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View Full Version : positive chip EV, negative $EV? Im looking for some examples.


07-20-2005, 09:57 PM
howdy. Long time listener, first time caller here. I figured id get off my fat ass and actually aquire a membership here so I can participate in a more meaningfull way.

I was trying to think of examples in which youd expect to gain chips in the long run, yet lose money in the long run. I realize that its in your best interest to avoid large confrontations in which your edge is small especially in the begining. I was thinking more about cases when your on the bubble and theres a short stack one away from the big blind that doesnt have the big blind covered. It might be correct to fold almost any two cards if someone with a larger stack than yours pushes.

Ive come up with a couple more but im sure theres alot of situations like that out there. Im also wondering if some of the programs that calculate fold equity take this (prize structure) into account.


Also if you find yourself in a situation with a fairly strong hand and you suspect that the raiser knows what you know (your going to fold a HUGE range of hands in this position) should you still fold?

SlackerMcFly
07-20-2005, 11:25 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I was trying to think of examples in which youd expect to gain chips in the long run, yet lose money in the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]
I would expect to gain chips of smaller denonimations (but have a lot more of them) if I pushed any two UTG in level 1. That would be one way to turn 80 $10 chips into 100 $1.00 chips quickly.

Welcome to the forum. Please be a little more specific in your request for advice (post a single hand that you are curious about), or share a poker-related experience with the group. Note the stickies at the top of the first page. Good place to start looking for ICM and EV type questions that others have explained ad nauseum.

Good luck at the tables!

SlackerMcSkinnyDork - Who is also ugly, but who cares?

johnnybeef
07-20-2005, 11:36 PM
UTG 350
Button: 5500
SB: 3150
BB (hero): 1000

Blinds are 200/400, standard party poker payout.

Button raises to 1000, SB Folds. Here it would be +cEV considering that you are getting 2:1 on your call, but utg will be all in on the next hand.

SlackerMcFly
07-21-2005, 12:05 AM
Folding is the only way to lose both money and chips in the long run.

How does folding this lose you chips in the long run AND lose you money in the long run?

If you call and lose, you lose both chips and money immediately (unless you have the better hand and win).

If you call and win, then you have MADE both chips and money (ostensibly in position to sneak into 3rd place when shorty busts).

If you fold, you are left with t600, but have MADE money assuming that UTG busts out and you sneak into the money. Since you will be the SB and will have to commit 200 of your puny 600 stack on the next hand to the 350 all-in BB, what is your play then?

Fold and you have 400 to his 550, thus losing both chips and money in the long run (answer to the initial question).

Beefy just forgot to add the second fold to his post, so I had to fix it for him (again).

Great to see you around Beefcake!

lastchance
07-21-2005, 01:22 AM
Folding loses you chips here, but wins you money. You can get ITM through folding, and you have a pretty good shot. But if you gamble now, your ITM chances decrease a lot.

An even clearer example is this:
UTG - 1
Button - 1
SB - 4000
BB - 4000
Approximately.

Here, SB could push with any 2, and you'd manage to fold AQ, because you have 2nd locked up right now, for nearly .4 (2nd + 1/2 chance of first) equity at least, but calling while increasing your equity to nearly .5 (the payout for winning) may make you go broke.

Here, you need to be nearly 80% to win for you to call any hand, but for any call to be +Chip EV, you only need to 50% against opponents range, slightly less.

durron597
07-21-2005, 01:30 AM
Here's another, different example.

Stacks:

UTG = t1
Hero (Button) = t10
SB = t4000
BB = t4000

Blinds: 200/400

UTG folds.

You should fold AA here. UTG will be allin in the blind next hand and even if he triples up you will still cover him when you both post the blind next hand. And even if you triple up you will still have to post the blind allin in two hands so you don't gain.

Scuba Chuck
07-21-2005, 02:48 AM
durron, very good example. This would be hard to do. At least you could say "I folded AA preflop." But this is very correct. It's at least easy to fold KK...

Scuba

07-21-2005, 03:08 AM
This actually happened to a friend of mine in one of those rediculous speed tournaments. Basically he was left with some very very small fraction of the big blind on the button (final table) with AA. A big stack went all in and the blinds were already forced all in. He folded and moved up like 4 spots.

AleoMagus
07-21-2005, 03:39 AM
[ QUOTE ]
I realize that its in your best interest to avoid large confrontations in which your edge is small especially in the begining

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not actually true when you say especially in the beginning. You will find that this is far more applicable later in a SNG than it is in the beginning.

In the beginning, your motive to avoid confrontations with a small edge generally only arises out of skill-inequity considerations. It is later in tourneys that $EV considerations begin to dictate play based on the prize distribution.

As an example (which is what you are asking, I guess) consider a situation where you held a hand like 77 on the bubble. The only stack bigger than you pushes all-in and he has been very aggressive (probably only overcards). You have the edge here, but this is a clear fold (even if you knew for a fact that he held AK, which would be +CEV for you).

Regards
Brad S

07-21-2005, 11:49 AM
[ QUOTE ]


This is not actually true when you say especially in the beginning. You will find that this is far more applicable later in a SNG than it is in the beginning.

In the beginning, your motive to avoid confrontations with a small edge generally only arises out of skill-inequity considerations. It is later in tourneys that $EV considerations begin to dictate play based on the prize distribution.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the example. I was looking for an example that didnt involve a short stack going broke soon.

I disagree with your motivation for avoiding confrontations in the beginning of the tournament. Survival is huge.

If you decide to take 3 gambles that leave you all in but you are a 60 percent favorite to win, your going to go broke almost 80 percent of the time. If every time you called an all in with a pocket pair knowing your opponent has overcards it would be very difficult for you to be a winning player. If two of these situations arise in the beginning that leave you all in.......AT BEST youll have an ITM of around 30%.

AleoMagus
07-21-2005, 06:54 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I disagree with your motivation for avoiding confrontations in the beginning of the tournament. Survival is huge.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, survival is huge, but in the early stages, this is not because of $EV considerations like those we typically get from ICM type calculations.

These large differences between $EV and CEV generally only arise later in a tourney when the prize structure has a big effect on exactly what you are playing, and whether or not you will make money or bust.

This is an excerpt from an old thread of mine written before ICM was being used, but I think it demonstrates what I'm saying pretty well in terms that are easier to understand than the usual ICM calculations:

"On the bubble, you should absolutely mind a coinflip. You should hate a coinflip and do everything in your power to avoid a coinflip if it has the potential of eliminating you. If you can get a coinflip against a small stack, then go for it, but if anyone near your size or bigger is asking for a race, I say avoid it like the plague.

I'll explain my thinking here.

Suppose all remaining players are about even in stack sizes. We can also assume then that all remaining players have about equal chances of being eliminated on the bubble, taking third, getting heads up, and even winning. Ok then, so by this reasoning, I have about a 75% chance of making the money when I find myself in the final 4.

Why on earth then would I want to take 50% odds on my survival here?

I know what you are all thinking. Because I'm trying to win right? Well, sure, but a coinflip here is still not going to be the best way to do that. I'll see if I can explain why

If I take a coinflip, I have a 50% chance of busting and a 50% chance of being the big stack with three left.

So I have 50% chance of $0
and a 50% chance getting into the final 3 with about 4000 to 2000 to 2000

this should mean 1st 50% of the time I survive- $25 equity (10+1)
2nd 25% of the time - $7.5 equity (10+1)
3rd 25% of the time - $5 equity (10+1)

so all together this means .5(0)+.25(50)+.125(30)+.125(20)
or, $18.75 equity

BUT...

if I avoid confrontation when I know it's gonna mean a showdown I have the same equity (slightly less if I'm in the blind) as before. This is

1st 25% of the time - $12.5 equity
2nd 25% of the time - $7.5 equity
3rd 25% of the time - $5 equity
4th 25% of the time - $0

so all together this means .25(0)+.25(50)+.25(30)+.25(20)
or, $25 equity

Obviously then, avoiding confrontation here is the right strategy and a coinflip is not a desirable thing on the bubble. In fact, getting in with the best of it can still be undesirable! small edges are still not enough to outweigh the negative impact of busting on the bubble.

So, how do we play on the bubble? I guarantee you will get a lot of 4th place finishes if you fold 99 everytime, so what am I really saying?

Well, the point is just that if you can at all help it, do not call all-in raises. Do not even re-raise all-in if the other player is commited to the point where they must call. On the bubble, you should be trying desperately to NOT see flops and NOT to get into showdowns (unless it is against tiny stacks).

You want to be the player open raising and it is here that you should not mind potential coinflips because you have the (greatly) added value of the steal. Your all-in raise with a hand like 99 is all about getting others to fold. If you get a call from AK, you are sad, and the coinflip is just your second chance (and not a bad one).

So sure, hands like 33 can become push hands on the bubble, but even with TT, I am not going to call another players all-in, especially when against a big stack who can eliminate me. The really crazy part about this is that I wouldn't call that all-in even if I knew for certain he was holding JQ and that I was a small favorite!

This is the biggest leak I see in online bubble play. Middle to big stacks colliding and making my life easier is wonderful. Silly things like A9 and KQ getting all-in against each other with a small stack waiting to be busted happily mucking and watching.

Ok, I know occasionally the blinds get really big and it gets imperative that a call be made against really agressive players but this is more rare than people think. Besides, if there is a lot of all-in raising going on, you are not going to be the only one thinking this way and a little patience is still going to go a long way.

I can understand wanting to build a stack, but the smartest way to do this is by being the open-raiser and giving yourself the real value of the raise - the added chance of winning without a fight."

Ok, now keep in mind that my TT example was written for the SNG environment a year ago, and these days, with so many bubble pushes with hands like Ax, or 22, it may be worth a call (this could all be figured more precisely with ICM). The point remains however, that the money is so important at that stage, we should often avoid a showdown even when we have the edge.

Early in a tournament, this is not the case. Early in a tournament, CEV is very close to $EV and the usual pot odds decisions and the usual edges are good. The reason why some of us avoid confrontations early has to do with skill-inequity considerations. This is to say that we are better than our opposition and we may not need to take an 11-9 shot becasue we know that with a little patience, we can find a better situation to get our chips in later. We also might be better shorthanded players, and we may understand the SNG bubble better than the avergae SNG player. This difference in skill motivates us to avoid confrontations in the beginning, (not $EV considerations as a result of ICM).

For the completely average or worse than average player, play in the early stages should be a lot like a ring game. Good solid poker and nothing fancy. Get chips in with the best of it and do not worry about passing up edges. In fact, there is school of thought on here that suggests even good players should just take their edges in the early going because there are always more SNGs avaliable with bad players, and those early gambles will ultimately increase hourly rate, even if they decrease ROI.

[ QUOTE ]
If you decide to take 3 gambles that leave you all in but you are a 60 percent favorite to win, your going to go broke almost 80 percent of the time. If every time you called an all in with a pocket pair knowing your opponent has overcards it would be very difficult for you to be a winning player. If two of these situations arise in the beginning that leave you all in.......AT BEST youll have an ITM of around 30%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, you are right here, but I think this is somewhat misleading. It is unlikely that you will get all-in more than once in the early stages because after the first all-in you will have a stack twice as big. I know that your example did stupulate all-in scenarios, but consider what this means.

On the first all-in you would eliminate one player. On the second all-in you would eliminate two more players (well, one more, who would have needed to eliminte one player himself). A third all-in would mean facing a similarly big stack who would have had to also eliminate (effectively) 3 players. This places you on the bubble, which puts you squarely into ICM territory. Obviously now, we can take our big stack and pass up this edge.

As a final point, I should also mention that ICM comes into play even with a lot of players when there are very big stack size differences.

Regards
Brad S