Luck in Limit Holdem Tournaments

[SeanM]

In Tournament Poker For Advanced Players, Sklansky states that luck is more involved in deciding the winner of a tournament. This fact is obvious because when you run out of chips you lose, you cant come back tommorow.
It seems to me that the luck factor in Limit Tournaments is huge. Whoever gets the Level 4 hands is almost always going to be the winner.

I think tournaments should be played with the same stakes throughout the entire tournament.

[maplepig]

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I think tournaments should be played with the same stakes throughout the entire tournament.

No way. They would last forever and be *boring*. Everybody would sit and wait for AA or KK.

Luck is a big factor in a tournament, yes. An individual tournament, like a single ring game session, is a short-term snapshot. Over the course of many tournaments, if you play well and employ proper tournament strategy, skill will take over and you should have a + sign at the bottom of the ledger. The swings and dry spells may be tough to take, but my belief is that there *is* a long run in tournament play, just not in a single tournament.

[thomastem]

I've tracked my single table tourneys, which have probably the biggest swings, for the last year. It's been profitable.

[Aces McGee]

I actually think that luck in limit tourneys is actually a smaller factor than it is in no-limit tournaments. That is *not* to say that people who consistently win at no-limit tournaments are lucky; they are of course very skillful poker players. But if you get sucked out when you've gone all-in as a huge favorite just ONCE in a no-limit tournament, you're done...in a limit tourney, you go all-in less, and a bad beat can be made up for by skill on the next hand.

Other thoughts?

Aces McGee

[PlanoPoker]

There are bigger swings in NL, but there are also more opportunities to be skillful, and for lesser opponents to make huge -EV mistakes. More opportunity to use skill means that more money goes to the better player in the long run. If top players are doing better in NL than limit, one could say there is less luck for NL in the long run, tournament or cash game.

[cferejohn]

I actually think the opposite. In a limit tournament, you see a lot more showdowns, so the cards are much more important. A skilled no-limit player has a chance even if he gets crap for cards (not that it will be easy, but its possible for him to survive a long dry spell with aggression and a little luck (i.e. other people not getting big hands either)).

Otoh, somewhat paradoxically, I agree that basically unskilled 'maniacs' have a better shot in NL as well, since, as you say, if they can get lucky (defined as getting all-in with the worst hand and doubling up) just two or three times, they can often continue to aggress their way into a money finish (see Pokerstars player Jamesfull for an example of this).

Lets see if I can sum that up. Imagine three players: a solid, conservative player, a complete maniac, and an aggressive tournament specialist. In a NL tournament, if everyone gets about the same luck in terms of pre-flop hands, I think that the conservative solid player is probably taking the worst of it, with the maniac 2nd. Otoh, If the solid player has somewhat bad luck in terms of pre-flop cards, he's even more screwed. If the maniac or the tournament expert has bad luck, their advantage will shrink, but not by as much.

In a limit tournament, the solid player is certainly favored over the maniac and may be about even with the tournament expert depending on how fast the blinds raise. However, here if the maniac or tournament expert get poor cards, they are screwed a lot more badly, since they can't rely on their aggression to help them pick up pots when they have nothing.

There's a coherent thought in there somewhere. I swear it.