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The Madness of Strangers
Jun. 11th, 2006 09:04 amOK, so it's WSOP madness time approaching again. I am bombarded with promotions about "win a WSOP seat for $3" and the like. I ignore them all.
And yet many players, many good players, seem incapable of so doing. At least doubleas (http://doubleas.blogspot.com/) questions why he acts the way that he does, but that doesn's stop him doing it:
Do I really want to spend $12K equity on the main event? Not sure. If I make it to day 5, the answer will be yes :-). Logically, it doesn’t really make sense to play that tournament as the $10K buy-in is too substantial for my bankroll (and it is for 99% of the players there). Illogically, I have an underlying pride issue that I want to play in the main event.
The respondents to this post seem to have a similar attitude. Smokkee wrote:
Qualifiers makes perfect sense. being the degenerate i am, i continue to bang my head against the wall.
gaamblor posted: what would make you happier, to be prahlad or to be greg raymer? sure the main event is over most everyones bankroll but its a once a year chance to get a taste of 40+ million dollars in dead money
which is, of course, a nonsense attitude. It's not the amount of "dead money" that's available (and remember, a lot of that dead money actually walks away with a profit) but the expected value of that dead money to you. There may be a significantly large number of players worse than you in the tournament, but there are quite a few players who are better.
In other words, as far as I can see, the whole package entails spending more than a week in a hellhole, being herded like a passenger on an arplane, paying $10K for the privilege, losing god knows how much in expected return from your ordinary cash game, for an EV of, what? $16K? (And that's optimistic).
+++++
A few of the high level players have been struggling the past couple of months -- tending to break even rather than win. Some have "crashed and burned" and aren't posting at all. Others have lost that sheen of self-confidence that we old fools read with a wry chuckle last year.
Roswell (http://roswell-42.livejournal.com/) in particular seems in the pits of "damaged goods" despair. No longer does the game seem so easy and he posted the following:
Before this bad run, my accomplishments in poker were really nothing special. Last year I had three $10K cashes in tournaments and won a satellite into the main event. This year I've won satellites into the $5K event at Reno, and the $10K event at Commerce. I think this shows I am at least semi-talented. However, I didn't make the money in any of those big-buyin events, so what does it matter? So many people have been playing for a much shorter period of time than me, and made much more money. Five years is a long time to play without making any serious money. Maybe I'm just not that good.
A few of us wondered at the Roswell metagame, with what seemed like random interspersals of cash and tournaments and a general feeling of "this is a great ride!" without much overall strategy. (And, of course, I've been playing, on and off, for over 30 years without making any serious money :-) )
Then again, even in the pits, he maintains some kind of sense of humour:
Right now I just feel totally disgusted about poker. I think I’m going to shift all my energies to winning a second WSOP entry on Stars. That would be a boost to my morale and bankroll. If I can't pull it off I might have to... get a job?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The problem here is that I see it in a large number of cash players who hit a bad run. Rather than shift down in stakes or focus on why they have been in a bad run, they move to tournaments because there is a built-in stop loss for the tournament. The mathematical downside to this is that the chance of you getting a "big score" to boost the morale and bankroll is less than 50% -- often quite a lot less than 50%.
Is a move over to tournaments a good move for the dispirited cash player?
That's a real poser. If you are a losing player overall, perhaps the answer is, yes. You will still lose money, probably at a slightly slower rate, and you might get lucky and make a big score.
But if you have the potential to be a winning cash player, it could be the worse thing for you to do. As doubleas noted, tournament games can mess up your cash play. People moan that tournaments are taking money away from the cash game, but I don't think that this is true. People with a tournament score often sit down in cash games, and then they play as if it's a tournament. And, of course, they do their money, utterly bemused that the fold equity that they had as the bubble approached in a tournament has vanished in a swirl of dirty bathwater, with their chips making that glug-glug sound as the last of the water disappears down the plughole.
I think that it's much harder to shift betwixt cash and tournament games than people think, and to shift to tournaments because of a bad run in cash can, in the long run, make it much harder to get back on track.
Roswell looks at the people who have been playing a much shorter time than him, but who have made much more money. But what about the players who had been playing a much shorter time, who had gone broke? Why worry about the guy (like, say, Gavin Smith) who happens to be good, but also to be on a roll? Why, indeed, shoot for the moon?
"Bill Ivey" (http://bill-ivey.blogspot.com) (Lee Gaines, a young kid who wins at cash) seems to be able to shift from cash to tournies, but he admits that he is mainly a cash player (although, curiously, his criticism of himself is after a push with JT that looks like a standard tournament play to me -- was he just annoyed because, as I seem to do, he walked into a big hand behind?).
So, this money can be won, at cash. If you want to enter $10K tournaments, just win the cash and pony it up. But (and here is I think the defining point), if you say to yourself "oh, well, obviously I wouldn't pay a cash entry fee for the the WSOP, I just want to see if I win a satellite", then you shouldn't be playing in the WSOP anyway. Whether you win a satellite or you pay cash, the counterparty still receives $10,000 from you. If they get $10K, then, by definition, you are paying $10K.
++++++++
It's been a slightly depressing month in one way, but a rewarding one in another. I'm at just about break-even (negative by a couple of hundred if we eliminate bonuses), but there are three factors contributing to this:
1) I'm running slightly bad at Party (minus 0.64 big bets per 100 over 7,000 hands)
2) I've had two bad sessions out of three at the $5-$10 on Virgin against what could best be described as "fun players"
3) I've been four-tabling at Party, aiming to chalk up 20,000 hands a month. As such, I expected my win rate to fall, although it would have been nice if it hadn't fallen into the red. I switched back to three-tabling this morning and may resume the 20K hands a month four-tabling challenge at the beginning of July. In terms of R&D, I think that it has been worthwhile. I've learnt a few things.
Now, the Sunday Papers beckon.
And yet many players, many good players, seem incapable of so doing. At least doubleas (http://doubleas.blogspot.com/) questions why he acts the way that he does, but that doesn's stop him doing it:
Do I really want to spend $12K equity on the main event? Not sure. If I make it to day 5, the answer will be yes :-). Logically, it doesn’t really make sense to play that tournament as the $10K buy-in is too substantial for my bankroll (and it is for 99% of the players there). Illogically, I have an underlying pride issue that I want to play in the main event.
The respondents to this post seem to have a similar attitude. Smokkee wrote:
Qualifiers makes perfect sense. being the degenerate i am, i continue to bang my head against the wall.
gaamblor posted: what would make you happier, to be prahlad or to be greg raymer? sure the main event is over most everyones bankroll but its a once a year chance to get a taste of 40+ million dollars in dead money
which is, of course, a nonsense attitude. It's not the amount of "dead money" that's available (and remember, a lot of that dead money actually walks away with a profit) but the expected value of that dead money to you. There may be a significantly large number of players worse than you in the tournament, but there are quite a few players who are better.
In other words, as far as I can see, the whole package entails spending more than a week in a hellhole, being herded like a passenger on an arplane, paying $10K for the privilege, losing god knows how much in expected return from your ordinary cash game, for an EV of, what? $16K? (And that's optimistic).
+++++
A few of the high level players have been struggling the past couple of months -- tending to break even rather than win. Some have "crashed and burned" and aren't posting at all. Others have lost that sheen of self-confidence that we old fools read with a wry chuckle last year.
Roswell (http://roswell-42.livejournal.com/) in particular seems in the pits of "damaged goods" despair. No longer does the game seem so easy and he posted the following:
Before this bad run, my accomplishments in poker were really nothing special. Last year I had three $10K cashes in tournaments and won a satellite into the main event. This year I've won satellites into the $5K event at Reno, and the $10K event at Commerce. I think this shows I am at least semi-talented. However, I didn't make the money in any of those big-buyin events, so what does it matter? So many people have been playing for a much shorter period of time than me, and made much more money. Five years is a long time to play without making any serious money. Maybe I'm just not that good.
A few of us wondered at the Roswell metagame, with what seemed like random interspersals of cash and tournaments and a general feeling of "this is a great ride!" without much overall strategy. (And, of course, I've been playing, on and off, for over 30 years without making any serious money :-) )
Then again, even in the pits, he maintains some kind of sense of humour:
Right now I just feel totally disgusted about poker. I think I’m going to shift all my energies to winning a second WSOP entry on Stars. That would be a boost to my morale and bankroll. If I can't pull it off I might have to... get a job?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The problem here is that I see it in a large number of cash players who hit a bad run. Rather than shift down in stakes or focus on why they have been in a bad run, they move to tournaments because there is a built-in stop loss for the tournament. The mathematical downside to this is that the chance of you getting a "big score" to boost the morale and bankroll is less than 50% -- often quite a lot less than 50%.
Is a move over to tournaments a good move for the dispirited cash player?
That's a real poser. If you are a losing player overall, perhaps the answer is, yes. You will still lose money, probably at a slightly slower rate, and you might get lucky and make a big score.
But if you have the potential to be a winning cash player, it could be the worse thing for you to do. As doubleas noted, tournament games can mess up your cash play. People moan that tournaments are taking money away from the cash game, but I don't think that this is true. People with a tournament score often sit down in cash games, and then they play as if it's a tournament. And, of course, they do their money, utterly bemused that the fold equity that they had as the bubble approached in a tournament has vanished in a swirl of dirty bathwater, with their chips making that glug-glug sound as the last of the water disappears down the plughole.
I think that it's much harder to shift betwixt cash and tournament games than people think, and to shift to tournaments because of a bad run in cash can, in the long run, make it much harder to get back on track.
Roswell looks at the people who have been playing a much shorter time than him, but who have made much more money. But what about the players who had been playing a much shorter time, who had gone broke? Why worry about the guy (like, say, Gavin Smith) who happens to be good, but also to be on a roll? Why, indeed, shoot for the moon?
"Bill Ivey" (http://bill-ivey.blogspot.com) (Lee Gaines, a young kid who wins at cash) seems to be able to shift from cash to tournies, but he admits that he is mainly a cash player (although, curiously, his criticism of himself is after a push with JT that looks like a standard tournament play to me -- was he just annoyed because, as I seem to do, he walked into a big hand behind?).
So, this money can be won, at cash. If you want to enter $10K tournaments, just win the cash and pony it up. But (and here is I think the defining point), if you say to yourself "oh, well, obviously I wouldn't pay a cash entry fee for the the WSOP, I just want to see if I win a satellite", then you shouldn't be playing in the WSOP anyway. Whether you win a satellite or you pay cash, the counterparty still receives $10,000 from you. If they get $10K, then, by definition, you are paying $10K.
++++++++
It's been a slightly depressing month in one way, but a rewarding one in another. I'm at just about break-even (negative by a couple of hundred if we eliminate bonuses), but there are three factors contributing to this:
1) I'm running slightly bad at Party (minus 0.64 big bets per 100 over 7,000 hands)
2) I've had two bad sessions out of three at the $5-$10 on Virgin against what could best be described as "fun players"
3) I've been four-tabling at Party, aiming to chalk up 20,000 hands a month. As such, I expected my win rate to fall, although it would have been nice if it hadn't fallen into the red. I switched back to three-tabling this morning and may resume the 20K hands a month four-tabling challenge at the beginning of July. In terms of R&D, I think that it has been worthwhile. I've learnt a few things.
Now, the Sunday Papers beckon.
