Another day another dollar
Nov. 28th, 2005 07:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksYou can set your clock by the Las Vegas weather and, as sure as eggs is eggs, the temperature begins to plummet just as I prepare to visit. It's currently 5C there (at 11pm in the evening). Last year was ineffably crap, with the highs some days being in the region of 9C. I'd rather have a repeat of my December in 2001, when it was up to 20C most days.
I still have a backlog of poker books to read, (Matros, Fox, Suicide King) as well as Ed Miller to reread. That should take up much of the flight.
I was wondering about a Greenstein comment on tournaments in his book and I was going to write something on it, but I couldn't find the quote.
Effectively he wrote that "if I survive three all-ins when I am 60-40 favourite, then, as far as I am concerned, I am freerolling".
Is anyone else uncomfortable with this line of thought? I mean, I know what he means. He's saying that he's lucky still to be in the tournament, so that, in effect, it's a freeroll.
But look at it another way. Suppose he is at level seven, with average chips. He has got there through steady play, never risking all his chips. Now, take the alternative scenario. He is at level seven, with average chips, but he has got there via one horrific bad beat that crippled him and then three all-ins that doubled him through each time. He's at level seven either way. He has average chips either way. But in one case, Greenstein would consider that he was "on a freeroll" (because of the three all-ins) whereas in the other, he wouldn't. If he lets this change the way in which he plays, it strikes me that the line of thought is flawed. I have to assume that Greenstein would say that it would not alter the way thay he plays. In which case, it makes no difference if you consider yourself to be on a freeroll or not, except to make you feel better when you get knocked out. But if that's the case, why not just say to yourself at the start: "I'm playing with other people's money, so it's a freeroll"?
A neater summary might be: "forget the past. Where am I now?"
I still have a backlog of poker books to read, (Matros, Fox, Suicide King) as well as Ed Miller to reread. That should take up much of the flight.
I was wondering about a Greenstein comment on tournaments in his book and I was going to write something on it, but I couldn't find the quote.
Effectively he wrote that "if I survive three all-ins when I am 60-40 favourite, then, as far as I am concerned, I am freerolling".
Is anyone else uncomfortable with this line of thought? I mean, I know what he means. He's saying that he's lucky still to be in the tournament, so that, in effect, it's a freeroll.
But look at it another way. Suppose he is at level seven, with average chips. He has got there through steady play, never risking all his chips. Now, take the alternative scenario. He is at level seven, with average chips, but he has got there via one horrific bad beat that crippled him and then three all-ins that doubled him through each time. He's at level seven either way. He has average chips either way. But in one case, Greenstein would consider that he was "on a freeroll" (because of the three all-ins) whereas in the other, he wouldn't. If he lets this change the way in which he plays, it strikes me that the line of thought is flawed. I have to assume that Greenstein would say that it would not alter the way thay he plays. In which case, it makes no difference if you consider yourself to be on a freeroll or not, except to make you feel better when you get knocked out. But if that's the case, why not just say to yourself at the start: "I'm playing with other people's money, so it's a freeroll"?
A neater summary might be: "forget the past. Where am I now?"
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Re: Optimism
Date: 2005-11-28 04:35 pm (UTC)How would that affect your mindset? Well, I'm getting beaten up here, I can go into my shell and maybe re-trench and grind out victory? Or, well f**k this, and as I'm not going to get paid anyway I think I will shovel it all in and then slink off to the cash game where I can recoup the entry fee by picking up the blinds.....