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Scalability
Aug. 12th, 2007 06:03 pmSo, said BDD, you have to have a game that is scalable.
And, of course he is quite right. But, being a logical kind of guy, I have this horrible urge to start from first principles. In life, this can be a pain (both for me, and for people teaching me) because I would never accept the line "that's just the way it is". To me, that indicated a teacher who hadn't thought through why something was correct, but just found with experience that that was how things were. Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough for little Petey. I'm amazed that I wasn't expelled.
So, what did BDD mean by "scalable"? Well, part of this was about Ring games vs short-handed. If you plan to move up in stakes, said BDD, you need to play short-handed, because at the higher levels, the ring games are full of competent set farmers, while the short-handed games have a higher proportion of weaker players.
Another part of it was, if you like, getting the poker equivalent of a "solid game" -- that is, not doing things which would win money at lower levels, but which would get you slaughtered at higher levels. This might slightly cut your "earn" at the lower levels, but the good habits would serve you well as you moved up the ladder. Your game would be "scalable".
But, and it's a big but, there are certain assumptions here, and I think they hark back to BDD's history in the B&M world. Does scalable necessarily mean moving up in stakes? After all, there are many players who stay at the same level, perhaps because they know that the way they play would not beat the higher levels. So what do they do? They play more tables.
If you can play four tables as well as you play two tables, then in monetary terms, that is the same as playing at twice the stakes. If you can play 12 tables as well as you played two tables, then you have moved from $100 buy-in to $600 buy-in without changing stakes at all. Your game has its own kind of "scalability".
Do I want to be like that? No. But I think that it's important to realize that there are players like that, and who am I to denigrate them? If they have mulitipled their earnings by five, without moving up in stakes, then their line is just as valid as having a style that would work well at a higher level. And there are other advantages. The games are easier to find, for a start.
Because I have to concentrate far more at the $200 buy-in level, I've only been playing two tables, as opposed to three tables at $100 buy-in (and four-tabling at $50). My game at the moment is "scalable" up to $200, but there is a trade-off. I play fewer tables. Already this is showing up in my stats, with my win rate per 100 hands about 75% of my hourly rate, as opposed to the previous 55% of my hourly rate. My doubled winnings per 100 hands only filters through as a 65% increase in win per hour.
So, in terms of "scalability', it might be a mistake, in the online world, always to be thinking of the bigger game. Who was that WSOP madman who proved to Stars that he could play 48 Sit n Goes simultaneously? I don't know how long he could keep that up, but I reckon that his win rate was probably higher than most tournament players single-tabling the highest entry-fee games, and with a significantly lower standard deviation.
Who's to say that he's wrong?
PJ
And, of course he is quite right. But, being a logical kind of guy, I have this horrible urge to start from first principles. In life, this can be a pain (both for me, and for people teaching me) because I would never accept the line "that's just the way it is". To me, that indicated a teacher who hadn't thought through why something was correct, but just found with experience that that was how things were. Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough for little Petey. I'm amazed that I wasn't expelled.
So, what did BDD mean by "scalable"? Well, part of this was about Ring games vs short-handed. If you plan to move up in stakes, said BDD, you need to play short-handed, because at the higher levels, the ring games are full of competent set farmers, while the short-handed games have a higher proportion of weaker players.
Another part of it was, if you like, getting the poker equivalent of a "solid game" -- that is, not doing things which would win money at lower levels, but which would get you slaughtered at higher levels. This might slightly cut your "earn" at the lower levels, but the good habits would serve you well as you moved up the ladder. Your game would be "scalable".
But, and it's a big but, there are certain assumptions here, and I think they hark back to BDD's history in the B&M world. Does scalable necessarily mean moving up in stakes? After all, there are many players who stay at the same level, perhaps because they know that the way they play would not beat the higher levels. So what do they do? They play more tables.
If you can play four tables as well as you play two tables, then in monetary terms, that is the same as playing at twice the stakes. If you can play 12 tables as well as you played two tables, then you have moved from $100 buy-in to $600 buy-in without changing stakes at all. Your game has its own kind of "scalability".
Do I want to be like that? No. But I think that it's important to realize that there are players like that, and who am I to denigrate them? If they have mulitipled their earnings by five, without moving up in stakes, then their line is just as valid as having a style that would work well at a higher level. And there are other advantages. The games are easier to find, for a start.
Because I have to concentrate far more at the $200 buy-in level, I've only been playing two tables, as opposed to three tables at $100 buy-in (and four-tabling at $50). My game at the moment is "scalable" up to $200, but there is a trade-off. I play fewer tables. Already this is showing up in my stats, with my win rate per 100 hands about 75% of my hourly rate, as opposed to the previous 55% of my hourly rate. My doubled winnings per 100 hands only filters through as a 65% increase in win per hour.
So, in terms of "scalability', it might be a mistake, in the online world, always to be thinking of the bigger game. Who was that WSOP madman who proved to Stars that he could play 48 Sit n Goes simultaneously? I don't know how long he could keep that up, but I reckon that his win rate was probably higher than most tournament players single-tabling the highest entry-fee games, and with a significantly lower standard deviation.
Who's to say that he's wrong?
PJ
