Taking coinflips early

[AtticusFinch]

This is from another thread, but it's a new topic, so I thought I'd start a new thread.

In the earlier thread, Psyduck said that you should consider taking a coinflip early in a tourney with AK if your only concern is hourly rate, not ROI:

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I don't have the exact math behind it, but if you're playing a set # of hours a day, taking coinflips early should theoretically increase your hourly rate but decrease your overall ROI. Maybe we should ask Lorinda to re-post it.

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Interesting notion. It seems possible conceptually, but I'm not sure if the math plays out.

Let's make a few assumptions and try a test case:

1) It's the first hand
2) The hand takes essentially 0 time
3) A full SNG takes one hour on average
4) Your normal EV for a SNG is 1.2 buyins.
5) Your EV for a SNG after doubling on the first hand is X

If you fold the flip, it's essentially the same as playing a SNG from the start, so your EV is 1.2 buyins or .2 buyins net.

If you take the flip, your possible outcomes are:

1) Lose and start another: Pay 2 buyins, get 1.2 back => -.8 net buyins.
2) Win: Pay 1 buyin, get X back => X - 1 net buyins

In either case, you're playing for one hour on average, so your effective hourly rate will be your average EV for the various possible outcomes.

Assuming the two outcomes are equally likely (a true coinflip) your overall EV is:

(-1.8 + X)/2

Meaning that in order to break even for your one hour under these somewhat idealized conditions, your EV after an early double must be greater than 1.8 buyins. In order for you to tie the EV of folding, your EV for doubling must be 2.4, or precisely double the EV for a normal sng.

I don't know about you, but I doubt my EV doubles from a first hand double-up. Furthermore, with AK, you're going to be on the 45% end of a flip, so in truth, you have to MORE than double your ev.

Still looks like a fold to me, if you KNOW you're in a flip. But you won't know that for sure. Perhaps the times when you're up against a dominated hand like AQ make up for all this.

[psyduck]

No replies yet? I thought that this was a pretty interesting topic that might (possibly) change how we look at coinflips during the early game. I was hoping that Lorinda specifically would post a response.

Anyway, I do think that this idea takes into account you getting involved with dominated aces (AQ, AJ, maybe lower) when you have AK. You're not looking specifically to get into a coinflip with AK (i.e. you might run into a worse ace, which becomes more common as you go down in levels, $30+3s, $20+2s), but you don't MIND a coinflip because of the reasons stated above.

I didn't take a close look at Atticus' math, but it seems sound from an initial glance. So unless you play very good bigstack poker, I don't think many of us would be able to double our EV from our early double-up.

[psyduck]

Damn! Bump muthafockas.

[axeshigh]

Even with a lot of rationalization, it will be hard to make those AK calls early seem correct. Starting lvl3 I think pushing AK over a raise is fine though. Pushbotting seems less and less effective as the fish 'learn' to call with queen-high, so taking some gambles with AK, 99, that sort of hand doesn't seem so bad anymore.

I have no idea if this even makes sense but whatever, I feel better busting calling someone's 44 with AK then having someone call my T8o push with Q3.

According to ICM, your EV increases by only 84.4%.
You would need to be significantly better at playing a larger stack than you are at playing an average stack to make up for this.
I don't like early coin flips, personally.

[Ixnert]

I made some scribbles on the back of an envelope pondering the same question the other day, making essentially the same simplifying assumptions you made, and came to the same conclusion -- even from an hourly rate perspective, calling a push before you with no other money in the pot with AK when you know you're in a coinflip is still bad.

What I think is more interesting to consider is the situation where you acted first, raised, and then got re-raised all-in, and again know that you're in a coinflip. Is there some range of original raises you could make where it is -$EV/tournament but +$EV/hour to call?

The problem here is that we've never really formalized the assumption that we're better than the competition, beyond the assumption that we have a certain magnitude of +$EV at the beginning of the tournament, and I think answering this question demands some concept of how much more a small/large stack is worth to us than the average player.

[pooh74]

I dont like quantifying this. I dont see how its possible to have a "normal EV" for an SNG where you "don't take a coinflip" early. How are you seperating this? I think the variables are so hypothetical that they don't carry over to real life.

i.e.

How often are you sure you are in a coinflip?

How often in your "normal SNG" do you win a coinflip early-mid game?

What size stack are you 50/50 against?

[fnord_too]

I will work on some math in a little while if I have time. In STT's, I don't have an answer. In MTT's, I'll take all the coin flips I can get early.

[psyduck]

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In MTT's, I'll take all the coin flips I can get early.

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Do most people agree with this?

[Back In Black]

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In MTT's, I'll take all the coin flips I can get early.

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Do most people agree with this?

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no.

[pooh74]

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In MTT's, I'll take all the coin flips I can get early.

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Do most people agree with this?

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Sort of...If I think there's a good chance its a flip, but also a slight chance I have him dominated..I have AK, and opponent is not playing hand like AA/KK, I might take it bc of the possibility its AQ...only if its early and I am not off the ground yet.

Guess this is MTT discussion and there's tons of material here on this subject. Some really good players advocate taking small edges early, fkips etc...

I dunno...BC I play low buy-in, I feel there are plenty of opportunites that present themselves where you are much better than a flip.

[fnord_too]

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In MTT's, I'll take all the coin flips I can get early.

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Do most people agree with this?

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no.

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True, most people suck /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Seriously though, Sklansky argues that is you are way way ahead of the field, you should pass very slight edges early. I don't think anyone is ever far enough ahead of the field to justify passing up any edge early.

Malmuth suggests, very convincingly, that one should embrace variance early to mitigate it later. I could write a page or so on this (and have in the past) but that basicly sums up the concept. Great players like Paul Phillips and Dan Harrington will take any edge or race early for this reason. Add opportunity cost (of time) to the equation and the argument becomes even more compelling.

The best counter arguments (or rather special cases) are things like:
You want to maximize your time to work on things like getting good experience reading players or playing later in non bubble short average stack scenarios.
Just cashing is more important than EV (i.e. you are willing to sacrafice EV to reduce variance for whatever reason. Maybe you won a satelite on the cheap and the low end cashes have serious bank roll implications for you).

[bmxreed36]

This got me wondering about coinflips not really at the beginning, but more in the middle stages, for example 6-7 handed, lvls 3,4,5.

I know that if someone pushes and you are contemplating a call, you can never be sure if it is a coin flip as you may have them dominated or vice versa, but assume that you are fairly sure that it may be a flip. Does the dead money from higher blinds make it more of a call?

I think I use a big stack much better with higher blinds and nearing the bubble than when I double up early and just sit on it basically. Is there a point where taking a coinflip is a thing you should welcome? What if the stacks are pretty much even? What about when you are either a shortish stack or bigger stack?

I know that in practice, it's impossible to ever know what you're up against, but knowing what others have to say on this, theoretically could help out some of the decisions I face.

In MTTs, I would not take a coinflip early. Pretty much never actually. Taking a coinflip is giving up your edge over worse players. Taking a 50/50 with bad players at the table is giving them the same odds against you as you have against them - hence the 50/50. If you are a better player than them, your odds are better than theirs. Why give that up?

[pooh74]

Does the dead money from higher blinds make it more of a call?

Depends how high the blinds are...)in fact a lot depends)

But if you are strictly speaking of blinds that are 10% or less of your stack say 50-100 and you have 1200, then, taking a likely flip is not MORE worth it per se. I mean to say, it is more worth it as far as cEV but not $EV.

On the other extreme, if you have 550 in chips and a 3000 stack pushes and the BB is 400, then a flip is most definitely worth it bc you are getting 2-1 overlay (chance to triple up against 1 opponent on a 50/50).

[Nicholasp27]

the reasoning would be that you will have to take coinflips sooner or later to get to the final table, so why not take it earlier on to save your time (opportunity cost)

I don't agree with that at all. If you play at a really aggresive table, don't take the 50/50, wait for those AA, KK because you will double up when you get em with more than a 50/50. If you play at a conservative table, raise a lot of hands, steal the blinds, but don't go in for the 50/50 just because you get reraised.

Patience is a virtue.

[fnord_too]

STT's are a whole different animal, if that is what you are talking about. The payout structure is very flat, and luck a much lower factor (though still the dominating factor in any STT or small run of STT's).

Survival is much more important in STT's for these reasons. You face dramatic differences between chip EV and cashing EV from hand one, and you never realize the tactical advantages to having a huge stack in an STT like you do in an MTT due to the small number of players (total chips on table) and rapid blind escalation. In a party STT, after 90 hands the big blind is 6% of all the chips in play. You are rarely out of contention if you still have chips nor very safe even with a big stack.

Wasn't gonna read this post because I'm sick of this topic (after only about a month on these forums), but saw the author and checked it out anyway. Thanks for conclusively solving the issue.

[SirKraggen]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar på:</font><hr />
If you take the flip, your possible outcomes are:

1) Lose and start another: Pay 2 buyins, get 1.2 back =&gt; -.8 net buyins.
2) Win: Pay 1 buyin, get X back =&gt; X - 1 net buyins

In either case, you're playing for one hour on average, so your effective hourly rate will be your average EV for the various possible outcomes.

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I have two places where I have problems with your assumptions.

1) I don't agree that you're playing for one hour on average. I asume that with a "full" SNG taking one hour on average, you mean that it's played to it's completion.

If you don't finish in the money you spend less than one hour in the tournament.

2) If you win the flip, you're going to have a better chance of finishing ITM - and you are going to spend more time than average in the tournament. So basically, I believe the statement In either case, you're playing for one hour on average is incorrect for two reasons: It's not an hour, and you'll be playing longer if you win the flip.

Or am I missing something?

How this affects the calculations, I'm too tired to work out /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[theben]

i prolly pass on it

You always have to call with the AK becase it is mostly likely the best hand but I agree that sometimes you can get unlucky but you should always play the best hand and not worry about being the unlucky one.

ok iwould like to add a little twist to this becuase this situatiobn came up 2 days ago and i felt i was justified in my call. 2nd level sng you have AKS with 2300 in chips raise to 90 from UNG 2 looooose players call BB goes all in for 1000 im pretty positve he has eithe QQ or JJ now what do you do??? auto call?? still fold?? hmmm still have 1200 chips if you lose startingg stack is 1500 so not far behind. also assuming you feel your a better player then most at table.....