Tournament Life Syndrome - Part 1 (IF) AND 2 (when, where, how etc)

cardshark202

Listen I may have come across the usual way but its quite simple. I find tournament situations much much easier to figure out than cash game situations. Of course I don't like getting knocked out of a tournament but I play to win, I don't worry about what might happen if I call and get sucked out on. I will take any edge cos although I believe I am better than at least 90% of the field in any tournament I play, it is much easier to exercise that edge when I have a decent stack in front of me. This is why I'll take any sort of edge possible.

boba_fett3099

LuckyLloyd wrote:

If you are a top pro a double up in the first level will increase your chances mush better than 1% FFS. And in the Jackpot tourney the structure is short enough where taking coinflips where you have the best of it is grande for the first few levels. Get a few chips infront of ya and then start worrying about your skill edge.

Your probably right about the structure of the tournament but also the first two levels are really the only point in this particular tournament where i can take alot of flops with the weaker players and hope to apply my skill edge as it is a crapshoot in the later stages.

I obviously auto-call at any point later in the tournament but im just unsure whether it is always correct to take a race this early. And clearly in a tournament like this its worth alot more than 1% but in say the WSOP ME with 8000 players, a double up would be worth probably less than 1%.

Oh and Lazare im not winning this tournament 50% of the time if i double up in the first level! I mean im good but come on....I'd say i cash 50% of the time and win like closer 10% of the time.

Edit: Just to add this only applies in the situation where opp accidently flips his cards face up!

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

boba_fett3099

LuckyLloyd wrote:

So out of 10 times you will win once and cash another two times if you double up in the first level. How many times have you won this out of your last 10 appearances?

I've played this tournament approx 12 times i beleive and i've won it once. Whats your point?

Lazare

boba_fett3099 wrote:

Oh and Lazare im not winning this tournament 50% of the time if i double up in the first level! I mean im good but come on....I'd say i cash 50% of the time and win like closer 10% of the time.

!

I don't know the payout structure of this tournament, but surely even by your own estimations this still makes a call +EV, no?

boba_fett3099

Lazare wrote:

I don't know the payout structure of this tournament, but surely even by your own estimations this still makes a call +EV, no?

If we assume that i never win without a double up in the first level well then yes it is. But what im unsure about is if taking this race is more +EV than waiting for a better spot which i will likely get from one of my inferior opponents.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Hitman Actual

boba_fett3099 wrote:

For example: Jackpot 20 F/O - I consider myself to be in the top 10% of the field and am confident that i can benefit from my opponents mistakes by playing some post-flop poker with them.

Local tournaments don't have any post-flop play (with the exception of one or two of the better ones that have arisen in the last few months). A €20 FO sure as hell doesn't have any post-flop play. In general, the tourneys that people here play are won with a combination of pre-flop play, the abilty to play an average-to-small stack, and some flop play. Thinking you're good enough to fold QQ to AK early on is very arrogant.

boba_fett3099

lenny_leonard wrote:

Local tournaments don't have any post-flop play (with the exception of one or two of the better ones that have arisen in the last few months). A €20 FO sure as hell doesn't have any post-flop play. In general, the tourneys that people here play are won with a combination of pre-flop play, the abilty to play an average-to-small stack, and some flop play. Thinking you're good enough to fold QQ to AK early on is very arrogant.

Im not trying to say that i can consistantly out manouver my opponents post flop with a stack of 2500 but i do believe that by playing some flops with these opponents i will inevitably find a spot to get my money in (and get called) when am more than a 55% favorite.

Lazare

boba_fett3099 wrote:

But what im unsure about is if taking this race is more +EV than waiting for a better spot which i will likely get from one of my inferior opponents.

Of course it has a higher EV. You said you're in the top 10% of the field skill wise. As Lenny pointed out, these fast tournaments require getting a stack early in order to put your edge to any use.

Why would waiting for a 'likely' situation to occur have a higher EV than the option you have right now?

boba_fett3099

LuckyLloyd wrote:

My point is that of Lazare's - you make more money if you are willing to take a coinflip with a slight edge early on in tournaments because in the long run you will make more money if your stack is doubled half the time.

Your probably right Llyod but the situation seems very marginal to me. this is something i've been thinking about lately and was actually thinking about starting a thread on the subject.

Just out of interest, lets say its the first hand of a big buy-in, large field tournament with a great structure and you believe yourself to be in the top 10%. You've started on a very soft table from what you can see, do you always take a race on the first hand??

cooker3

boba_fett3099 wrote:

I have to say that im folding the QQ vs AK a large amount of the time. For example: Jackpot 20 F/O - I consider myself to be in the top 10% of the field and am confident that i can benefit from my opponents mistakes by playing some post-flop poker with them. Why should i take a race here against inferior opposition??

Because it's a crapshoot, if you don't do anything by end of level 3 your very short.

boba_fett3099

Lazare wrote:

Of course it has a higher EV. You said you're in the top 10% of the field skill wise. As Lenny pointed out, these fast tournaments require getting a stack early in order to put your edge to any use.

Why would waiting for a 'likely' situation to occur have a higher EV than the option you have right now?

Why should i take a race right now when on the next hand i can get it in on the flop with TPGK and be a mile ahead of opp's gutshot straight draw?? You really have no idea how bad some of these players are..

Seriously though i know im not guaranteed to find a better spot but i do think it is quite likely.

boba_fett3099

cooker3 wrote:

Because it's a crapshoot, if you don't do anything by end of level 3 your very short.

You know how bad these players are Robert but do you really take a race here every time?

Lazare

boba_fett3099 wrote:

Seriously though i know im not guaranteed to find a better spot but i do think it is quite likely.

Of the 50% of times you survive the coin flip, these situations will still arise, and you'll be in a better state to take full advantage.

cooker3

boba_fett3099 wrote:

You know how bad these players are Robert but do you really take a race here every time?

Yeah I probably would, actually I did it last week in an even worse standard tournament if you can believe it (go DCU pokersoc) he raised, I knew he had a pair, I knew he would call my push no matter how the low pair was, I had AK and still pushed.
The structure was as such and is the same in jackpot that I don't think you have time to be waiting round.
Too many times I see others get chips who are terrible but I can't find a hand to punish them and I will end up pushing when short with A rag in anyway.

The point is the structure dictates my play.

boba_fett3099

Lazare wrote:

I can see what you're saying, but, of the 50% of times you survive the coin flip, these situations will still arise, and you'll be in a better state to take full advantage.

Yeah this is a good point. I guess im gonna have to start taking more races so!! Im surprised everyone seems to disagree with me, i remember a post by Paul Phillips on 2+2 a while back when he said he would fold KK on the first hand of the WSOP. I must try and dig it out and have a read.

Ste05

I wrote this earlier tonight, but can't get it to come to a definitive point, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway to see if anyone can take anything from it:

I'm sure that most people will agree that everything needed to be considered in a cash game hand/decision needs to be taken into consideration in a tournament hand. The only real difference between the 2 is the other variables that need to be taken into consideration in a tournament decision. Such as ocallaghs point of the different value of chips (see Gigabet's theory of Stack sizes for more on this point, where he talks about "Blocks" of chips in people's stacks) also things like the Payout structure, closeness to the bubble, etc. many of these can be quantified but other things that some people take into consideration such as tournament life, etc. our ability level compared to the competition are subjective and are either completely wrong or given too much weight. The less subjective considerations the better, things like worrying about survival and our “tournament life” should not be considered as a stand alone item, i.e. it shouldn’t be a criteria in it’s own right. Just as basically the name given to the overall extra considerations to be considered in a tournament.

There's always loads of ridiculous examples bandied about to try and prove that “tournament life” is a stand alone item and should be considered, but the fact of the matter is, those decisions should not be made worrying about whether we'll be knocked out or not. But for all the other factors that have been mentioned in this thread. E.G. In the latest AK v QQ in the first hand of the WSOP, “tournament life” shouldn't come into it, obviously this is a fairly obvious +cEV call, but other considerations both quantifiable and subjective make it a -$EV call for most people reading this if it was the first hand in the WSOP. For others it would be a +$EV call for the times that we have a better chance of finishing high in the money of we have double the starting chips after the first hand. It's subjective, sometimes rightly sometimes wrongly.

Some of the subjective factors to be considered, would include our perceived ability level against the rest of the field, but also some of these factors can be given some form of objectivity.

e.g. 1: Say this was in a Poker Superstars tournament, obviously this would be a good gamble to take, (crap structure and good opposition) makes this probably a +cEV and +$EV race.
e.g. 2 In the WSOP 7 day ME filled with 80% donkeys there's no need to risk it all on a coin flip if we think we are better than 50% of the players in the field. I think it's safe to say that almost everyone reading this thread is better than half that field, but later on as the tournament progresses this may not be true, and other factors come into play also, so for what is a +cEV call is also a -$EV call in the first hand of the WSOP. For others it will be a +$EV call because of the amount of times we do better when we have double the starting stack after the first hand, etc. etc.

I talk later about our “internal EV calculators” but some other subjective factors that might sway this decision for some people, would be things like “Well, I think if I win this race, I can do serious damage with double the chips of everyone in the tournament and I have a much better chance of getting a huge stack by the end of Day 1” and so they might view it as +$EV to take the gamble, this is where different people’s internal EV calculations and personalities come into it.

However I have a feeling we're all just fighting about symantics and maybe Bops is right that it's just different people's approach to a tournament, but EV is EV no matter what way you look at it, the only difference between people's cEV and $EV calculations is the subjective considerations such as people's perceived ability, (often over stated) so IMO the less subjectivity built into these decisions the better. People should be calling or folding for objective reasons and not subjective reasons, and IMO worrying about your tournament life is a subjective worry and is basically thinking that they should fold now because they can get better spots in the future or they can out play their opponents later, often this is a fallacy that people give themselves with an inflated ego, and do not think properly about the structure of the tournament.

So just to sum up, what I'm trying (badly) to get across is that many players take into consideration things that can't be quantified and are subjective (e.g. their ability level), therefore in alot of cases their whole EV model and calculations will be wrong and will lead them to making some pretty blatant mistakes.

Just to explain a little more about what I was talking about when I mentioned “internal EV calculators”: I’m of the opinion that everyone playing Poker goes through a little EV calculation in their head before EVERY decision, even if they don’t know they’re doing it. However, their inbuilt calculator and formula’s might be completely arseways and completely wrong, from starting out to it being (Top Pair = Winning Hand = Go All In) but as players play and gain experience this internal calculator gets more advanced either by trial and error, (again results based experience will make the internal calculator wrong) and this calculator can become even more advanced and complicated as people get yet more experience, begin to analyse situations, read books or forums, input “reads” into the calculations, etc. all these things are just expanding our internal EV calculator and we just slot in the values of the variables and come out with our decisions. Some are so easy we don’t have to think about them at all, others, where we haven’t encountered it before may take more time to work out, and we might have to slot in a new variable we haven’t encountered before, or the weightings of our formula might need tinkering.

So just to conclude, I think the whole concept of “tournament life” is just the sum total of all these additional items we are considering and it has no basis on it’s own.

boba_fett3099

Ste05 wrote:

I wrote this earlier tonight....

Very good post but your missing the most important part...Would you call???

Oh and Paul Phillips actually said:

Paul Phillips wrote:

That's not what I've said. I've said I'll take ANY edge (or even ANY COIN FLIP) early, and that NOBODY is good enough to intentionally refuse a 60/40 edge early. Repeatedly applying a 60/40 edge would make you one of the top players in tournament poker.

He said it is correct to fold KK to an all-in on the first hand of the WSOP to an unknown player with no reads.

Ste05

boba_fett3099 wrote:

Very good post but your missing the most important part...Would you call???

Personally I'd fold. I just don't personally think it'd increase my chances of cashing by enough after another 4 or 5 days of play, and I'd subjectively want to play for longer than 1 hand, just for the experience alone. But it's not because I think I'm good enough to be passing up edges. Yes, Yes I know, completely mad thinking, but the first time I play it, I'm not going out in the first hand, no matter how good a story it'd be...

Ye I remember reading that Paul Phillips thing ages ago, can't remember it, but found it interesting.

Daithio

I got to about page 4 of this thread, but I got bored so I'm just going to post up my response without reading the whole lot. I'm sure the point has been made already and probably been explained better by somebody else.

Of course tournament life matters. To completely write it off is ridiculous. It shouldn't be the only factor influencing our decision, and the amount that it should influence your decision varies greatly from situation to situation. In the early stages of a tournament (regardless of structure) where you don't feel that you have any great skill edge then you should try to get your chips in as much as possible whenever you feel you have a small percentage edge. In this situation tournament life doesn't matter. You need to be taking up every small edge you can because you will likely get outplayed otherwise. But at any stage of a deep stacked slow structured tournament where you feel you have a significant edge over the average player in the tournament there are plenty of situations you should pass up if you are only a marginal favourite if you will be risking all of or most of your chips.

It matters even more in the late stages of a tournament and particularly in the money where there are alot of other factors to consider.

It's an EV decision, and if you are a good player then you shouldn't be risking all your chips in situations where you are only a marginal favourite, because you should be able to accumulate chips without risking your stack. If you are a poor player then by all means get your chips in as much as possible when you are a 51% to 49% favourite, but I think it's a poor strategy for the majority of posters in this thread.

Daithio

To elaborate.

Another hypothetical situation, sorry NTL. It's the middle of day 1 in the WSOP. The standard so far has been absolutely atrocious and you are savaging your table. The average is 15k, you have 80k, and despite a double up to 20k early on (where the SB pushed for 10k to your BB and accidentally flipped over AK, you had QQ and correctly called) you have used your stack well to move from 20k to 80k with barely a showdown. Now a 90k stack gets moved directly to your right, and holy **** the exact same thing as earlier happens! He pushes for 90k and flips over AK accidentally. You look down at QQ.

Do you call or fold? If you call here you are a complete idiot IMHO.

BobSloane

ntlbell wrote:

Where the guy who came second place in the end folded I think an OESFD.

For basically 2 million dollars.

Is this TLS? or is it a CEV calculation?

That was Paul Wasicka I think. Called a pre- flop raise with 78 spades and got a flop with a 10 and the 5,6 spades. The original raiser bet out on top pair and the chip leader moved all in in front of Wasicka. he declared "this is sick" and folded. I would have pretty much no respect for a player who plays this situation this way. This is I think an example of a player protecting his "Tournament life" even though it was 3 handed. He let the difference in money between 2nd and 3rd affect his judgement and laid down the hand that was favourite. he knew he was drawing dead to no hand and if he had called would have only had about a 2-1 chip deficit heads up if he drew out. Maybe he thought he could "outplay" Jamie Gold heads up with a huge chip disadvantage. Basically he had no ambition to win the tournament. If he had folded pre-flop I'd say fine but thats the best flop you can hope for barring you flop the absolute joint.

That old saying about in tournaments in order to live you must be prepared to die rings through for me anyway. Although I suppose its easier to live up to this philosophy playing 10 and 20 dollar tournaments than when faced with a multi-million dollar decision. The principles the same though.

EDIT : here is the hand in question for anyone who hasn't seen it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAYxRca8Gkk

FoxRiver8

Daithio wrote:

To elaborate.

Another hypothetical situation, sorry NTL. It's the middle of day 1 in the WSOP. The standard so far has been absolutely atrocious and you are savaging your table. The average is 15k, you have 80k, and despite a double up to 20k early on (where the SB pushed for 10k to your BB and accidentally flipped over AK, you had QQ and correctly called) you have used your stack well to move from 20k to 80k with barely a showdown. Now a 90k stack gets moved directly to your right, and holy **** the exact same thing as earlier happens! He pushes for 90k and flips over AK accidentally. You look down at QQ.

Do you call or fold? If you call here you are a complete idiot IMHO.

I think "complete idiot" is kinda harsh, i dont think QQ v a def AK in any circumstances can be termed that way, but i def see ur point. At a basic level though, to FT in tournaments it comes down to a series of coin flips interspersed with hours, sometimes days, of good play. Personally im inclined to agree that i wouldnt call with QQ here given those stacks and the nature of the tournament, but i couldnt rate a call as a terribly bad play either, its 1 race for a monster pot and depending on ability of the player could be the key to maximising their ability to go the furthest they can.

If the scenario : your opponent turns over JTo and u have KQ suited, does that affect your thinking by much? At what % is the edge too great not to call, given those stack sizes?

cardshark202

Daithio wrote:

To elaborate.

Another hypothetical situation, sorry NTL. It's the middle of day 1 in the WSOP. The standard so far has been absolutely atrocious and you are savaging your table. The average is 15k, you have 80k, and despite a double up to 20k early on (where the SB pushed for 10k to your BB and accidentally flipped over AK, you had QQ and correctly called) you have used your stack well to move from 20k to 80k with barely a showdown. Now a 90k stack gets moved directly to your right, and holy **** the exact same thing as earlier happens! He pushes for 90k and flips over AK accidentally. You look down at QQ.

Do you call or fold? If you call here you are a complete idiot IMHO.

Whoops I think I'm calling here.

jimbling

Firstly, just want to say, I'm very glad we're finally having an actual discussion on this, and that some of the more experienced posters have come out of the woodwork too.
It's obviously a tricky enough point but it warrants debate.


Ste,

Ste05 wrote:

Payout structure, closeness to the bubble, etc. many of these can be quantified but other things that some people take into consideration such as tournament life, etc. our ability level compared to the competition are subjective and are either completely wrong or given too much weight. The less subjective considerations the better, things like worrying about survival and our “tournament life” should not be considered as a stand alone item, i.e. it shouldn’t be a criteria in it’s own right. Just as basically the name given to the overall extra considerations to be considered in a tournament.

Not sure how anyone can say our ability level compared to the competition should not be considered. Forget about making decisions during a tournament for a minute.
When you initially sit down at a MTT with 100 people in it. What do you believe are your odds of winning the tournament... 100-1?
If that is the case then you shouldn't be playing poker.
If you think your odds are better than 100-1 then you are been subjective about your skill level when coming to that figure.

Why would you be allowed to use subjectivity when working out the odds of winning the tournament before it begins but not during the tournament?????


You say the reason not to take these factors into the equation are because people will get them wrong... i.e. ego and all that. But if thats the case then they are not doing it correctly are they. I think most poker players have an idea when they are way above the standard or way below the standard. The closer the skill levels the harder it is for you to judge, but then the smaller the impact it has on the calculation too.

Ste05 wrote:

However I have a feeling we're all just fighting about symantics and maybe Bops is right that it's just different people's approach to a tournament, but EV is EV no matter what way you look at it, the only difference between people's cEV and $EV calculations is the subjective considerations such as people's perceived ability, (often over stated) so IMO the less subjectivity built into these decisions the better. People should be calling or folding for objective reasons and not subjective reasons

Of course different styles will take things into account differently, but that doesnt mean you should ignore them in a calculation. Any calculation should be taking in all the known variables. You have knowledge about your own situation. Not including this info is close to blasphemy

I'm not sure I get what you're saying here ste. Do you think that only cEV should be considered? or just that the only factors that should be considered in the $EV are blinds, payout structure etc?

Ste05 wrote:

Just to explain a little more about what I was talking about when I mentioned “internal EV calculators”: I’m of the opinion that everyone playing Poker goes through a little EV calculation in their head before EVERY decision, even if they don’t know they’re doing it. However, their inbuilt calculator and formula’s might be completely arseways and completely wrong, from starting out to it being (Top Pair = Winning Hand = Go All In) but as players play and gain experience this internal calculator gets more advanced either by trial and error, (again results based experience will make the internal calculator wrong) and this calculator can become even more advanced and complicated as people get yet more experience, begin to analyse situations, read books or forums, input “reads” into the calculations, etc. all these things are just expanding our internal EV calculator and we just slot in the values of the variables and come out with our decisions. Some are so easy we don’t have to think about them at all, others, where we haven’t encountered it before may take more time to work out, and we might have to slot in a new variable we haven’t encountered before, or the weightings of our formula might need tinkering.

I used to call this my "subconscious analysis". Read an interesting thread by Gigabet on that too.

Ste05

jimbling wrote:

Not sure how anyone can say our ability level compared to the competition should not be considered. Forget about making decisions during a tournament for a minute.
When you initially sit down at a MTT with 100 people in it. What do you believe are your odds of winning the tournament... 100-1?
If that is the case then you shouldn't be playing poker.
If you think your odds are better than 100-1 then you are been subjective about your skill level when coming to that figure.

Why would you be allowed to use subjectivity when working out the odds of winning the tournament before it begins but not during the tournament?????

Well I didn't mean we should never use subjective factors, just to keep them to a minimum, because they cloud our thinking and can lead to mistakes. I was more trying to get across rational thinking as opposed to fanciful thoughts we might have that could cloud our judgement and make us make mistakes.

jimbling wrote:

You say the reason not to take these factors into the equation are because people will get them wrong... i.e. ego and all that. But if thats the case then they are not doing it correctly are they. I think most poker players have an idea when they are way above the standard or way below the standard. The closer the skill levels the harder it is for you to judge, but then the smaller the impact it has on the calculation too.

I agree with you here, obviously if the skill disparity is huge then it'll be obvious, such as at the WSOP or in my other example at a Poker SuperStars tournament. One has crap players and a great structure, and the other has great players and a crap structure.

jimbling wrote:

Of course different styles will take things into account differently, but that doesnt mean you should ignore them in a calculation. Any calculation should be taking in all the known variables. You have knowledge about your own situation. Not including this info is close to blasphemy

Again I agree, my point is that some people give overdue weight to things like worrying about their tournament life and their skill level against the field which in turn it leads them to make blatant mistakes.

jimbling wrote:

I'm not sure I get what you're saying here ste. Do you think that only cEV should be considered? or just that the only factors that should be considered in the $EV are blinds, payout structure etc?

Basically, yes, $EV should be calculated by things like blinds, payout structure, our M, average stack size versus our stack, the length of tournament, closeness to bubble, pay jumps etc. to give us with a reason to call or fold, and not to just blandly answer, "well I didn't want to get knocked out", this isn't a good enough answer, and if it's your only reason then it's usually a mistake.

I guess I'm just trying to talk about people's thinking, if during a hand they've thought about it and their only reason for folding is they are afraid to get knocked out, then I'd say a huge % of the time, that is the wrong decision. Hence the whole "Tournament Life Syndrome" in it's own right should have no meaning, it's just the overall name we give to all these extra factors to be taken into consideration and shouldn't be confused with some stand alone item.

ianmc38

Daithio wrote:

He pushes for 90k and flips over AK accidentally. You look down at QQ.

Do you call or fold? If you call here you are a complete idiot IMHO.

Based on the table dynamics described, I think we can be sufficiently confident of outplaying the table to accumulate chips so I would fold in that spot as well. If the table was much stronger, I would probably call.

cardshark202

ianmc38 wrote:

Based on the table dynamics described, I think we can be sufficiently confident of outplaying the table to accumulate chips so I would fold in that spot as well. If the table was much stronger, I would probably call.

Folding is silly unless you have been given assurances by the TD(/ESPN!) that you won't be moved in the near future nor that your table will be broken and that you won't lose some fish and have some tough players with big stacks moved to your table so hence its quite an easy call.

ntlbell

Daithio wrote:

To elaborate.

Another hypothetical situation, sorry NTL. It's the middle of day 1 in the WSOP. The standard so far has been absolutely atrocious and you are savaging your table. The average is 15k, you have 80k, and despite a double up to 20k early on (where the SB pushed for 10k to your BB and accidentally flipped over AK, you had QQ and correctly called) you have used your stack well to move from 20k to 80k with barely a showdown. Now a 90k stack gets moved directly to your right, and holy **** the exact same thing as earlier happens! He pushes for 90k and flips over AK accidentally. You look down at QQ.

Do you call or fold? If you call here you are a complete idiot IMHO.

My chips would be in the middle before his.