bobman0330
06-14-2005, 01:37 PM
I was watching a friend play a WSOP Step 4 SNG, and the following hand came up. Someone in late position pushed for perhaps 8x BB and the BB called with something like K5o and held up. Everyone was surprised, except for one observer who said:
Now people will be reluctant to try to steal his blind, since they know he'll call. Think about that. He can call because of the metagame. Holla back on the meta. Holla, holla.
This little soliloquy poses a disturbing set of interpretative questions all its own, but what I'm interested in is the rationality of his assessment of the play. Specifically:
In a tournament situation, is it rational to make -EV plays for the purposes of the metagame, or advertising, or anything else?
My thoughts as to why it might not be:
In contrast to a cash game, which is of indefinite duration, a tournament has a reasonably well-determined endpoint. By working backwards, we can see that in the last stage of a tournament, no one will be making metagame plays, but will rather focus on pure EV. Likewise, in the penultimate stage, no one will make metagame plays, because it is known that regardless of how they act now, they will play pure EV in the last stage. And so on.
Clearly, this argument rests on common knowledge of other players' rationality, which will not be the case in most of today's games. But if DS, Phil Ivey, Chip Reese, and Doyle play a long freezeout, would they make metagame or advertising plays?
[Note: I'm not talking about using mixed strategies, e.g., limp-reraise with AA UTG 10% of the time. I'm talking about doing something you would not usually do, and which is not justified by EV, e.g., make a loose call or an overaggressive push, etc.]
Can anyone comment on the theory here?
Now people will be reluctant to try to steal his blind, since they know he'll call. Think about that. He can call because of the metagame. Holla back on the meta. Holla, holla.
This little soliloquy poses a disturbing set of interpretative questions all its own, but what I'm interested in is the rationality of his assessment of the play. Specifically:
In a tournament situation, is it rational to make -EV plays for the purposes of the metagame, or advertising, or anything else?
My thoughts as to why it might not be:
In contrast to a cash game, which is of indefinite duration, a tournament has a reasonably well-determined endpoint. By working backwards, we can see that in the last stage of a tournament, no one will be making metagame plays, but will rather focus on pure EV. Likewise, in the penultimate stage, no one will make metagame plays, because it is known that regardless of how they act now, they will play pure EV in the last stage. And so on.
Clearly, this argument rests on common knowledge of other players' rationality, which will not be the case in most of today's games. But if DS, Phil Ivey, Chip Reese, and Doyle play a long freezeout, would they make metagame or advertising plays?
[Note: I'm not talking about using mixed strategies, e.g., limp-reraise with AA UTG 10% of the time. I'm talking about doing something you would not usually do, and which is not justified by EV, e.g., make a loose call or an overaggressive push, etc.]
Can anyone comment on the theory here?