Broad brush comments are probably not a good thing to write first thing in the morning when you have lots of work to do, and I would definitely add millions of riders to my earlier comment. One of these would be that, of course, since the value of chips is proportionately higher when you have fewer than average, your fifty quid rebuy gets you more equity than if you walked away and sat down in a new tournament.
I would never disagree that people with a big stack have a huge advantage, and empirically this canot be denied. But have you noticed how Hellmuth is performing so much more poorly now that he is being called down? If you are playing in weak tournaments, one reason the big stacks have an advantage is because their bets get enormous folding equity. I know that I am tilting at windmills here, because much of my argument is theoretical rather than related to the world of "real tournaments" (where you get things like travelling time to and from the tournament, survivalist mentalities, people for whom any prize money is 50 times their original stake, and so on). All these things serve to benefit the big stack, and can make playing riskily to reach that big stack (where "riskily" = less than 50% shots) worthwhile.
In a sense, I'm proposing an alternative strategy, rather than recommending one that is the best given today's playing conditions.
It's a simple strategy and it's one that I was pleased to hear Greg Raymer propounding. Make what you think is the best play given the hand you hold, and let your stack and your performance in the tournament take care of itself. In other words, don't say "I need to get a big stack pretty quickly, so I'll punt a 45% chance here". Equally, don't say "I'm 85% certain I'm in front here, but if I'm wrong, I'm out, so I'll fold".
How often do you hear players say "I'd gone nowhere for two hours so I needed to get active". I think that this is putting the cart before the horse.
Of course, much of this represents my own style, and what succeeds for one player doesn't succeed for others. One day, one day, I'm going to really sit down and think about tournaments, because I remain convinced that a large part of the conventional wisdom is fundamentally wrong - it just happens to be right for the way most people play at the moment.
Rationality
Date: 2005-11-30 10:37 pm (UTC)I would never disagree that people with a big stack have a huge advantage, and empirically this canot be denied. But have you noticed how Hellmuth is performing so much more poorly now that he is being called down? If you are playing in weak tournaments, one reason the big stacks have an advantage is because their bets get enormous folding equity. I know that I am tilting at windmills here, because much of my argument is theoretical rather than related to the world of "real tournaments" (where you get things like travelling time to and from the tournament, survivalist mentalities, people for whom any prize money is 50 times their original stake, and so on). All these things serve to benefit the big stack, and can make playing riskily to reach that big stack (where "riskily" = less than 50% shots) worthwhile.
In a sense, I'm proposing an alternative strategy, rather than recommending one that is the best given today's playing conditions.
It's a simple strategy and it's one that I was pleased to hear Greg Raymer propounding. Make what you think is the best play given the hand you hold, and let your stack and your performance in the tournament take care of itself. In other words, don't say "I need to get a big stack pretty quickly, so I'll punt a 45% chance here". Equally, don't say "I'm 85% certain I'm in front here, but if I'm wrong, I'm out, so I'll fold".
How often do you hear players say "I'd gone nowhere for two hours so I needed to get active". I think that this is putting the cart before the horse.
Of course, much of this represents my own style, and what succeeds for one player doesn't succeed for others. One day, one day, I'm going to really sit down and think about tournaments, because I remain convinced that a large part of the conventional wisdom is fundamentally wrong - it just happens to be right for the way most people play at the moment.
If that makes any sense at all.
PJ