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HI,
Another question that popped into my head this morning whilst eating my cheerios.
In an MTT or an STT, When facing an all-in and you figure it's +EV to call against your opponents range , should you always be calling ? (assuming you are last to act)
What
if its the early stages of a tourney and it would mean calling off most
of or all of your stack?, are we still calling as we are playing to win
?
Is there a point where you would deem it 'too early' to take the risk ?, or when Survival becomes more important ? (excluding satellite bubbles)
does your opinion on this differ between live and online ?
thanks in advance,
Reboot
I think this is an excellent question, however, the answer is pretty complex.
Personally i think someone needs to write an article about it!
My thoughts briefly;
I hate getting all my chips in anywhere early in an MTT unless i think villain is practically drawing dead. It obv doesnt always happen that way though (tilt/misread/bad mood/tired)
The 1 thing i will say is that there is a difference between chip EV and $ EV – and it is for this reason (in tournaments except for winner takes all) that we shouldn't always be getting our chips in when we are ahead of villains range. Thats why we fold 95% of hands on massive bubbles like the WSOP ME if someone jams on us.
There are so many factors that alter our decisions that there is actually no true answer to whether we should get it in early in MTT's.
In theory, as g0liath once talked about, if we play for 1st place and 1st place only (as in winner takes all) then ICM and $EV have no relevance at all. b/c every single chip would have the same value throughout the whole tournament.
In reality, if i was on the stone cold bubble in the WSOP ME knowing a micro stack would be all in the very next hand and got shoved into by someone who had me covered – I would fold AA.
Would you?
What about very 1st hand of the tourney – in the BB with 44 – the idiotic 6 toed retard in the SB open shoves his entire stack in and you accidentally see his hand AJ.
We are ahead here but are we calling? probably not.
Once again i'm sure some people could justify calling and some could argue that it's a fold. I know chris fergusson would call every time, but does that make it right?
Maybe a pro article might be able to address some of these points.
Hmmm after all of that waffle all i think i've done is confuse the matter
As in many poker questions…”It depends”. I think in most tourneys I don't want to risk getting it in on a flip with deep stacks, but mostly this is villain dependent. If I see a villain spazing out pre, I will get hands in where I am certain I am ahead of their range.
I would like to think that I have an edge on the field that I will have better spots to double up later on so pot control is important to me. Early in mtts and sngs I like to keep pots small, see flops, and play from there. Best of luck at the tables.
+EV is +EV, but its important that you really know its +EV. There are many spots we encounter that are marginal +EV, for those spots it is important to think about whether it is worth it. We might decide that we have an edge that we can exploit, and there for a marginal spot would not be worth it. So I would just say play to win but think about the overall picture. Say you have a +EV table with some spewtards but you encounter a marginal spot with a decent player, even though it might be +EV doesn't mean we have to take it. #Winning
Just a few added comments:
I do think there is a difference online to live, ranges on shoves are different to start with, but more importantly, althoug hit shouldnt affect us, the fact is that you can fire up a new tourney much faster and much cheaper online so I am more prone to call on a flip small +EV situation online, expecially at the beginning of a tourney becasue of the edge you get from doubling up that early (especially on bounty tourneys). Not saying this is the only answer though.
overall I wont take the high variance play and call on an expected flip, but I will shove on an expected flip as I factor in the fold equity and in my mind makes it enough of a +EV. it also helps me build a loser image (if needed) so I get paid off with my big hands.
Whoever said it depends is dead on.
In a tournament where the players are super tough, I might take a marginally +EV spot because the players are good and I need to take some higher variance spots. If it's a field where I can mow over most of the players, I'd likely wait for an amazingly +EV spot because they will come up a lot more often against bad players.
It all depends on how much variance or when i use to play blackjack (in card counting we called it fluctuation).
Regarding your question, Sure in the long term the expectation is positive EV, but the variance increases in the short term.
In Blackjack we would want to play at a table where the dealer would put the cut card as far back as possible. This would
dramatically cut the fluctuation as the deeper you get in the shoe the richer the remaining cards are if the count is good.
We would avoid dealers that did would not put the cut card very far back. Eg the dealer would put the cut card 3 decks from the
back in a 8 deck shoe, therefore only getting 5 decks. Yes the game is still beatable, but the fluctuation or variance increases. Why
play with high variances when you can always look for a better dealer, who puts the cut card 1 deck from the back getting 7 decks of play.
Likewise, why subject yourself to such high variance early in a tournament when you can find a better less variance spot
later on.
Maybe I'm wrong, but just a thought. Open to correction.
Donskey
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