: Not sure what the implications of this are (for me or for the quality of the games) but look at this bit of news...
The PartyPoker.com No Download beta version has just launched, and we want you to take it for a test drive. Then, we want your feedback! We'd love to know what you like or where we could make some changes. You tell us, and we'll listen! Just send your comments to: info@partypoker.com.
Because there's no software to download, you can play poker on any PC that has a browser. On the beta version, you can play in play money games and watch real money games - it's a great way to get a taste of the action that's happening 24/7 on PartyPoker.com. Of course, if you want all the features of PartyPoker.com - including access to real money games - just download the full application.
Naturally, any beta version will have a few kinks, but we hope you'll help us test the Beta and then tell us how it performed. Remember, just send your comments to: info@partypoker.com.
BTW, you just have to love Party saying that any beta version is going to have "a few kinks". Anyone who remembers their last major upgrade will have a laugh at that one. Release version 1.0 was akin to an atomic bomb going off on some computers.
Well, why not break the tournament down into single table satellites? It's not perfectly accurate, but the percentages might come out fairly similarly.
The question here is, what kind of overlay would you have in STSs if you, like, man, really owned the rest of the field? I reckoned that you might think to win between one in three and one in four of the 10-table satellites.
So, if we have 8,800 runners, that makes you between 25% and 33% to be at the 880 stage, and so on to the 88 stage, and so on to the final table, and so on to win it.
But, of course, your dominance will erode as you get nearer the finish (although it will probably increase around the bubble stage).
So, let's make you 25% for the first stage, 33% for the second stage, 30% for the third stage and 12% for the final table.
That gives our hypothetical brilliant player a one in four chance of making the money, a one in 12 chance of making the last nine tables, a nearly 4% chance of making the final table and a half a percent chance of winning it.
In other words, even with probably the most optimistic overlay in the world, you could only expect to win the current WSOP big one once every 200 years, although you could expect to reach the final table once every 25 years.
What does this mean for the players who have done well in the first day? Well, it means that that a one-in-25 year event has become a one in six-year event, even if you are only on average chips. If you are on significantly more than average chips, you have cut things even further, perhaps to a one-in-four-year event, while your chance of winning it has been cut to about 40-to-1.
That's a lot better than when you started Day 1A, 1B, 1C or 1D with $T10,000.
Monthly figures to follow, I've got some hands to grind.
| STAKE | ||||||||
| SITE | Data | $2-$4 | $3-$6 | Bonus | $4-$8 | $1-$2 | $50 NL | Grand Total |
| Party | Win | $532 | $42 | $174 | $748 | |||
| Ultimate | Win | $216 | $114 | $100 | -$42 | $388 | ||
| Virgin | Win | -$31 | -$39 | $72 | -$90 | -$43 | $69 | -$62 |
| Stars | Win | $12 | $12 | |||||
| Paradise | Win | -$60 | $100 | $41 | ||||
| FT | Win | $2 | -$15 | -$13 | ||||
| Total Win | $672 | $116 | $446 | -$100 | $69 | $1,112 | ||
| Total Hours | 59.0 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 6.0 | 5.0 | 13.25 | 89 | |
| Avge per hour | $11.43 | $20.17 | n/a | -$14.96 | -$20 | $5.19 | $12.53 |
I really felt that I played some of the best poker of my life this month. Of course, it's easy to think that you are playing well when the cards come, and it is actually easier to play well when the cards come. You can far more easily say "this is a bad spot, I'll wait for a better one" when you are confident that a better spot is just around the next hand or so. When all that you have been seeing for three hours is "bad spots" then you tend to try to make something of them.
But it was here that I was pleased with myself. When the cards were not going right, I did not panic, did not "try to make the best of bad spots". Neither, when the cards were going well, did I try any clever stuff that comes from overconfidence. And, most importantly, I used far fewer examples of Fancy Play Syndrome.
I just looked for the good games, looked for my "buddies", and played solid poker, staying while the games were good and getting out when the games were good no longer. And it worked.
Secondly, although BDD came up with the principle at limit that "the more hands you play, the more you win", this has to come with two important caveats.
1) Your margin is thin. Just because you can beat a game, does not mean that you automatically will beat a game. In June I made the mistake of moving up to four tables and playing on auto-pilot. As a result, I made occasional errors, enough errors, I suspect, to turn me into a break-even player.
2) "the more hands you play, the more you win" also needs to have the added caveat that you only have so much stamina. When you are younger, you probably have more of it. Long hours bring in the threats of ennui (see, "autopilot") and mental tiredness. You are not a robot. I think that my limit in limit hands per month is something like 14,000, with perhaps a couple of thousand or so more if I have a week off from work. At the moment, three tables is the limit on Party, two tables on Ultimate (where the hands go too fast for me), and two tables of NL on Virgin.
Ah yes, the No Limit. Well, $5 an hour is quite pleasing at a very low-stakes game where I am learning new things every time I play, even if I am two-tabling. In 13 hours of play (probably equal to a thousand hands or thereabouts) I only lost my original buy-in once. I also only went up to more than $100 from my $50 buy-in once. As with limit, my technique seems to be to win more than my fair share of pots that no-one else really seems to want to argue about. I'm playing very conservatively with the "big" hands until I get a greater feel for the game. I made one big call with top pair top kicker, and I was right. Earlier I was making too many automatic calls for about 30% of the pot with this kind of hand, and they were losing every time. I'm beginning to get some kind of judgement on this, though, so things should improve.
Curiously, I was getting more of a buzz out of winning $22 pots in the NL than I was from winning or losing $60 pots in the limit. Still new to me, you see.
+++++++++++++++
Omigod: Not sure what the implications of this are (for me or for the quality of the games) but look at this bit of news...
The PartyPoker.com No Download beta version has just launched, and we want you to take it for a test drive. Then, we want your feedback! We'd love to know what you like or where we could make some changes. You tell us, and we'll listen! Just send your comments to: info@partypoker.com.
Because there's no software to download, you can play poker on any PC that has a browser. On the beta version, you can play in play money games and watch real money games - it's a great way to get a taste of the action that's happening 24/7 on PartyPoker.com. Of course, if you want all the features of PartyPoker.com - including access to real money games - just download the full application.
Naturally, any beta version will have a few kinks, but we hope you'll help us test the Beta and then tell us how it performed. Remember, just send your comments to: info@partypoker.com.
BTW, you just have to love Party saying that any beta version is going to have "a few kinks". Anyone who remembers their last major upgrade will have a laugh at that one. Release version 1.0 was akin to an atomic bomb going off on some computers.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 02:27 am (UTC)Greatest Hits
Date: 2006-08-02 11:52 am (UTC)Martin Nicholson
Daventry UK
Re: Greatest Hits
Date: 2006-08-02 12:21 pm (UTC)Everyone wants a piece of me....
PJ