Biggest donkout idiotic tourney I have ever seen

[Garth Kay]

Ok we have enough answers here.

The hand you want to choose is [jc] [10c] you have a 37% chance of winning this hand.

Your second choices are [8c] [9s] and [7d] [2d], both of these hands have a 34% chance of winning this hand. Irrespective of suits or undercards, one has drawing potential for a straight the other has potential to draw to a flush.

[kc] [qd] is racing for the tie, there is a 90% chance of a tie but in terms of winning you are an underdog as you only have a 2% chance of winning whilst the [ks] [qs] has a 7% edge to win.

[qd] [10d] is generally our worst holding: 2.5% chance of the tie but only 28% chance of winning this hand, even though this is has stronger drawing powers than our [7d] [2d]. But one of outs is clearly dominated in the shape of the Q.

What I am trying to prove here that an understanding of starting hand strengths is important but they mean very little when put into certain situations, especially heads up. My strengths in this game are generally post flop, especially live and especially when I am playing my A game and it has my full concentration. If I am reading a weak post flop opponent as a Strong Ace and I have position or am I priced in I will defintiely call with speculative hands just because of the odds and the situation I know I am in.

I also want you to look at your answers and tell me why [jc] [tc] wasn't the obvious answer and if anyone thought that [8c] [9s] and [7d] [2d] would ever have the same equity in that hand.

Almost all of you looked for the hand which gave you the greatest edge to win, the only person who considered going for a chop in these unusual circumstances was Bob. Now nowhere did I even say what you objective was, was it to win the hand, survive or what is the most advantageous play. Simply because each individual has their own perceptions when sitting down to a game of poker. These questions were designed for you to open your eyes and begin examining the game in a different light. Simple answers like that's a garbage hand and I will not call an all in with that are irrelevant when you have a finer grasp of the maths.

In the situation I described you gain a 3% edge with suited connectors ([jc] [tc]) compared with your rag hands, 3% of an edge is not much, but I believe a lot of you would call with this hand in this situation but you would fold out[7d] [2d], why? When your odds of winning the hand against a button shove are almost exactly the same?

Even with [2c] [3h] you have a 32% opportunity to win this hand, that's a 2% decline in edge compared to our raggier hands in the choices above.

Challenge your perceptions when put in certain situations and start to grasp the basic maths of the game and you will understand why we say it is an insta call in this situation. You let pot odds and implied odds dictate your play when chasing draws, why shouldn't they dictate your action pre flop as well?

I hope this has been an education for some of you and if we have any more questions and or debates please let them continue.

[AJG]

OK so it turns out I do have some time...

@benny the cunt: Yeah, I get that (over the next and the next tourney), bit I am primarily concerned with doing as well as I can in the current tourney. If you do this, you should maximise your winnings over the long run to.

Im going to talk 2 things I havent yet read mentioned on this forum: Tournament Odds and 'Bubble Factors'. Basically they take into consideration stack sizes AND tournament payout structures.

Definitions
Bubble Factor: The ration of the cost of losing to the gain from winning an allin preflop.
Tournament odds: Pot odds / Bubble factor.
This also deals with your equity in a tournament (which as with AllinEquity is NOT the same as your chance of winning the pot/tournament)
The existence of the 'bubble factor' stems from the non-linearity in chip values between stacks because of equity in the tournament prizepool. In a cash game this 'bubble factor' is always 1, ie the cost of losing == gain of winning, you bet $5 you either lose $5 or win $5. In a tournament the cost of losing is ALWAYS greater than the gain from winning.

Example: (not mine, but taken verbatim from 'Kill Everyone', sequel to 'Kill Phil')
(Blinds are irrelevant here)

Stacks: -- % Equity in the prizepool (50/30/20 payout):

Player A 8,300 -- 33.94%
Player B 5,300 -- 27.36%
Player C 3,900 -- 22.74%
Player D 2,500 -- 15.96%
Total: 20,000 -- 100%

Say you are player B and you go allin against the shortstack. If you win, the situation will now be:
Player A: 8,300 -- 36.11%
Player B: 7,800 -- 35.41%
Player C: 3,900 -- 28.48%
Player D: OUT -- 0%

If you LOSE:
Player A 8,300 -- 33.83%
Player B 2,800 -- 17.38%
Player C 3,900 -- 22.50%
Player D 5,000 -- 26.29%

Winning increases your equity by 8.05%, losing drops it by 9.98%, so your bubble factor here is: 9.98/8.05 = 1.24
Conversely for the shortstack the numbers are 15.96/10.33 = 1.54.
Against Players A & C, your (Player B's) bubble factors are 2.54 and 1.54 respectively.
You can see the non-linearity in chip values by considering the original equities for Players A & C. Even though Player A's stack is more than twice that of player C, his equity is NOT. bottom line, the bigger your stack, the less each chip contributes to your equity in the prizepool.
The closer the stacks are in size, the bigger this bubble factor becomes. And as you can see from the example, the bigger stack always has a smaller bubble factor than the smaller stack. Also from the example, if you DO win, you increase the other player's, who werent even in the hand, equity in the prizepool, so no wonder they scream for the BS to call the shove! They gain MUCH more if you win, than they lose if you lose.

As for keeping the SS alive....
As stated, this only applies if you are the BS. As the BS you have alot of fold equity on your side, but only while the SS is still in the game! The longer they stay in, the longer you enjoy this advantage. The MSs will be much less willing to confront you in the BS on the bubble. Of course this doesnt mean you fold strong hands that are very +EV, but we were talking marginal (and trash) hands. Folding these, you dont give much up, but keep your fold equity against the MSs...

Also note that (as the BS) the MSs have a much higher bubble factor against you than the SS does. ie they have more to lose. So as the BS, if you bust the SS, you increase everyone elses equity MORE than your own, and I don't know about you, but I don't play to help my opponents....

It commonly thought that as the BS you should attack the SS. But as I have shown above, you have less to gain, and they have less to lose against you than the MSs do, so really these (the MSs) are the players you should be 'attacking'.

Applying tournament Odds example: Again, you are player B, and are against the BS giving you a bubble factor of 2.54.
Essentially this means that the chips you are risking are 2.54 times as valuable as the chips you're hoiping to win. In the examples earlier and some that Garth cites, you assume you are 25% to win, needing 3:1 pot odds to justify the call. This means you actually need 3 * 2.54 :1, over 7:1 odds to justify (mathematically) your call. This also mathematically models the fact that you should be more risk-adverse in a tourney (esp late) than in a cash game....

I'll wait for comments on this to post more...

[AceLosesKing]

I also want you to look at your answers and tell me why [jc] [tc] wasn't the obvious answer and if anyone thought that [8c] [9s] and [7d] [2d] would ever have the same equity in that hand.

Because KQ are holding our straight cards, and any cards we hit give KQ a chance to hit their straights. I didn't put as much thought into JTcc as I did 89o or 72s. This is the thought process that went through my head when I was deciding what cards to pick.

As I said, the difference between 89o and 72s were marginal, just because one is 9 high and the other is 7 high. I thought it would be close, equity wise. Did not think it would be the same though.

These questions were designed for you to open your eyes and begin examining the game in a different light. Simple answers like that's a garbage hand and I will not call an all in with that are irrelevant when you have a finer grasp of the maths.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we thoroughly enjoyed this 'lesson.'

In the situation I described you gain a 3% edge with suited connectors ([jc] [tc]) compared with your rag hands, 3% of an edge is not much, but I believe a lot of you would call with this hand in this situation but you would fold out[7d] [2d], why? When your odds of winning the hand against a button shove are almost exactly the same?

In this hand we KNOW our opponent is folding KQs, to our 72s. It is for our tournament life. We have no info on stack sizes etc if this was a real tournament.

I hope this has been an education for some of you and if we have any more questions and or debates please let them continue.

Hear hear!

[AceLosesKing]

[AJG]

I also want you to look at your answers and tell me why [jc] [tc] wasn't the obvious answer and if anyone thought that [8c] [9s] and [7d] [2d] would ever have the same equity in that hand.

Id say most overlooked this hand (JTs) as the KQ are 2 of their outs for hitting a high straight...

[Garth Kay]

Whilst I love almost everything Lee Nelson writes and the maths he does apply here holds a lot of value. Personally for me it doesn't.

I understand the maths but my playing style at these times are dependant on my stack size as well as my read on opponents and the table dynamic.

This is probably one of the areas where I do not apply the math. Generally on the bubble play tightens up significantly and a lot of the stacks from short to middle of the pack tighten up their play considerably. With a big stack in this situation I see two problems:

If I play a Laggy style trying to accumulate more chips this is generally very profitable but I am also generally pricing myself in with very marginal holding against some very tight shortstacks who are playing back at me with top 15% of hands. Not a huge problem as I will pick up a lot of pots pre flop but I do put myself into some tight preflop situations and if variance grabs hold I can really hurt myself.

And this is where it get's slightly hypocritical of Lee and his playing strategy and style. Tournament equity is definitely the last thing that I contemplate when put in a situation in later stages of the tournament. I generally disregard this factor simply because I believe that tournament equity is something I can over come and it does not have a huge impact on my playing style or any individual circumstances.

Secondly my natural game and when I do best is playing tight aggressive. I like it when the bubble bursts and those short stacks really loosen up their range, it means my big hands are getting paid off a lot more in the min cash stages of the tournament as the short stacks are not looking to survive but to double up or bust out.

Personally irrespective of the maths I prefer the second stage, I never want the bubble to prolong longer than it could irrespective of my stack size.

[BigPete33]

Garth: I saw very quickly that you deliberately didn't explain what the objective was, but took a punt in that it wasn't to aim for a chop.

You also asked which of those very specific hands would we choose in that extremely specific example which was kind of self defeating because if we're allin without a choice we wouldn't exactly be getting to choose our cards now would we?

But since we're choosing cards let's make one of those options A 2 off suit because it's all make believe anyway and oh look now we're in front

Whilst I see the point you are trying to make that example is BS because you won't know they have KQs preflop and you won't be sitting there choosing cards if you are allin blind.

I'd be interested in running those different hand choices against what you perceive your opponents shoving range is (eg: any pair, any ace and some other stuff) and then having a look how those different choices stack up.

Anyone feel like creating a semi-realistic shoving range and running that?

[AceLosesKing]

Anyone feel like creating a semi-realistic shoving range and running that?

I'm bored, I'll stove it now.

Discussion FTW.

[AceLosesKing]

For every hand, the range of our opponent is:

77+, ATs+, KQs+, ATo+, KQo+

89o: 31%
72s: 28%
JTs: 35%
KQo: 36%

[Garth Kay]

Pete,

I think you totally missed the point of this post and the evolution of this thread.

Why I asked that question is simply because there was a I will fold that garbage mentality when most people will decide to call of with paint. When in reality your odds for winning this hand with garbage or suited connectors or paint against a shoving range from a SS on the button is almost the same. Hence what I wrote about ranges in one of my first posts.

The question I asked above wasn't about right or wrong but people's perceptions of certain hands in situations. It is obvious that you missed the point.

Let's say a SS (>5BB) on the button has action folded to him and he shoves with any Broadway cards, any suited cards and any pair. This equates to the top 38.5% percent of hands.
Sounds ok?

Your equity in the hand with 7d, 2d against his shoving range is 34%.
With 8c 9s your equity goes up to 42.29%
With Jc 9c your equity improves to 48% in the hand.

Let's tighten his range up to top 20% of hands. Which includes all broadway cards, pairs and any Ace. This is the top 20.4% of hands.

7d 2d - 32%
9s 8c - 35%
Jc 9c - 38%

Now if we go as far to say as top 10% of hands:

7d 2d - 32%
9s 8c - 33%
Jc 9c - 33%

Hope that answers your questions for you.