How would a top pro do playing SNG's?

[rjc199]

Lets say a top class pro decided that he was going to go on vacation and play $5 STARS SNG's for like two weeks.

Said pro is already competent in online play because he first learned to play there.

So what do you think would be the ROI% of said pro at the various SNG limits? Basically I'm looking for a theoretical max ROI%.

[silversurfer]

I'm nowhere near a top pro(playing for 5-6 years, 7 months seriously), but I would say he would do very well (ROI wise). I play stars 5$-10$ SnG's (currently building a bankroll) exclusively and I slaughter the 5$ tables. I don't calculate the ROI(yet), but 100-130$ a day is easy. (MT'ing 2-3 tables)
Makes for some nice pocket change.

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm nowhere near a top pro(playing for 5-6 years, 7 months seriously), but I would say he would do very well (ROI wise). I play stars 5$-10$ SnG's (currently building a bankroll) exclusively and I slaughter the 5$ tables. I don't calculate the ROI(yet), but 100-130$ a day is easy. (MT'ing 2-3 tables)
Makes for some nice pocket change.

[/ QUOTE ]

level SNGs, then you need to give me your secret so i can write a book on it. heck, i was told $50 profit a day was at the $5 level was pushing it with the crazies that play in those games.

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
Lets say a top class pro decided that he was going to go on vacation and play $5 STARS SNG's for like two weeks.

Said pro is already competent in online play because he first learned to play there.

So what do you think would be the ROI% of said pro at the various SNG limits? Basically I'm looking for a theoretical max ROI%.

[/ QUOTE ]

you get for your thread from some of 2+2's SNG elite. i started a thread about a month or so ago asking kind of the same question, but directed at the $50 to $200 level SNG players. i asked could they make $55 to $60 a day playing at the $5 + $.50s on PS and $5 + $1s on Party? the answers ranged from "i could" to "why would they, it would'nt be +EV". the point of my thread was to gauge whether their superior skill and poker savvy come overcome the luck-oriented and crazy play at the low levels for a consistent profit day in and day out. i don't think my thread accomplished that.

i, personally, would love to see pros like Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen, etc.
play the lower levels SNGs on Pokerstars for an extended period experiment to see how they would do. for that matter, i would like to see good online players like Josh Arieh (razorbax), Scott Fischman (emptyseat88), Daniel Larsson (Looptroop), John D' Agostino (jdags21), Pete Giordano (TheBeat), everybody on the PS leaderboard, and the higher limit SNG players on 2+2 play them to. i feel like you get better by playing better competition, but oftentimes your bankroll prevents you from doing that, especially if you're a lower limit player without alot of experience.

[Irieguy]

"...the point of my thread was to gauge whether their superior skill and poker savvy come overcome the luck-oriented and crazy play at the low levels for a consistent profit day in and day out..."

This is a very common misconception. The "crazier," more "luck-oriented" your opponents are, the more you will be able to exploit their deficiencies and increase your In-The-Money (ITM) percentage. The lower your oppoennts' ITM, the higher your ITM%. The higher your ITM%, the lower your variance. That's just zero-sum game theory.

So, the craziest, goofiest, most frustrating games (ie, the $5 or $10 SNGs) will give you the most stable, predictable results. If you are pressing all of your skills to their limit, trying to gain marginal edges on decent opponents at the high limits, then a run of bad cards will wreak havoc on your variance and you could endure a 100-200 tournamnent run as a loser. That could never happen at the $5 or $10 level if you are even a modestly solid player with above-average short-handed skills.

Irieguy

[Irieguy]

oops

[Eder]

Desdia...play the 2+2 tourneys...many extremely good players play those to show us how its done...

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
Desdia...play the 2+2 tourneys...many extremely good players play those to show us how its done...

[/ QUOTE ]

an occasional tourney? that's not the same thing as what i'm talking about.

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
"...the point of my thread was to gauge whether their superior skill and poker savvy come overcome the luck-oriented and crazy play at the low levels for a consistent profit day in and day out..."

This is a very common misconception. The "crazier," more "luck-oriented" your opponents are, the more you will be able to exploit their deficiencies and increase your In-The-Money (ITM) percentage. The lower your oppoennts' ITM, the higher your ITM%. The higher your ITM%, the lower your variance. That's just zero-sum game theory.

So, the craziest, goofiest, most frustrating games (ie, the $5 or $10 SNGs) will give you the most stable, predictable results. If you are pressing all of your skills to their limit, trying to gain marginal edges on decent opponents at the high limits, then a run of bad cards will wreak havoc on your variance and you could endure a 100-200 tournamnent run as a loser. That could never happen at the $5 or $10 level if you are even a modestly solid player with above-average short-handed skills.

Irieguy

[/ QUOTE ]

i don't quite understand what you're saying? are you saying pros and the higher level SNG players would accomplish that goal? was the issue with zero-sum game theory?

[Irieguy]

Yes, expert SNG players could beat the low limits soundly and with a much lower variance than they encounter at the higher levels. It's just not worth the hourly rate.

I was responding to the very common assertion (made even by some "pros" when commenting on this year's WSOP) that crazy, loose, super-bad players make the game somehow harder to beat consistently. That is just not at all true.

Irieguy

[silversurfer]

if i had the patience to sit there and grind it out....which i often don't(a flaw of mine i'm working on while i build my bankroll). i'll win 3 out of 5 5$ +.50's, then drop half of it back on ring games, or get bored/overly aggressive (and yes, there are plenty of maniacs sucking out on you as well) and blow big leads. the first 30 minutes of a 5$ sng is boring indeed.

anyway, noone asked about my leaks. the point is this: i played about 30 of these yesterday and placed in 15 of them. this is not uncommon and i am not a pro. if you can play an aggressive yet intelligent and very patient game, 100$ a day is a snap.

[Aceshigh7]

I believe the original poster was referring to a true professional poker player giving low limit sng's a try. Not the online grinder wannabe's who love to call themselves pro's.

You will notice he said "top class", I don't think many if any of the online pro wannabe's that I described could fit that definition.

[stupidsucker]

I havent read any of the responses just yet. (I see one of my favorite posters has shown up here though)

First of all this is of course an extreme hypothetical because no pro would waste his time playing the 5 or 10 dollar level.

But...

To be blunt, if a pro did decide to do it then this is how I feel the results would be.

If he trys to play a fancy game he will not do well, and may even be negative, BUT if he is a true good pro then he understands this and will play correctly for the table conditions and do just fine. I dont think his roi will be much better then my own though. There is only so many games he can win, luck is still a factor with quick SnGs like this on party. I think a 50% roi is suststainable by a very good SnG specialist at the $10+1s, but not much more no matter how good you are.

[LinusKS]

I disagree, Irie, on both counts.

I think bad ("crazy, luck-oriented") players will not only increase your variance, but decrease your edge as well.

Consider this. Suppose you're in a game where players will go all-in on all kinds of hands, including hands like AA, 22, Axs, and medium and even low suited connectors. What kind of edge do you need to call all-in?

Is 60% good enough?

Because if you did that twice before the money, your ITM would be only 36%. In other words, barely enough to beat the rake.

And if you pass on everying - including AK, which is a dog to any pair, and only 58% against 78 suited, but good against Axs - you'll be fortunate to make the bubble with less than half the average stack.

Sklansky said something to the effect that poor players can make up for lack of skill by going all-in. I think that's 100% accurate.

Not only is a good player less likely to want to call an all-in (unless he can be very sure of a very large edge), the all-in strips a good player of the things that make him good. You can't bluff, and hand-reading becomes irrelevant (as long as you're against the kind of player who will go in on a lot of different hands - ie, a reckless, luck-oriented player.)

If you can count on a good run of cards, you can do very well at these games. But if you don't want to count on that, you might do better at a game where you can run a bluff once in a while, or you can raise a hand like KQ or AJ without someone putting you all-in.

[Irieguy]

That's not how you analyze zero-sum games. The only way your ITM rate can be below average is if other peoples' are above average. Going all-in frequently will not gain you a positive expectation. If it did, we wouldn't benefit from this forum. Sklansky's "system" is a way to take a player who knows nothing and quickly minimize their underlay against experienced opponents. It does not make you a winner... just less of a loser than you would be if you just sat down at a poker table having never played before.

It's a very straightforward truism: if somebody plays poorly, they will win less often. If many people play poorly, many will win less often. If you are competing against many who win less often, you absolutely must win more often if you know how to play better. At these small limits, playing better is very easy: just have a better hand.

The only way it would be mathematically possible for your ITM to decrease as the level of skill of your opponents decreases would be if you were actually wrong about your opponents' skill level.

Are you saying that the $5 players are actually playing a better game than the $50 players? Because unless they are better, you will win more often against them.

Irieguy

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree, Irie, on both counts.

I think bad ("crazy, luck-oriented") players will not only increase your variance, but decrease your edge as well.

Consider this. Suppose you're in a game where players will go all-in on all kinds of hands, including hands like AA, 22, Axs, and medium and even low suited connectors. What kind of edge do you need to call all-in?

Is 60% good enough?

Because if you did that twice before the money, your ITM would be only 36%.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think so. I think you're ignoring the fact that once you've doubled through, you're much less likely to go broke on the next confrontation.

I posted some simulation results about this very recently.

For 60/40 confrontations chosen at random, you're looking at 42% ITM with 40% ROI, assuming 10% vig and 20/30/50 payout.

I think these numbers would be even higher if we assumed the "expert" getting in on 60/40 played fewer hands than the rest of the maniacs at the table.

eastbay

[Saint_D]

Slansky does say you can use an all-in/fold strategy to neutralize the skill of better players. However, I have yet to see a 5+1 player use this strategy. Not once! Your oponents in that class are fishiest.

They don't understand pot odds, they don't have a gear changing strategy for getting ITM. They basically have no strategy at all.

This means you just have to adapt. Don't whine about the suck outs. Figure out how to play against people who are completely clueless. They are really easy to beat, but you have to use the right approach.

[chill888]

Top pro adapts his game and maybe achieves 40% ROI - maybe higher. 40% x $11 = $4.40 per game. He plays 20 games a day and earns $88 - on average.

As to bad players being harder to beat (in the long term). If this was true then they would be good players. Bad players can be frustrating but OF COURSE they are welcome and great for your bankroll. Once you confirm you are a winning player and play enough games, then bad beats roll off you like water on a duck. QUACK.

It is one the surest signs/tells of a mediocre player, when he starts complaining about bad beats and terrible calls and how unbeatable low limits are.

QUACK QUACK

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]

It's a very straightforward truism: if somebody plays poorly, they will win less often.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly.

There are lots of games (and lots of real-life situations) where sub-optimal strategies - sub-optimal in the sense that they will win less often than other strategies would - that will still strip a better player of a significant part of his edge.

Take guerilla warfare for example. If you are fighting an enemy who is better than you - has more weapons, better technology, better trained troops, etc. - it might be a mistake to try to win on the battlefield. A war of attrition might be a sub-optimal strategy (in a lot of ways), but it takes away a significant part of his advantage.

Another example - if you were playing chess against someone you happened to know was better than you - you might choose to play for a draw, instead of playing for a win, if you thought playing for a draw made it less likely that you would lose.

There are lots of examples of this.

They are strategies that tend to level the playing field, (or at least make it more difficult for the best player to win), even though they're not winning strategies in and of themselves.

"If someone plays poorly, they will win less often" is true in the sense that it's a truism, but it's also an oversimplification, and doesn't really tell you very much.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Going all-in frequently will not gain you a positive expectation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't say it did. I said it reduces the expectation of a player who's better than you.

[LinusKS]

I don't think so. I think you're ignoring the fact that once you've doubled through, you're much less likely to go broke on the next confrontation.

That's true. I did not take that into account.

I posted some simulation results about this very recently.

For 60/40 confrontations chosen at random, you're looking at 42% ITM with 40% ROI, assuming 10% vig and 20/30/50 payout.

I'm prepared to accept that a player can get 42% ITM if he's guaranteed to be a 60/40 favorite on every hand.

I think these numbers would be even higher if we assumed the "expert" getting in on 60/40 played fewer hands than the rest of the maniacs at the table.

I disagree. Yes, you will sometimes get better than 60/40, but you will also sometimes be the dog. I tend to think 60/40 has to be near the upper end of what's achievable in that kind of scenario.

[Irieguy]

While I find your examples interesting, I would have to say they are not analagous to poker.

A chess player recognizing his inferiority and deciding to play for a draw is the sign of a pretty good chess player. He would be only slightly worse than his opponent, or else he wouldn't be able to even attempt this. The crazy gamblers on PP are not correctly handicapping themselves as losers and then appropriately compensating by going all-in a lot to neutralize the better players... they are just plain bad.

Let me borrow your other example: Guerilla warfare only only neutralizes your opponent's capacity when it's close. Like the US in the Revolutionary War. Nice play. It doesn't work if you are vastly overmatched: see Iraq.

How about North Vietnam? Guerilla warfare seemed to neutralize the US and result in a stalemate of sorts, right? Well, I guess it depends on how you keep score: 100,000 lives vs. 2 million? A political stalemate, maybe, but the loose, aggressive players sure had to re-buy a lot.

The guerilla warfare of all-in gambling and loose calling is no more effective than suicide bombing and kamikaze flying. There will be some casualties, but unless there are unlimited re-buys... the war is lost before it starts.

Play the right way,
Irieguy

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]

I think these numbers would be even higher if we assumed the "expert" getting in on 60/40 played fewer hands than the rest of the maniacs at the table.

I disagree. Yes, you will sometimes get better than 60/40, but you will also sometimes be the dog. I tend to think 60/40 has to be near the upper end of what's achievable in that kind of scenario.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think you misunderstood what I said. I said for constant 60/40, but simply having the advantage player play less hands, I think his ITM and ROI would be higher.

On the other hand, I do agree that 60/40 in every case is too much to expect. But of course, not every pot is all-in, and if they were, you'd simply sit out and coast into the money for a ridiculously high ITM percentage.

eastbay

[LinusKS]

They're not perfectly analogous, but they are examples of strategies that are not necessarily winning strategies in and of themselves, but do tend to minimize the opponent's advantage.

As to bad players in small buy-in sngs, I agree they don't know anything about Sklansky, and they're not consciously following any particular strategy, but as long as they're going all-in on lots of different hands, they're minimizing a good player's EV, whether they realize they're doing that or not.

At least that's what I'm arguing.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
They're not perfectly analogous, but they are examples of strategies that are not necessarily winning strategies in and of themselves, but do tend to minimize the opponent's advantage.

As to bad players in small buy-in sngs, I agree they don't know anything about Sklansky, and they're not consciously following any particular strategy, but as long as they're going all-in on lots of different hands, they're minimizing a good player's EV, whether they realize they're doing that or not.

At least that's what I'm arguing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. The empirical evidence is that long-term achievable ROI is basically a monotonically decreasing function of the size of the buy-in, informally considering numbers I've seen on here over the past year.

And we all know that the all-in maniacs are more prominent in the lower buy-ins.

If blinds are big relative to stacks, lots of all-in is no longer fishy; it's simply good strategy. If "fish" are using it, the are playing well, whether it is by accident or not.

eastbay

[SQUi5HiiFiSH]

50 dollars is pushing it, if ur playing one table at a time.. but multitabling, u can make a lot more

[LinusKS]

Of course, they don't go all-in every hand even at Party - although I did take 4th there once accidently, by sitting out, and I've heard of people taking third that way.

Apocryphal, perhaps. :-)

Still, the point is to try to figure out what's achievable in those kinds of games, and you've got to figure good players will A) tighten up their starting hand requirements, and B) give up opportunities to bluff.

You've also got to figure when a good player does play a hand he's probably looking for a caller - after all, premium hands come infrequently - you can't afford to just pick up the blinds when you finally get one.

Try this and tell me what you think.

Suppose a good player, knowing he was at a loose-aggressive table, decided to play only premium hands - AA, KK, QQ, & AK.

Suppose also he was guaranteed to get one of these hands in the first 40 hands (which would bring him up to the 100/200 level - I think - at Party).

Suppose also he didn't have to pay blinds (at least until he got the hand), and that he got exactly one caller every time, and that that caller would go all-in every time.

Finally, lets say the caller held exactly 44.

Now tell me if I'm wrong, but to me these seem like some pretty generous assumptions. You could make the caller's hand even worse, or eliminate AK, but honestly, I can't see how it gets much better than that.

Anyway, according to my calculations, that puts the hero at slightly over 60% to win this hand. If he doesn't pay anymore blinds until the bubble, that'll put him at T1600, with 4 people left. The average stack at that point will be 2000, and the other three will have (on average) a little over 2300 each.

If the hero makes the money 80% of the time from there, his overall ITM will be 48%.

Like I said, these are unrealistic assumptions, but the idea is to see what the maximum possible ITM might be.

[parappa]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, they don't go all-in every hand even at Party - although I did take 4th there once accidently, by sitting out, and I've heard of people taking third that way.

Apocryphal, perhaps. :-)

[/ QUOTE ]

I had even better happen to me yesterday. About 500 chips 5 handed and I'm the short stack. 3 people went all-in on one hand, cutting the field to 3, and 2 went all-in the next hand. I folded both hands and found myself heads up against a guy with 7500 chips. Like a helicopter ride to the top!

[PrayingMantis]

I honestly still don't understand what you are trying to say in this thread. It is a very old, and false, argument, that good poker players "lose" their edge against bad players. If they adjust correctly to the field (i.e, bluffing less, thinking more in terms of showdown equity, etc, etc), their overall earnings will be higher (in terms of ROI, when we discuss SNGs) if not significantly higher, than at higher buy-ins.

Actually, this is not exactly a good subject for theoretical discussion, IMO, because every player who had played enough of these games in several levels, can see a *very* distinct difference, in terms of ROI. The results simply speak for themselves.

And if we cosider low-limit ring games, the whole idea of Ed Miller's new book, is to illustrate (and teach) how amazingly beatable are the super-loose, super fishy low-limit games. Although, of course, the variance there is HUGE. And many players (I suspect you might be one of them), confuse variance and profitability.

The question of variance at the low-limit SNGs is a little different, though, however - for the not-very-expirienced player it might look as if the "better" player (as he/she considers himself/herself) simply cannot win (or win "big enough") againt this poor opposition. This is wrong. Lower buy-in SNGs are much more beatable than higher ones, period.

[mackthefork]

Give me weak tighties or passives over maniacs anyday, much easier to consistently beat.

Regards Mack

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
if i had the patience to sit there and grind it out....which i often don't(a flaw of mine i'm working on while i build my bankroll). i'll win 3 out of 5 5$ +.50's,

[/ QUOTE ]

Its impossible (or close) to win 60% of the time, probably near impossible for the best player in the world to get ITM much more than 60%. I stand by that statement no matter what anyone says. I have heard from a number of people who say such things i am yet to hear someone say it who records their results, ITM ROI ect.

Regards Mack

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Give me weak tighties or passives over maniacs anyday, much easier to consistently beat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seriously, you can't really believe that. Think about these 3 first hands, on 2 different SNGs:

In game A, on the first 3 hands, all players fold to CO or button, who limps. 2-3 players see a flop. Someone bets small, all fold.

In game B, first hand 2 players are all-in PF. One of them busts with A9 against AQ. second hand, EP raises big, CO goes over the top, EP folds. Hand 3: folded to MP who pushes. SB thinks a long time, then folds.

Which game would you prefer?

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
How about North Vietnam? Guerilla warfare seemed to neutralize the US and result in a stalemate of sorts, right? Well, I guess it depends on how you keep score: 100,000 lives vs. 2 million? A political stalemate, maybe, but the loose, aggressive players sure had to re-buy a lot.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh dear, these analogies are getting worse and worse. Yuck!

Mack

[Phill S]

i sitll cant believe americans cant face the fact they lost the vietnam war.

and essentially lost the korean war just before then (for accuracy the war is still continuing, so when the hawks of the pentagon say lets go to war with north korea they mean lets actually do something about that war with north korea.

baah, this is not the place for politics, ill be onto iraq and palestine soon if im not careful.

Phill

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
In game B, first hand 2 players are all-in PF. One of them busts with A9 against AQ. second hand, EP raises big, CO goes over the top, EP folds. Hand 3: folded to MP who pushes. SB thinks a long time, then folds.


[/ QUOTE ]

Haha these are extreme, I seriously have a problem with these games I have tried a lot of different things but i seem to either get called as a small underdog/favourite when stealing or blinded away because I'm afraid to steal. I promised myself to be prepared to lose money trying to learn how to beat Party but its soul destroying when everyone else can beat it and I can't /images/graemlins/confused.gif, so I play mostly on Stars where I can make a decent rate playing my (obviously slightly scewed) game. I know I need to go back to Party and crack it even if its just for the sake of my sanity /images/graemlins/crazy.gif.

Regards Mack

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
I honestly still don't understand what you are trying to say in this thread. It is a very old, and false, argument, that good poker players "lose" their edge against bad players. If they adjust correctly to the field (i.e, bluffing less, thinking more in terms of showdown equity, etc, etc), their overall earnings will be higher (in terms of ROI, when we discuss SNGs) if not significantly higher, than at higher buy-ins.

Actually, this is not exactly a good subject for theoretical discussion, IMO, because every player who had played enough of these games in several levels, can see a *very* distinct difference, in terms of ROI. The results simply speak for themselves.

And if we cosider low-limit ring games, the whole idea of Ed Miller's new book, is to illustrate (and teach) how amazingly beatable are the super-loose, super fishy low-limit games. Although, of course, the variance there is HUGE. And many players (I suspect you might be one of them), confuse variance and profitability.

The question of variance at the low-limit SNGs is a little different, though, however - for the not-very-expirienced player it might look as if the "better" player (as he/she considers himself/herself) simply cannot win (or win "big enough") againt this poor opposition. This is wrong. Lower buy-in SNGs are much more beatable than higher ones, period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mantis, I respect you, but I have to say I'm disappointed by this post.

If you can't understand what I'm trying to say, I have to think it's because you haven't read what I've said very carefully.

Let me put it as clearly as I possibly can.

If you think - as Sklansky said - going all-in tends to narrow the advantage a good player would otherwise have over a worse player -

And if you think players at low-level sngs go all-in a lot, with lots of different kinds of hands -

It follows that the advantage a good player would otherwise have in a low-level sng tends to be undermined by the all-in strategy that poor players use in those games.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Mantis, I respect you, but I have to say I'm disappointed by this post.

If you can't understand what I'm trying to say, I have to think it's because you haven't read what I've said very carefully.

Let me put it as clearly as I possibly can.

If you think - as Sklansky said - going all-in tends to narrow the advantage a good player would otherwise have over a worse player -

And if you think players at low-level sngs go all-in a lot, with lots of different kinds of hands -

It follows that the advantage a good player would otherwise have in a low-level sng tends to be undermined by the all-in strategy that poor players use in those games.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I can't be happy about your disappointment from my post, I must say that I read very carefully what you've said, and still insist that I can't see what you're trying to say, or in other words: I believe that if I DO understand what you're trying to say, then I think you are simply wrong.

And this specific last post of yours does not make things better:

[ QUOTE ]
If you think - as Sklansky said - going all-in tends to narrow the advantage a good player would otherwise have over a worse player -

[/ QUOTE ]

Sklansky idea of "the system" is VERY simplistic, and has VERY little relevance to SNGs. And your usage of this idea here is even less relevant to the point in question.

It is clear that extra tight aggressive players (with VERY tight calling standards!!) "narrow" other players' edge, in some ways, per a specific tourney. It does NOT mean that you don't have an edge against them. And in some sense, your long term edge against them can be actually rather big.

HOWEVER, this whole point is irrelevant, because that's very far from what you find in low level SNGs. You'll find many players who PUSH with very marginal hands (completely different from the pushing standards Sklansky is talking about) PLUS many players who CALL ALL-IN with very marginal hands (This is WAY different from what Sklansky is talking about), sometimes it is the very same players who do both. This is far from sklansky's "system" as can be, because it's a way of action that does not take into consideration any kind of "gap", another critical tournament (and poker at large) concept, which is also discussed in TPFAP. They play an EXRA poor kind of poker.

Your arguments about the lower advantage a good player has against these poor low-limit SNG players are simply wrong. It is possible that your problem is in understanding what a "good player" means. A good player, against low-limit SNG players, will play VERY differently than how he will play against higher limit players. That what makes him a "good player". His edge against low-level SNG players will be shown in different ways, and FIRSTLY in his choice of hands to play.

An ROI of a good, adjusting player, will be HIGHER, the poorer the opposition is. It is a fact of SNG poker.

[mscott2374]

[ QUOTE ]
A good player, against low-limit SNG players, will play VERY differently than how he will play against higher limit players. That what makes him a "good player". His edge against low-level SNG players will be shown in different ways, and FIRSTLY in his choice of hands to play.


[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent point. In fact to the casual observer it will appear as the the "Expert" doesn't know what he is doing, because the players at this level can't appreciate the thought process that he is going through

[poboy]

In theory what you say makes perfect sense. However in the real world it just doesn't always work out that way. I see many "bad" players win these things all the time. They wouldn't keep playing if they didn't win. I do believe a solid player will win more often than a "bad" player. As for the all-in strategy taking away an edge, I can see both sides of the argument. The fact that your opponent will go all-in with all sorts of marginal hands certainly reduces the number of flops you can see, which is where the skill of a better player really comes into play. However the fact that same player will come back over the top of you with a marginal hand when your holding a true premium hand is certainly something you welcome. I also think you're less likely to be sucked out on in the higher limits, because your opponents are smart enough not to chase hoping to catch that miracle card. A true fish loves to get all his chips in the middle with a draw, even a gutshot draw. I'm not sure if this really makes up for his lack of skill but it certainly reduces your opportunities to take advantage of it. I don't know about everyone else but I'm not willing to call an all-in with AQ even though I am probably holding the better hand. I would sure love to see a flop with it though, but by the fish going all-in he takes that opportunity away from me. As far as people thinking the fish don't go all-in all the time, that's true they just raise every hand with a K or A . Even if it's not all-in, you still don't want to call away a nice chunk of your stack to play something like AQ or KQ do you? With all that said, I still don't see how the higher limits games could be easier to beat than the 5's and 10's.

[silversurfer]

Never said 60% was my sustainable rate. Keep a couple of things in mind here: that was a good day for me (15 places out of 25-30 SnG's, and some of them were 10's as well). My RoI is probably no better than 40% (when I remember to play poker and not act like a ritalin addict), and we are talking about 5$ SnG's here, folks. And yes, I am definitely referring to MT'ing.

The point is this: a top pro (or anyone who has the discipline to wait it out) could easily clear 100$ a day. Period. They wouldn't want to, but they have the capability.

[LinusKS]

Mantis, I never made any argument that bad players were using Sklansky's "system," or that they even knew it existed.

I also never argued that good players shouldn't modify their tactics - just the opposite - I argue that good players have to modify their game at low level sngs.

I still can't help but think you're arguing against the ghosts of posters past.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Mantis, I never made any argument that bad players were using Sklansky's "system," or that they even knew it existed.


[/ QUOTE ]

You mentioned Sklansky's thoughts about "narrowing" good players advantage by going all-in, and made a correlation to the way people play in low-buy in SNGs. This correlation is wrong. I showed you that it has very little to do with how people *actually* play on low buy-in SNGs. I didn't suspect you think bad players are using "the system", and I didn't say so. Of course they don't. They simple play very bad poker, that is VERY profitable to players who know how to take advantage of it. Please tell me again why you keep arguing against this point, in regard to low buy-in SNGs.

[ QUOTE ]
I also never argued that good players shouldn't modify their tactics - just the opposite - I argue that good players have to modify their game at low level sngs.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well if that's what you argue, we completely agree. However, it somehow seems as if you are constantly arguing that low buy-in players "narrow" good players' edge. This is wrong. It is "true", only if you think you can, or should, bluff/steal against them, or out-play them post flop. But if you think that this is your "edge" against the low buy-in players, then you are simply not a good player (and I don't mean you personaly).

[ QUOTE ]
I still can't help but think you're arguing against the ghosts of posters past.

[/ QUOTE ]

??

[LinusKS]

Betting or calling all-ins (by bad players) narrows a good player's advantage because:

1.) tactics good players use to build or maintain an advantage become irrelevant, and

2.) good players avoid all-ins because getting involved in a lot of all-ins is a losing strategy.

I'm not arguing that going all-in turns losing players into winners.

I'm not arguing that it's impossible to beat bad players.

I'm arguing that it tends to level the playing field.

I understand you disagree with these arguments, but you haven't shown what's wrong with them. Instead you keep repeating that they're wrong as if it were a fact.

[Irieguy]

Linus, you're making me crazy. Mantis is right and you are completely off base for all of the reasons we have tried to articulate. I will try one more time in the name of sanity.

Your references to Sklansky's discussion of a push or fold system is completely irrelevant to low level SNGs. First of all, he's talking about multis. Second of all, his "system" involves folding almost every hand, pushing with some hands, and only calling with the best hands. This is nowhere at all near what the low limit "crazies" are doing. What they are doing is calling too much, and raising too loosely. This strategy will result in an ITM% of well below 20% in low-limit SNGs. They are finishing 8th-10th close to 50% of the time. These are the easiest players in the world to beat at no limit holdem. If you get a few of these players in your SNG, you will (almost by default) win at an incredibly high rate.

If you win at a high rate, your variance will be low. This is fact. If you cannot decipher the rationale in this line of reasoning, you will struggle with your effort to improve your game in this arena.

I don't remember who said it in this thread, but it was the most insightful comment thusfar.... I'll paraphrase:

The mark of a mediocre player is his insistance that solid players are easier to beat than maniacs.

Sorry if I seem disrespectful in any way, that's not at all my intent. Just emphasizing a point.

Play the right way,

Irieguy

[PrayingMantis]

Now it is quite clear. Your arguments are SO consistently wrong, it's really like someone who somehow believes 2+2=3, and then builds a whole theory upon it, unwilling to accept the simple fact that the basis of his entire thinking is completely skewed.

Saying that "I understand you disagree with these arguments, but you haven't shown what's wrong with them. Instead you keep repeating that they're wrong as if it were a fact", is, quite honestly, ridiculous.

Just to adress your last 2 points:

[ QUOTE ]
1.) tactics good players use to build or maintain an advantage become irrelevant

[/ QUOTE ]

Correction: tactics good players use to build or maintain an advantage <font color="red"> against better opposition, i.e, higher buy-in players </font> , become irrlevant <font color="red"> against lower buy-in players, HOWEVER, against these low buy-ins players there are MORE PROFITABLE ways to build or maintain an advantage, that's why they are easier to beat .</font>

[ QUOTE ]
2.) good players avoid all-ins because getting involved in a lot of all-ins is a losing strategy

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very unclear, and as a generalization, it is highly inaccurate. Good players will avoid all-ins when they don't think they have enough advantage in a specific situation. They will be HAPPY to be get involve in all-ins when they have enough advantage, and they surely can wait patiently enough to these situations, in low buy-in SNGs.
Their avarage advantage while all-in against poor opposition will be MUCH HIGHER than against better opposition, and therefore, they will be much ahead of the field.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm arguing that it tends to level the playing field.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry, but this is an empty statement. Saying that "going all-in" tends to level the playing field, without being very specific about pushing AND calling standards, number of players, blinds, stacks, etc, etc, does not mean anything, and as an assertion about what is "true", it's therefore (I have to repeat this word:) wrong. Simple as that. Just as a very extreme example: If you can't understand why playing against players who, at the early levels of the game, push with top 40% of hands, and call with top 35% of hands, is MUCH MORE PROFITABLE than playing against players who at these stages push with top 15% and call with top 8%, you don't understand how money is made in this game.

[PrayingMantis]

Thank you, I'm feeling I'm going crazy too...

And you've made some very nice points. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[KJ o]

[ QUOTE ]
Betting or calling all-ins (by bad players) narrows a good player's advantage because:

1.) tactics good players use to build or maintain an advantage become irrelevant

[/ QUOTE ]

As others have pointed out, this isn't as true as you would like it to be.

However, one other point you miss completely is that these fish don't go all-in nearly as often as you suggest. If they did, you could just post&amp;fold your way to second/third with consitency. That's not possible.

You would have a point if the typical scenario was this:
You and nine fish. They are all crazy and bust each other left and right in the first few hands. Any other tactic than posting and folding would be a crapshot so you sit tight.

After just a few hands you have 800 chips where they have 2400 each. Now, all of a sudden, they miraculously become good players and because of their much larger stacks bully you into fourth and out of the money.

Unsurprisingly, this doesn't happen in real life. (If online poker is "real life", something the wife doesn't seem to think.)

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Linus, you're making me crazy. Mantis is right and you are completely off base for all of the reasons we have tried to articulate. I will try one more time in the name of sanity.

Your references to Sklansky's discussion of a push or fold system is completely irrelevant to low level SNGs. First of all, he's talking about multis. Second of all, his "system" involves folding almost every hand, pushing with some hands, and only calling with the best hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't made any reference to Sklansky's "system," or claimed that fish are using it.

I don't understand why you and Mantis keep coming back to it - or keep pointing out that fish aren't using it.

[ QUOTE ]
This is nowhere at all near what the low limit "crazies" are doing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know that. If you'll look a couple of posts above this one, you'll see the most recent time I've said it.

[ QUOTE ]
What they are doing is calling too much, and raising too loosely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fish make a lot of mistakes. My argument is that one of the things they're doing is going all-in a lot with a lot of different kinds of hands.

Do you disagree with that?

[ QUOTE ]
This strategy will result in an ITM% of well below 20% in low-limit SNGs.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never said that the fish are making money. In fact, I've said they're losing money several times in this thread before.

[ QUOTE ]
They are finishing 8th-10th close to 50% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what percentage they're finishing 8th-10th (although I think 50% is too high) but I agree they're losing money in the long run.

[ QUOTE ]
These are the easiest players in the world to beat at no limit holdem.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. And this is the heart of my argument.

I'm arguing that the all-in-often strategy forces good players to play in ways that are suboptimal - so much so, in fact, that a good player can actually make more money playing at a table where a lot of people aren't going all-in on a lot of different hands - this is true even though (almost by definition) the more cautious table has better players.

I realize this is seemingly paradoxical. But you have to get past that.


[ QUOTE ]
If you get a few of these players in your SNG, you will (almost by default) win at an incredibly high rate.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have one or two, that's probably ok. But if you have several, that both increases your variance, and pushes your win rate down. (NOTE: I'm NOT saying a table full of these players turns a winning player into a loser, I'm saying it reduces the winning player's win rate.)

[ QUOTE ]
If you win at a high rate, your variance will be low. This is fact. If you cannot decipher the rationale in this line of reasoning, you will struggle with your effort to improve your game in this arena.

I don't remember who said it in this thread, but it was the most insightful comment thusfar.... I'll paraphrase:

The mark of a mediocre player is his insistance that solid players are easier to beat than maniacs.

Sorry if I seem disrespectful in any way, that's not at all my intent. Just emphasizing a point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ad hominem attacks don't really bother me.

I'd really like it though, if you understood what I was saying.

[Lori]

NOTE: I'm NOT saying a table full of these players turns a winning player into a loser, I'm saying it reduces the winning player's win rate.)

You are wrong.

Lori

[darcythepug]

[ QUOTE ]
I've never said that the fish are making money. In fact, I've said they're losing money several times in this thread before.


[/ QUOTE ]

If the fish are LOSING money, where is it going to?

[Desdia72]

was started to answer.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Now it is quite clear. Your arguments are SO consistently wrong, it's really like someone who somehow believes 2+2=3, and then builds a whole theory upon it, unwilling to accept the simple fact that the basis of his entire thinking is completely skewed.

[/ QUOTE ]

You do realize ridiculing arguments isn't the same as refuting (or even addressing) them, right?

Btw, your arguments are like somebody saying 2+2=5. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Saying that "I understand you disagree with these arguments, but you haven't shown what's wrong with them. Instead you keep repeating that they're wrong as if it were a fact", is, quite honestly, ridiculous.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is that a fact?

[ QUOTE ]
Just to adress your last 2 points:

[ QUOTE ]
1.) tactics good players use to build or maintain an advantage become irrelevant

[/ QUOTE ]

Correction: tactics good players use to build or maintain an advantage <font color="red"> against better opposition, i.e, higher buy-in players </font> , become irrlevant <font color="red"> against lower buy-in players, HOWEVER, against these low buy-ins players there are MORE PROFITABLE ways to build or maintain an advantage, that's why they are easier to beat .</font>

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the corrections, but that actually wasn't what I was saying at all.

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
2.) good players avoid all-ins because getting involved in a lot of all-ins is a losing strategy

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very unclear, and as a generalization, it is highly inaccurate.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's nothing unclear about it, and it's not the least bit inaccurate.

[ QUOTE ]
Good players will avoid all-ins when they don't think they have enough advantage in a specific situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

True 'nuff. In fact, that's exactly what I've been arguing.

[ QUOTE ]
They will be HAPPY to be get involve in all-ins when they have enough advantage, and they surely can wait patiently enough to these situations, in low buy-in SNGs.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very true, but without some sort of numbers or particulars, it's not very helpful.

How much of an advantage to they (good players) need?

Do they need to be 60% sure of a 60% advantage?

What about 80% sure of an 80% advantage?

What cards are they waiting for?

[ QUOTE ]
Their avarage advantage while all-in against poor opposition will be MUCH HIGHER than against better opposition, and therefore, they will be much ahead of the field.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure this is true, but in any case, it misses the point. A good player isn't calling much when a lot of players are going all-in.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry, but that's an empty statement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry, but this is an empty statement.

[ QUOTE ]
Saying that "going all-in" tends to level the playing field, without being very specific about pushing AND calling standards, number of players, blinds, stacks, etc, etc, does not mean anything,

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure how much "etc." you're looking for here (and I'm guessing it's more than I have time to give), but going back to some of my earlier posts --

If you could be 100% sure of a 60% advantage (in other words, if the other player turned over his cards - and you had one, and only one, opponent) that would yield a 36% ITM if you called in that situation exactly twice.

So perhaps that's a borderline situation.

If you had KK, and you're 80% sure your opponent doesn't have AA, (disregarding, for the moment, the chance he has one A), and you got KK twice in one tournament under these conditions, you'd be about 40% sure getting the money.

So that's a better situation. Assuming you can get kings reliably.

Of course, if you were only 70% sure, that would drop the numbers, and with a hand like QQ, they drop even more.

If all you an get is AK, you might be in trouble.

[ QUOTE ]
and as an assertion about what is "true", it's therefore (I have to repeat this word:) wrong. Simple as that. Just as a very extreme example: If you can't understand why playing against players who, at the early levels of the game, push with top 40% of hands, and call with top 35% of hands, is MUCH MORE PROFITABLE than playing against players who at these stages push with top 15% and call with top 8%, you don't understand how money is made in this game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your example is extreme. In that scenario, three or four players would go-all in on the first hand, and 30-40% of the players would be all-in on every hand after that.

In fact, that's even more ridiculous (or anyway, at least as ridiculous) as the play money tables play.

I've never argued that real money tables play like that, and I'm not sure what an extreme example has to do with anything.

Although - if it helps - I do agree that if real money tables played like play money tables they'd be easy to beat.

[Lori]

Do they need to be 60% sure of a 60% advantage?

Eastbay's little simulation posted in the last two or three days sheds a little light on this matter.

It appears that you only need a very small advantage to do very well (My own definitions of small and well, but I think they are fair)

Lori

[colehard]

How about this way of looking at it...

All-ins do reduce a good players edge in a number of situations - e.g. good player raise with AJs and bad player goes all-in with KTo. In this situation the bad player did something good because the good player has to fold even though they have an edge.

However this is more than compensated for by the good player getting all-in calls when they have AA KK QQ and when they are big favorites post flop and know when they have a &gt; 60% edge.

So the good players edge is reduced in that they can't play as many hands that would have +EV because they are thwarted by all-ins. However, the number of the competition gets reduced quicker by their all-ins and the good player can use that willingness to go all-in to their advantage post flop.

[PrayingMantis]

I must say that your level of stubborness is very much in accord with how false almost _everything_ you say (again and again!) is.

I know that you'll reply in something like "this is not a fact". /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I really hope for you, that one day you'll be a good enough player (no need to be too good for it) to realize how wrong you were through out this whole discussion.

You keep arguing and arguing and arguing that low-limit SNGs players reduce the winning player's win rate. And keep "finding" "reasons" for it.

(Now you will say: "I didn't say that. I said XYZ". /images/graemlins/grin.gif. But that's exactly what you are saying, repeatedly and in different ways)

This is as wrong as possibly be. I believe you simply find it hard to play against them, and feel more comfortable against more "weak-tight", predictable, somewhat higher buy-in opposition. This is perfectly fine, but building a whole false theory upon what is simply a weakness in _your_ game (against low-limit players), will not get you too far in poker.

[BobH42]

I don't have a ton of experience at SNG's yet...I've been playing the lowest buy-in ($0.75 + $0.25 at Royal Vegas) lately for fun when I get tired of limit ring games and to keep my toe in the no-limit pool (also on a limited bankroll due to the fact I keep on taking money out to pay bills /images/graemlins/smile.gif).

My experience at that limit actually has LESS all-ins than you would normally expect. I find myself pushing post-flop more often than most of the other pushes at the table put together. When I push post-flop I'm usually an 80+% likely winner of the hand and at worst a 65+% winner (I'll push with the nuts to drive out flush draws). What I've found is that most people at this level of SNG's will fold the flush draws when faced with elimination.

It almost seems like people are *trying* to play 'good poker' at this level and simply not playing with enough aggression. They'll put 1/5 of the pot raises in to 'drive out the draws' when in fact they're encouraging the better draws to call. They'll only push when they think they're ahead, but their 'thinking they're ahead' is flawed alot of the time in obvious manners (you know they're on a flush and they push into your boat, you know they're on two pair/set and they push into your straight, etc).

In addition to the poor postflop play, I find the only time they're willing to push pre-flop is when they're short stacked. By that time, you've usually built enough of a stack that you can afford to gamble and usually get them heads-up if you've got a good enough hand to go over-the-top of their all-in to drive anyone else out.

Maybe the $5 SNG's on the other sites are different, but I find the $0.75 + $0.25 on Royal Vegas to be full of loose, overly PASSIVE opponents...quite the opposite of the people you're describing.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
How about this way of looking at it...

All-ins do reduce a good players edge in a number of situations - e.g. good player raise with AJs and bad player goes all-in with KTo. In this situation the bad player did something good because the good player has to fold even though they have an edge.

However this is more than compensated for by the good player getting all-in calls when they have AA KK QQ

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree there's compensation when you get a caller with these hands (although I'm not 100% sure you're looking for an all-in caller with QQ).

However, these hands come up relatively infrequently. If you put all three of them together, they come up a little more than once out of every hundred hands (1.35%.) If you waited for one of these hands you'd likely wind up blinding out a lot at Party. (At sites with better stack/blind ratios you'd do better.) Of course, even at Party you won't get a caller every single time.

[ QUOTE ]
and when they are big favorites post flop and know when they have a &gt; 60% edge.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd argue you wouldn't want to call all-in (or get called all-in) too often even if you were sure you had a 60% edge.

Of course you'd bet it - maybe even bet all-in - but that's because you're looking for a little bit of fold equity.

[ QUOTE ]
So the good players edge is reduced in that they can't play as many hands that would have +EV because they are thwarted by all-ins. However, the number of the competition gets reduced quicker by their all-ins

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, and I agree that is an advantage. I think that advantage is reduced to some degree - although not completely - by the fact that when you get to the bubble, you're likely to be short-stacked.

[ QUOTE ]
and the good player can use that willingness to go all-in to their advantage post flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

[ddubois]

Pushing pre-flop eliminates any post-flop skill advantage.

Why are we even discussing this?

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Pushing pre-flop eliminates any post-flop skill advantage.

Why are we even discussing this?

[/ QUOTE ]

What you say is very true, but we are not discussing this. We are discussing win-rate. ROI.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Pushing pre-flop eliminates any post-flop skill advantage.

Why are we even discussing this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

Not only that, it forces good players to fold hands where they otherwise would have had a pre-flop advantage. In other words, they have to fold even when they think their cards are probably better than their opponents'.

Plus it pushes up variance, because your fate is tied to your cards, rather than your skill.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
I must say that your level of stubborness is very much in accord with how false almost _everything_ you say (again and again!) is.

[/ QUOTE ]

See, here's the thing, Mantis. Despite what you - apparently - want people to think, you're nobody's daddy. If you can't defend your ideas except by claiming anybody who disagrees with you is a moron - or a bad poker player - your contribution here is worthless.

[NegativeEV]

The size of my computer screen and the number of posts in this string has caused the posting subject line to become two lines and it appears like this on my screen: "Crazy = LinusKS".

I find that humorous. I'm obviously not helping, but let's let this topic die.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
See, here's the thing, Mantis. Despite what you - apparently - want people to think, you're nobody's daddy. If you can't defend your ideas except by claiming anybody who disagrees with you is a moron - or a bad poker player - your contribution here is worthless.


[/ QUOTE ]

I fully agree.

Very good points.

[Grivan]

Here is an example of people pushing every hand and why a good player has a huge advantage. Assume that a good player always gets his money in with a pair higher then both cards in the opponents hand. Or at least a 70% advantage which isn't to hard to do against bad players, especially if you get to see a flop. Okay the first time you have a 70% chance of winning you now have 2000 chips. Assume other people play so that it stays even (if it doesnt its even better for you). So there are 5 people left with 2000 a piece or 1600 a piece I believe at lower levels. And you repeat the process this gives you a 49% ITM which is INCREDDIBLY profitable. with this model you are getting first 34% of the time and 2nd/3rd 16% of the time. This is a $3.68 profit per game in a $5+1 SNG thats with huge rake it would be even higher if the rake was right. But that gives you a 61% ROI against players who are willing to push with anything.

[Desdia72]

better, bigger limit SNG player would approach exploiting these weaknesses. it's easy to say, "yeah, i could do this or a pro could", but i'm more interested in the HOW.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is an example of people pushing every hand and why a good player has a huge advantage. Assume that a good player always gets his money in with a pair higher then both cards in the opponents hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a pretty big assumption, especially if your opponents play Ax. The only way a good player could always get his money in with a pair higher than both cards in the opponent's hand in that case would be if he only played AA.

Since AA comes only once in 221 hands, he'd wind up blinding out of a lot of games.

[ QUOTE ]
Or at least a 70% advantage which isn't to hard to do against bad players, especially if you get to see a flop. Okay the first time you have a 70% chance of winning you now have 2000 chips. Assume other people play so that it stays even (if it doesnt its even better for you).

[/ QUOTE ]

Even with a 70% advantage, you don't get to stay even - you still have to pay the blinds. For example, at the 50/100 level, with 5 people left, that level alone costs you 300 chips. At the higher levels, of course, it costs more.

If you fold a lot - because you're not getting your 70% - those blinds are going to your opponents. So they're getting stronger, while you're getting weaker.

[ QUOTE ]
So there are 5 people left with 2000 a piece or 1600 a piece I believe at lower levels. And you repeat the process this gives you a 49% ITM which is INCREDDIBLY profitable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that getting big pairs - preferably AA - over and over is incredibly profitable.

And I agree that 49% ITM is very very good.

But I don't see how you can depend on getting those big pairs so much.

[ QUOTE ]
with this model you are getting first 34% of the time and 2nd/3rd 16% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you get 1st more than twice as much as 2nd and 3rd put together?

[ QUOTE ]
This is a $3.68 profit per game in a $5+1 SNG thats with huge rake it would be even higher if the rake was right. But that gives you a 61% ROI against players who are willing to push with anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Grivan]

Well my asumptions werent only preflop, but if you can see cheap flops it is easy to get in as a 70% favorit over poor players. If they play Ax and you have AK and an ace flops and your get all in your golden. I think you can easily average going all in with 70%. Also this was a basic example I was ignoring blidns for the first few levels becasue they are insignificant, and better players are going to adjust blind stealing strategy as blinds go up.


The reason you get 1st more then twice second and third is once you get to 3rd with the example you have 4000 against 4000 and 2000. The next thime you go all in your a 70% favorite again I just assumed with that chip lead you would get first for easiness sake.

Again it is not hard to get your money in as a big favorite if people are pushing every hand you can wait for your big pairs, if they arent well then you get to see flops and it becomes even better against weak players.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Linus,

[ QUOTE ]
Sklansky said something to the effect that poor players can make up for lack of skill by going all-in. I think that's 100% accurate.

Not only is a good player less likely to want to call an all-in (unless he can be very sure of a very large edge), the all-in strips a good player of the things that make him good. You can't bluff, and hand-reading becomes irrelevant (as long as you're against the kind of player who will go in on a lot of different hands - ie, a reckless, luck-oriented player.)

If you can count on a good run of cards, you can do very well at these games. But if you don't want to count on that, you might do better at a game where you can run a bluff once in a while, or you can raise a hand like KQ or AJ without someone putting you all-in.

[/ QUOTE ]

The greatest edges that skilled players have over unskilled players are: (a) understanding the importance of position; and, (b) understanding the equities of various starting hands.

Point (b) is not in the least diminished at a wild, loose table. Quite the contrary, in fact. Because the loose-rag players will be playing all-in pots with so many kinds of hands, it is extremely likely that many of them will be out very early on. Yes, it would be ideal if you caught a hand during this period so you could get some of their chips, but that's really not essential, especially not at a one-table SNG. So what if you have half the average stack when it gets to four players? If they really are as loose and crazy as you're postulating, one of the three is still very likely to go bust before you're forced to play a pot. I've read posts by players who bemoan having to "back into the money." Balderdash. There is nothing dishonorable about that; the mark of a skilled player is his/her refusal to put chips at risk unless the situation is favorable. If, by consistently not putting your chips at risk on marginal situations, you "back into the money" ... that's called good poker!

As for issue (a), the importance of position, yes, that is a skill that is less significant in all-in shootouts. When most of the pots are all-in coups pre-flop, then position is much less significant than in a game with lots of post-flop decision-making.

But that doesn't mean it's entirely eliminated! When you are acting in late position, you still do have more data than if you were UTG. If a known loose-rag player pushes in from MP, and it's folded to you in the BB, then yes, you can call with JJ and figure you're likely to have at worst a coin flip and at best a dominating hand. Now, regardless of whether everyone is likely to fold in the kind of game you're describing ... you still gain an advantage having the opportunity to face one opponent, rather than being UTG and not knowing where you'll stand when the pre-flop action is over. So you screw it down EXTRA tight from EP and MP, and let the players who don't understand the importance of position make the mistake of betting into monster hands yet to act behind them.

As for whether hand- and player-reading skills evaporate, no, they don't. They may get more boring -- Seat 1 is a maniac, Seat 2 is another maniac, Seat 3 is yet another maniac -- but they don't become irrelevant. What's more, because there are so many all-in coups, you can get a better read on your opponents than you would in a tighter, tougher game ... because you see their cards almost every time they play a pot!

Yes, you do lose your post-flop skill edge in a game where nearly every pot is an all-in coup pre-flop. But so what? That is way more than offset by your ability to make money simply by leaving to make yourself a sandwich and returning three hands later to find the field down to four players. If nearly every hand is an all-in coup, then by definition the field is going to thin very quickly ... and in a SNG, your profit potential increases every time one maniac busts another maniac.

Later in this thread, your argument turns around on itself, when you postulate that your opponents will consistently set you all-in when you raise with AJ (forcing you to fold what you seem to believe is a good hand) yet consistently fold when you raise with AA (so you win only the blinds). You can't have that both ways. If they're crazy enough to reraise you on KQ when you have AJ, they're equally likely to reraise you in KQ when you have AA. Either that or you are playing with your cards face up.

In very low-limit SNGs, the skilled player can finish in the money FAR more often than he/she would at a higher buy-in, simply by waiting to let the maniacs pick each other off -- unless a premium hand shows up -- then stepping in to claim the spoils.

Cris

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Well my asumptions werent only preflop, but if you can see cheap flops it is easy to get in as a 70% favorit over poor players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, but my argument is that you're not getting to see a lot of cheap flops against loose-aggressives.

If you're getting to see a lot of cheap flops, you aren't playing against LAGS - almost by definition.

[ QUOTE ]
If they play Ax and you have AK and an ace flops and your get all in your golden. I think you can easily average going all in with 70%. Also this was a basic example I was ignoring blidns for the first few levels becasue they are insignificant,

[/ QUOTE ]

They aren't insignificant. At Party (correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I played there) the blinds go up every ten hands:

10/15
15/30
25/50
50/100

That means you'll have paid somewhere in the T300-T400 in blinds in the first 30-40 or so hands - depending on how many many other players have gone out. (The more other players are gone, the more you'll have to pay.)

If you double at that point, you're only back to where you started - and the other players are still far ahead of you.

[ QUOTE ]
and better players are going to adjust blind stealing strategy as blinds go up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, they'll adjust by going in with crappier hands.

[ QUOTE ]
The reason you get 1st more then twice second and third is once you get to 3rd with the example you have 4000 against 4000 and 2000. The next thime you go all in your a 70% favorite again I just assumed with that chip lead you would get first for easiness sake.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you double up to where you started, you'll still have an average stack if you double up again immediately after.

[ QUOTE ]
Again it is not hard to get your money in as a big favorite if people are pushing every hand you can wait for your big pairs, if they arent well then you get to see flops and it becomes even better against weak players.

[/ QUOTE ]

If your strategy is to wait for big pairs, you'll wind up blinding out a lot.

If your strategy is to try to see cheap flops, you won't get very many of those at a LAG table.

[PrayingMantis]

Grivan, good posts, but you are wasting your energies and time. The same goes to CrisBrown.

It's like arguing against a man, who says that when you hold an apple a meter above the floor, and you let it go, it does not fall. And he has a very "complicated", "paradoxical" (although self-contradictory) explanation for why it is so. You tell him: "but the apple falls! look!". But he doesn't see it, can't see it, refuses to see it. Who knows.

He's looking for a *proof* the apples fall, and unfortunatly he will never get it, because you *cannot* prove it. You just have to see them falling, falling, falling. And you can only *explain* (in a way) why. Or show him why *his* explanations are completely wrong, by definition.

But good luck.


/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Linus,

[/ QUOTE ]

Hello Cris.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sklansky said something to the effect that poor players can make up for lack of skill by going all-in. I think that's 100% accurate.

Not only is a good player less likely to want to call an all-in (unless he can be very sure of a very large edge), the all-in strips a good player of the things that make him good. You can't bluff, and hand-reading becomes irrelevant (as long as you're against the kind of player who will go in on a lot of different hands - ie, a reckless, luck-oriented player.)

If you can count on a good run of cards, you can do very well at these games. But if you don't want to count on that, you might do better at a game where you can run a bluff once in a while, or you can raise a hand like KQ or AJ without someone putting you all-in.

[/ QUOTE ]

The greatest edges that skilled players have over unskilled players are: (a) understanding the importance of position; and, (b) understanding the equities of various starting hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree.

The greatest edges a skilled player has are 1.) avoiding marginal situations for all his chips, and 2.) taking down pots by forcing (or inducing) other players to fold.

I agree those other things are important, but that's only the beginning of good play - the first steps.

[ QUOTE ]
Point (b) is not in the least diminished at a wild, loose table. Quite the contrary, in fact. Because the loose-rag players will be playing all-in pots with so many kinds of hands, it is extremely likely that many of them will be out very early on. Yes, it would be ideal if you caught a hand during this period so you could get some of their chips, but that's really not essential, especially not at a one-table SNG. So what if you have half the average stack when it gets to four players? If they really are as loose and crazy as you're postulating, one of the three is still very likely to go bust before you're forced to play a pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very rarely will you be able to get to the money without playing, even at Party. Occasionally, maybe - but not very often.

[ QUOTE ]
I've read posts by players who bemoan having to "back into the money." Balderdash. There is nothing dishonorable about that; the mark of a skilled player is his/her refusal to put chips at risk unless the situation is favorable. If, by consistently not putting your chips at risk on marginal situations, you "back into the money" ... that's called good poker!

As for issue (a), the importance of position, yes, that is a skill that is less significant in all-in shootouts. When most of the pots are all-in coups pre-flop, then position is much less significant than in a game with lots of post-flop decision-making.

But that doesn't mean it's entirely eliminated! When you are acting in late position, you still do have more data than if you were UTG. If a known loose-rag player pushes in from MP, and it's folded to you in the BB, then yes, you can call with JJ and figure you're likely to have at worst a coin flip and at best a dominating hand. Now, regardless of whether everyone is likely to fold in the kind of game you're describing ... you still gain an advantage having the opportunity to face one opponent, rather than being UTG and not knowing where you'll stand when the pre-flop action is over. So you screw it down EXTRA tight from EP and MP, and let the players who don't understand the importance of position make the mistake of betting into monster hands yet to act behind them.

As for whether hand- and player-reading skills evaporate, no, they don't. They may get more boring -- Seat 1 is a maniac, Seat 2 is another maniac, Seat 3 is yet another maniac -- but they don't become irrelevant. What's more, because there are so many all-in coups, you can get a better read on your opponents than you would in a tighter, tougher game ... because you see their cards almost every time they play a pot!

Yes, you do lose your post-flop skill edge in a game where nearly every pot is an all-in coup pre-flop. But so what? That is way more than offset by your ability to make money simply by leaving to make yourself a sandwich and returning three hands later to find the field down to four players.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you can make money by making sandwiches, it's hard to see how skill is very important in that game.

[ QUOTE ]
If nearly every hand is an all-in coup, then by definition the field is going to thin very quickly ... and in a SNG, your profit potential increases every time one maniac busts another maniac.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but you also have to consider that in that situation, where you have "half the average stack when it gets to four players," any one of those players only has to get lucky against you once to knock you out. This is especially dangerous - as is often the case at Party - if the blinds are big enough to knock you out in a few rounds unless you play a hand.

[ QUOTE ]
Later in this thread, your argument turns around on itself, when you postulate that your opponents will consistently set you all-in when you raise with AJ (forcing you to fold what you seem to believe is a good hand) yet consistently fold when you raise with AA (so you win only the blinds).

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't what I said.

Misrepresenting the other guy's argument to make it look stupid is a particularly lame tactic.

[ QUOTE ]
You can't have that both ways. If they're crazy enough to reraise you on KQ when you have AJ, they're equally likely to reraise you in KQ when you have AA. Either that or you are playing with your cards face up.

In very low-limit SNGs, the skilled player can finish in the money FAR more often than he/she would at a higher buy-in, simply by waiting to let the maniacs pick each other off -- unless a premium hand shows up -- then stepping in to claim the spoils.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess it depends on what you mean by skilled.

If you mean "waiting for good hands so you can double up and then sneak into the money," I agree, this tactic will result in a positive expectation at loose-aggressive, low-limit sngs.

[ QUOTE ]
Cris

[/ QUOTE ]

I want to add something else to my argument that I was thinking about earlier -

I think the Party format is especially forgiving to the LAG all-in/often strategy that's so prevalent there.

I think at a game with a better luck/skill ratio, they'd be punished for it more.

In other words, I think the "leveling" effect I'm describing is especially active at small stack/big blind games like Party's.

[LinusKS]

And arguing with you, Mantis, is like talking to a man who invents silly analogies every time he can't come up with a way to make his point.

[PrayingMantis]

Cris,

It's a waste of time. What you say is very very true, but you're arguing against an extremely stubborn idiot, I'm sorry to tell you that.

Good to see you here again,

PM

[LinusKS]

Mantis, it's always so nice to see your contributions to the forum,

You Stubborn Idiot.

Linus.

[LinusKS]

Maybe you should make up another silly analogy to drive home your point.

How about, "Arguing with Linus is like arguing with someone who expects reasoning and logic in response to his posts, instead of name-calling."

Oh wait.

Never mind.

[PrayingMantis]

Dear Linus,

I did all my best to show you how wrong your arguments are. irieguy, eastbay, lori, KJo, darcythpug, colehard, Grivan, CrisBrown (I'm sorry if I forget anybody), wrote some excellent posts, to show you how wrong your argumets are.

We all failed.

Apparently, you are correct.

Please stick to your "reasoning and logic". It will get you very very far.

Love,

PM /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[CrisBrown]

Hi Linus,

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree.

The greatest edges a skilled player has are 1.) avoiding marginal situations for all his chips, and 2.) taking down pots by forcing (or inducing) other players to fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes to #1, and that's what I meant by evaluating the true equities of various holdings.

I disagree on #2 however. With regard to bluffing -- and that's what you're talking about -- the skilled player's advantage lies in accurately estimating his/her steal equity as one component of his/her overall equity calculation (made equity + draw equity + steal equity - negative equity). Thus, in a loose-crazy game, the skilled player's edge lies in correctly estimating that steal equity is negligible, and simply not trying to "bluff the unbluffable."

However, the skillful player does not lose any overall edge when steal equity approaches zero. The reason, simply, is that when steal equity approaches zero, your made and draw equities increase dramatically. That is, when you have a huge made hand, or a huge draw, your implied odds are much greater because your opponents will not fold. Yes, you do have to wait until you catch the right situation, but when you do ... you get paid off HUGE.

Conversely, in a tighter game against stronger opponents, you can't simply "nut-peddle." They'll read those hands well enough to not pay you off, so now accurately assessing steal equity becomes a major part of your strategy. It's much more difficult to extract chips on made hands, and a lot more expensive to chase draws, and your implied odds go down accordingly. So, in order to extract those opponents' chips, you'll have to steal some.

But that doesn't make the table "easier" to beat. Quite the contrary. Steal equity is the most difficult element to estimate accurately, and because you're making big bets on those steal attempts, your mistakes are very expensive. It is MUCH more difficult to beat a table where you HAVE to steal -- at the right times, against the right opponents -- in order to accumulate chips.

And that's why I and others are saying that loose-crazy tables are much easier to beat. You can simply play YOUR cards, without much having to worry about how to manipulate opponents into parting with their chips. When you have the best of it -- and you will get your share of such hands -- they'll merrily call off all of their chips betting slim or even dead hands. It's just a matter of being patient, and waiting for the right situation.

Cris

[CrisBrown]

Hi Linus,

In rereading this thread, it sounds as if you're trying to compare the typical loose-crazy table that can be found in many low buy-in SNGs ... to some hypothetical weak-tight table where you can take a pot virtually anytime you want one simply by pushing your opponents off their hands.

And yes, at that hypothetical weak-tight table, you will have more stable results, because your cards are totally irrelevant. The only time you'll need to show down a hand is the one that busts the second-place finisher.

The problem is ... that hypothetical weak-tight table does not exist, or if so, I sure haven't found it. Instead, you are far more likely to run into some mix of the two (making your implied odds iffy at best), or a strong-tight table where you consistently have to make accurate estimates of steal equity in order to pick up chips where you can.

You seem to be looking at steal equity as the ability to win a pot with any two cards, and thus your outcome is not dependent on the cards you hold. The problem is, your steal equity is in large part a function of what cards your opponents hold. If they're consistently getting good, playable hands, then your steal equity will be lower, even if they're tight, solid players. It's not as if stealing is totally card- (and thus luck-) independent.

If you're looking for the hypothetical SNG situation where you can win almost every time, regardless of the cards you or your opponents are dealt ... well ... that just doesn't exist, not even for the very best professional players. If you want that ... play chess instead.

Cris

[Desdia72]

can you guys just please put this thread to rest? this thread is no longer about the question it was started to answer. *hmmm, does this sound familiar?*

[PrayingMantis]

Linus,

I apologize for calling you an idiot. It's a public forum, and it's a place to discuss poker: everybody is entitled to express his/her thoughts about this game. I've crossed some lines here, and I'm sorry for it.

Best regards,

PM

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Linus,

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree.

The greatest edges a skilled player has are 1.) avoiding marginal situations for all his chips, and 2.) taking down pots by forcing (or inducing) other players to fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes to #1, and that's what I meant by evaluating the true equities of various holdings.

I disagree on #2 however. With regard to bluffing -- and that's what you're talking about -- the skilled player's advantage lies in accurately estimating his/her steal equity as one component of his/her overall equity calculation (made equity + draw equity + steal equity - negative equity). Thus, in a loose-crazy game, the skilled player's edge lies in correctly estimating that steal equity is negligible, and simply not trying to "bluff the unbluffable."

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with both of these points. And I think a skillful player is losing a lot when he loses those elements of his game.

[ QUOTE ]
However, the skillful player does not lose any overall edge when steal equity approaches zero. The reason, simply, is that when steal equity approaches zero, your made and draw equities increase dramatically. That is, when you have a huge made hand, or a huge draw, your implied odds are much greater because your opponents will not fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree - that is, I agree you make more on your huge hands in loose games. But is what you gain proportional to what you lose?

Isn't it possible you're better off taking down some small and medium sized pots than waiting for really big hands (which rarely happen)?

Especially if you can do it without putting your tournament survival at risk?

I'd argue that - in tournament settings - you usually want your opponents to fold. And it's rare that you want him to come over the top of you. There are only a couple, or maybe a few, hands where you really want people to play back at you. Yes, they are making a mistake by doing that, but it's a mistake that often hurts you, almost as much as them.

Even though this particular opponent is making a huge mistake by calling your all-in as a 40% dog, he may be - and often is - hurting you as well.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, you do have to wait until you catch the right situation, but when you do ... you get paid off HUGE.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but what's the right situation?

I've tried to ask this several times. Clearly AA is enough. KK... ok.

What else?

I think you could probably add AK and QQ to the list... but early in a tournament? I think you could make a good argument that it's negative tournament EV to play those hands that way. I'm certainly not looking to be all-in with them.

Anyway, if you include all four of those hands, you're talking about something like 2.5% of all hands. That means that after 40 hands there's a 36% chance you won't have seen any of them - and on average you'll have seen only one of them once - and not necessarily when you wanted to see it.

At Party, half your stack may be gone by then.

[ QUOTE ]
Conversely, in a tighter game against stronger opponents, you can't simply "nut-peddle." They'll read those hands well enough to not pay you off, so now accurately assessing steal equity becomes a major part of your strategy. It's much more difficult to extract chips on made hands, and a lot more expensive to chase draws, and your implied odds go down accordingly. So, in order to extract those opponents' chips, you'll have to steal some.

But that doesn't make the table "easier" to beat.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree the second table isn't "easier." What I'm arguing is that because skill is more important, skillfullness counts more.

A player who wasn't very skillful would do better to stay at the first table, wait for big cards, and hope they get called and hold up when it happens. This is, after all, the best strategy for these games.

It's a +EV stategy (although I'd argue also high-volatility - since it's highly card-dependent). But it doesn't require that much skill.


[ QUOTE ]
Quite the contrary. Steal equity is the most difficult element to estimate accurately, and because you're making big bets on those steal attempts, your mistakes are very expensive. It is MUCH more difficult to beat a table where you HAVE to steal -- at the right times, against the right opponents -- in order to accumulate chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that it's more difficult. What I'm arguing is that IF you can do it, it may be more profitable.

[ QUOTE ]
And that's why I and others are saying that loose-crazy tables are much easier to beat. You can simply play YOUR cards, without much having to worry about how to manipulate opponents into parting with their chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

But if you can manipulate the other guy out of his chips, even occasionally, that will help you a lot when your cards are running poorly.

[ QUOTE ]
When you have the best of it -- and you will get your share of such hands -- they'll merrily call off all of their chips betting slim or even dead hands. It's just a matter of being patient, and waiting for the right situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not arguing that "hard" games are easier than "easy" games.

What I'm arguing is that "harder" games may be more profitable - if you can beat them.

To put in terms of the thread-starter's question - I think a professional wouldn't do much better than anyone else who used the "wait for good hands and go all-in strategy" at the Party $5 and $10 games.

On the other hand, I think he'd probably crush a game full of schmucks like me.

I could say that I'm arguing games that require skill reward skillful players more than games that require less skill.

[PrayingMantis]

I'll reply to that and will try to be civilized... /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Only to adress the major points:

[ QUOTE ]
I've tried to ask this several times. Clearly AA is enough. KK... ok.

What else?


[/ QUOTE ]

Against loose-crazy bad players? Definitely more hands, depending on the situations. They will also make HUGE post flop mistakes, when there is a post-flop play. And there will be. And you'll make a killing with the mistakes they'll do (and also suffer a lot of bad-beats).

[ QUOTE ]
I think you could probably add AK and QQ to the list... but early in a tournament? I think you could make a good argument that it's negative tournament EV to play those hands that way. I'm certainly not looking to be all-in with them.


[/ QUOTE ]

You're not looking to be all-in with QQ in early stages? That's definitely a good way for not winning at the low-limit SNGs. The same might be said in regard to other strong hands, in early stages of SNG, depending on the situations.

[ QUOTE ]
What I'm arguing is that because skill is more important, skillfullness counts more.



[/ QUOTE ]

Linus, I think you have your own definition of "skill" in poker, and that's why this discussion lasts forever. In my book, and I believe that's true for most others, "skill" is the ability to maximize your advantage in any particular situation.

[ QUOTE ]
I agree that it's more difficult. What I'm arguing is that IF you can do it, it may be more profitable.


[/ QUOTE ]

Of course!! For a good player, playing higher-limits is definitely more *profitable*. But this has only *some* relevance to ROI, or win of rate. You can make much more at higher buy-ins and against tougher opposition, with much smaller ROI than what you get in lower-limits. This is basic math. I agree with you.



[ QUOTE ]
'm not arguing that "hard" games are easier than "easy" games.

What I'm arguing is that "harder" games may be more profitable - if you can beat them.


[/ QUOTE ]

Very very true. But again, they can be more profitable with smaller win-rate, i.e, ROI. We agree!

[ QUOTE ]
To put in terms of the thread-starter's question - I think a professional wouldn't do much better than anyone else who used the "wait for good hands and go all-in strategy" at the Party $5 and $10 games.


[/ QUOTE ]

I basically agree. The strategy you describe is not the optimal, but anyway, I agree that a strong pro will not have a significantly better ROI than a very good amateur, playing these low-limit SNGs. The specific skills that make him a top pro against other pro's and good opponents, are much less relevant, and he will have to use much more "basic" skills: patience, elementary tightness, understanding fish's motives and behaviour. However, his ROI at the low-limit will, without doubt, be higher than in any higher buy-in games, because of the huge amount of mistakes, people will do around him.

But of course, it will be stupid for him to play these small SNGs, because in comparison (talking real $$, or $/H) playing higher limits is MUCH more profitable for him (that's if he has any bankroll /images/graemlins/grin.gif)

[CrisBrown]

Hi Linus,

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not arguing that "hard" games are easier than "easy" games.

What I'm arguing is that "harder" games may be more profitable - if you can beat them.

To put in terms of the thread-starter's question - I think a professional wouldn't do much better than anyone else who used the "wait for good hands and go all-in strategy" at the Party $5 and $10 games.

On the other hand, I think he'd probably crush a game full of schmucks like me.

I could say that I'm arguing games that require skill reward skillful players more than games that require less skill.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, I think we've reached agreement. Yes, a top poker professional would not have much greater an edge than a solid, skilled amateur in a $5 SNG on Party. That edge would be very significant -- for both -- and both the top pro and the skilled amateur should be able to crush those SNGs.

Yes, I agree that the top professional's edge -- vis-a-vis a skilled amateur -- would be much greater in a higher buy-in event where the pro's greater skill in evaluating steal equities would come into play. In a $5 SNG, it's usually pretty easy to evaluate steal equity: it's negligible. In a higher buy-in event, it's more difficult to accurately estimate steal equity, as it could range from zero to 1.0, depending on the specific situation, the specific opponents in a pot or yet to act, etc. The top professional will be much better at evaluating those situational factors.

So yes, both the skilled amateur and the top professional should crush low buy-in SNGs. And yes, it would be much more profitable for a top professional to play middle or high buy-in SNGs, because he/she would still have a large skill advantage vs. the skilled amateurs, and the prizes are so much bigger.

Cris

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Linus,

In rereading this thread, it sounds as if you're trying to compare the typical loose-crazy table that can be found in many low buy-in SNGs ... to some hypothetical weak-tight table where you can take a pot virtually anytime you want one simply by pushing your opponents off their hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think I'm doing that - I'm certainly not doing it on purpose.

[ QUOTE ]
And yes, at that hypothetical weak-tight table, you will have more stable results, because your cards are totally irrelevant. The only time you'll need to show down a hand is the one that busts the second-place finisher.

The problem is ... that hypothetical weak-tight table does not exist, or if so, I sure haven't found it. Instead, you are far more likely to run into some mix of the two (making your implied odds iffy at best), or a strong-tight table where you consistently have to make accurate estimates of steal equity in order to pick up chips where you can.

You seem to be looking at steal equity as the ability to win a pot with any two cards, and thus your outcome is not dependent on the cards you hold. The problem is, your steal equity is in large part a function of what cards your opponents hold. If they're consistently getting good, playable hands, then your steal equity will be lower, even if they're tight, solid players. It's not as if stealing is totally card- (and thus luck-) independent.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I agree with that. But you'll agree there's more skill involved in post-flop play than in deciding whether or not to call an all-in?

[ QUOTE ]
If you're looking for the hypothetical SNG situation where you can win almost every time, regardless of the cards you or your opponents are dealt ... well ... that just doesn't exist, not even for the very best professional players. If you want that ... play chess instead.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be silly, if I were looking for that.

In fact, I'm not looking for anything. Although I agree my arguments might seem confusing. I'll try to sum them up when I get to the end of the thread.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
Linus,

I apologize for calling you an idiot. It's a public forum, and it's a place to discuss poker: everybody is entitled to express his/her thoughts about this game. I've crossed some lines here, and I'm sorry for it.

Best regards,

PM

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll reply to that and will try to be civilized... /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Only to adress the major points:

[ QUOTE ]
I've tried to ask this several times. Clearly AA is enough. KK... ok.

What else?


[/ QUOTE ]

Against loose-crazy bad players? Definitely more hands, depending on the situations. They will also make HUGE post flop mistakes, when there is a post-flop play. And there will be. And you'll make a killing with the mistakes they'll do (and also suffer a lot of bad-beats).

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From Aleo's strategy guide:

The $10+1 sngs on party should be beatable with really just a formulaic approach. I myself was kind of a party $10+1 expert as I have played about 500 of them in the past 3 months. Perhaps there is more subtlety to it than I really give credit for, but I really think that you should be able to follow a straightforward plan and succeed at this level.

So, I'll try to summarize some key things.

First, make sure you follow the kinds of advice I'm about to give almost to the letter. Many players really want to follow advice, but when the time comes, they see AJo in early position and can't bring themselves to muck it. You really need to.

...

QQ-AA (raise 3xBB, raise 4-5xBB if there are already limpers in the hand. Reraise any raisers. Get all-in if you can)
AKs,AK (same as high pairs but be carefull about calling huge raises. Any PP is a favorite against you . AK is a good hand to raise all-in with, but you don't want to be calling all-ins)

Okay. First of all, I'm not arguing with this strategy - I agree with it 100%.

What I'm arguing is that it imposes some pretty definite limits on ROI over the long-term, and that those limits can't be transcended by "skillfulness."

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You're not looking to be all-in with QQ in early stages? That's definitely a good way for not winning at the low-limit SNGs. The same might be said in regard to other strong hands, in early stages of SNG, depending on the situations.

***

Linus, I think you have your own definition of "skill" in poker, and that's why this discussion lasts forever. In my book, and I believe that's true for most others, "skill" is the ability to maximize your advantage in any particular situation.

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Not exactly. The ability to maximize your advantage in any situation is something else. (Ex: you could be a skillful pianist, but not be able to maximize your advantage as something else.)

In any case, that's not really the point - the point is - if Aleo's strategy is something close to optimal (and I believe it is) - it's not a strategy that involves a lot of skill.

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***

Of course!! For a good player, playing higher-limits is definitely more *profitable*. But this has only *some* relevance to ROI, or win of rate. You can make much more at higher buy-ins and against tougher opposition, with much smaller ROI than what you get in lower-limits. This is basic math. I agree with you.

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For clarity's sake, I'm saying that the ROI a very good - or great - player could obtain from slightly better opponents (ones who weren't as likely to go all-in) would be higher than the ROI he could obtain from the loose-aggressive players you often see at the PP tens.



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[ QUOTE ]
'm not arguing that "hard" games are easier than "easy" games.

What I'm arguing is that "harder" games may be more profitable - if you can beat them.


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Very very true. But again, they can be more profitable with smaller win-rate, i.e, ROI. We agree!

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To put in terms of the thread-starter's question - I think a professional wouldn't do much better than anyone else who used the "wait for good hands and go all-in strategy" at the Party $5 and $10 games.


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I basically agree. The strategy you describe is not the optimal, but anyway, I agree that a strong pro will not have a significantly better ROI than a very good amateur, playing these low-limit SNGs. The specific skills that make him a top pro against other pro's and good opponents, are much less relevant, and he will have to use much more "basic" skills: patience, elementary tightness, understanding fish's motives and behaviour. However, his ROI at the low-limit will, without doubt, be higher than in any higher buy-in games, because of the huge amount of mistakes, people will do around him.

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I agree with everything you're saying here except the last sentence. I think there are higher buy-ins where the pro's ROI might actually be higher.

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But of course, it will be stupid for him to play these small SNGs, because in comparison (talking real $$, or $/H) playing higher limits is MUCH more profitable for him (that's if he has any bankroll /images/graemlins/grin.gif)

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Let me try an analogy. I realize it's not perfect, but it gets to one of the points I'm trying to make. Suppose you were a great chess player, playing anonymously in a tournament (the others didn't know you were great).

Suppose there was a rule that said: "At any time during the game, as long as both sides have about the same number of pieces, you can try to roll a 1 or a 2 on a six sided die to win the match. If you roll any other number you lose."

Now the interesting thing about this situation from a game-theory point of view - is that a.) a good player wouldn't use this strategy, b.) a bad player would, and c.) a great player would avoid the bad players who used this strategy like the plague.

[LinusKS]

Well, I hope I haven't bored you to death.

In any case, I like arguing about stuff that's interesting.

And this stuff is interesting to me.

[PrayingMantis]

Linus, I think it's about time this thread will die. This will be my last post here.

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In any case, that's not really the point - the point is - if Aleo's strategy is something close to optimal (and I believe it is) - it's not a strategy that involves a lot of skill.


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Linus, I like Aleo and his contributions here very much, but this strategy is as far from optimal as can be. Aleo will admit this too, I'm very sure. It's only a way to start making some small money in this game, maybe break-even, and to understand some fundamental concepts, relevant to newbies when they start playing. Read Aleo's reply to my post in "the way" thread by Jason. If you think a strategy like this (two pages?) could be even remotely close to optimal, in a poker enviroment, well, I can understand where some of your ideas come from.

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I think there are higher buy-ins where the pro's ROI might actually be higher.


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Again?? You are completely wrong about this, and me and many others have addressed this point many many times on this thread. I don't wish to start it all over again. If you still insist on this point, after this whole thread, I don't think there's much anybody can do anymore.

Best Regards,

PM