My hand against Chris Moneymaker

[Dutch Boyd]

I don't often read 2+2, so sorry that this comes a bit late... I noticed a lot of posts about that particular hand and decided I'd give my thoughts on it.

First off, here's how the hand went down (roughly, as I remember it)... There are I think 15 players left. I have about 850k in front of me and Moneymaker has about 700k... so we're both looking pretty good to make the final table. Sixteenth place pays 65k... it jumps up to 80k when you get to 12th.

So I think there were 7 players at our table. Blinds are about 15k-30k, I think, and there are antes. I was in the cutoff and saw my KQo. I raised a little more than 3x the BB... $100k if I remember right. Moneymaker calls. Everyone else folds.

Flop comes out 942 rainbow. I think about it for a second and decide to check... I know Moneymaker will bet no matter what he has in that spot... a small pair... overcards... an overpair... whatever. I also know that I no longer have the best hand... whatever he called with is sure to beat an unimproved KQ.

So I check and he bets $100k... the same I raised before the flop. I read him for weakness and put him on either a small pair under 99s or an ace. But I figure it's much, much more likely that he has a small pair than an ace... at this stage he wouldn't be calling with an ace hand. If it was ace-rag, he wouldn't play... if it was a big ace, he'd raise preflop. So I think about it for a second and decide the following:

(1) He has a small pair under 99s;

(2) This guy is out of his league, and there is no way he's going to risk busting out of the WSOP in 15th place when he has $500k in chips. No way in hell he'll call a raise. So I decide to raise.

(3) I decide the hand I want to represent is pocket tens, and decide how he would think I'd play that hand in this spot. I decide that raising all-in is probably how he'd think I'd play it, since I'd be worried about overcards but also pretty sure I have the best hand. I knew there was no chance in hell he'd read me for a set.

At this point I want to point out something about the interaction of me staring him down that so many people have commented made me look really week. I agree. I did look weak there, because I didn't care whether or not he thought I was weak or not... that interaction happened in a hand about twenty minutes later where he made a bet on the river for all my chips and I was thinking of calling him down with a pair of fives. I folded... calling would have been right, though, as he showed a busted seven high flush... a stone cold bluff. The actual interaction that took place between us during the KQ v. 33 hand wasn't all that interesting... I checked after about 15 seconds, he raised after about 5, and I reraised all-in after about another 15 seconds... didn't say anything. He thought about the call for about two minutes... got up from his chair and paced a bit... ran his fingers through his hair. Then sat down and said he called, with the same tone of voice he had in his interview about not letting anybody push him around. You all know what happened after that... the board didn't help, I was crippled, and Chris had the lead.

Looking back on the hand, I think it was a mistake to raise all-in. If I had raised 300k, it would have basically been making the same play forcing him to decide whether he's putting all his chips on a pair. But I still think he would have moved all-in on me, and I definitely would have felt a lot dumber calling the last $200k with KQo then making the all-in play myself.

As to whether or not it was a good play, I'll say a couple things. First off, I definitely would not have made the call... and I talked to Amir Vahedi after the hand, and he told me that even if I had turned my cards face up, he wouldn't have called. Second off, I don't think it was a bad call at all. It reminds me a lot of a hypothetical hand that I read on RGP and I've been thinking about for a year... first day, first hand, you're in the BB with AK. Everyone folds to the SB, who raises all-in... while pushing in his stack, he accidently flips over his cards... QJ. Do you call?

Some say yes, some say no... I think the answer depends on what level you're playing at. The correct strategy in bigger no-limit tournaments is not to double up, but rather to get your chips into the pot when you know you're going to be winning it. I was all-in one time before the Moneymaker hand crippled me... it was with AA preflop against KK... and I felt sick about it (and looking back, I made a mistake. I knew he had KK, and should have waited for the flop to make sure my AA held up, since I know if rags come he's putting the chips in anyway). Think about it. You're only 4.5:1 to win. On one hand, that's huge, but string three of those together and you're less than even money to still be in the tournament. It's not a bad beat for aces not to hold up if you have four or five times where you're all-in with them preflop.

So basically, I think when it got down to 15, Chris was one of the better players left... and I think his chances of winning don't increase as much by making the call (even though he's the favorite in the hand) as they go down. I think he still would have been in the top three had he folded that hand... and by calling, 25% of the time he's out of the tourney and people remember him the same way they'll remember Olaf with his call of AK.

Bottom line is tournaments are won by making huge calls for all your chips... they're won by making huge bets when you are confident the other guy isn't calling. I was so confident that he had a tiny pocket pair and there was no way he'd have the balls to call me. So I either underestimated him or overestimated him, and I'm leaning towards underestimating him... regardless it was the biggest mistake I made in that tournament.

Dutch

[sam h]

I dunno Dutch. I think you're putting a little too much weight on this "get your money in only as a huge favorite" thing.

Not to call with all your chips with AK vs QJ (about a 2-1 favorite) on the first hand seems crazy to me. You need a lot of luck to win a poker tournament, especially one that size. To me, any time you're gambling with an edge greater than the edge you hold over the field in skill is a good time to get your chips in. Is anybody good enough to be passing up 2-1 odds, let alone the 4-1 odds of an overpair vs underpair situation? Sure, if you have to win a 2-1 type of confrontation five times in a row, it's something like 7-1 against. But if somebody offered to give you a huge stack going into the third day once in exchange for seven times busting out early, you'd be crazy not to accept, IMHO.

As far as Moneymaker's call, think about it this way. One out of four times he's going home with 65K, three out of four times he's got 1.4M in chips in front of him and is basically assured of final table money and likely better unless disaster strikes. I probably would have folded, figuring that the possibility I was drawing to two outs was too high, but if he did in fact know your cards as Amir said, folding would have been crazy.

But I wasn't there. You seem to be indicating that the other players left were generally very weak and would be easy to roll over even without a big stack. While it seems difficult to hold a signficant enough edge over a large field including many great players to profitably pass up good chances to grow your chips at the beginning of the tournament, if you were up against the right lineup of weak players caught in the headlights at the end of a tournament, I guess you could start passing on a lot of otherwise good opportunities.

[Ross]

Thanks for the post. If I was in Moneymakers position, I pass as would most players. The only reason I would call is the size of your final bet which might suggest you do'nt want a call. Either way its a gutsy call.

Out of interest Moneymaker reraises preflop do you call ?

Ross

[cferejohn]

Thanks for taking the time to post this Dutch. This has indeed been the subject of many a conversation (although most of it has been focused on Moneymaker's call rather than your raise). Actually, there was a thread that centered around this topic recently:

[ QUOTE ]
The correct strategy in bigger no-limit tournaments is not to double up, but rather to get your chips into the pot when you know you're going to be winning it. I was all-in one time before the Moneymaker hand crippled me... it was with AA preflop against KK... and I felt sick about it (and looking back, I made a mistake. I knew he had KK, and should have waited for the flop to make sure my AA held up, since I know if rags come he's putting the chips in anyway). Think about it. You're only 4.5:1 to win. On one hand, that's huge, but string three of those together and you're less than even money to still be in the tournament. It's not a bad beat for aces not to hold up if you have four or five times where you're all-in with them preflop.


[/ QUOTE ]

The flaw in the reasoning here, imho, is that *if* you are fortunate to get AA v. KK three times, and you get all the chips in each time, the odds of you getting busted are very small, unless you get busted on the very first one. Certainly if you've won 2 of those, it is very likely that the third one would not be for all your chips since you would likely be the chip leader or close to it after winning the first 2.

And that's the point really. Sure, there's a risk to putting all your chips in the middle, but the reward of doing it is that it makes it likely that the *next* time you need to put all the chips middle, you're going to be the bigger stack.

I've never played in a multi-day event (the biggest event I've ever played was the final event at this year's WCOOP - you and Moneymaker were at my table for teh brief time I was there), so perhaps the logic is different. Certainly in an online tournament with 15 minute levels if someone went all in on the first hand and I had AA I would call them. In the WSOP, well I think I would too, but it would produce a much larger sinking feeling in my stomach.

Well, that won't win any awards for conciseness and clarity. Thanks again for taking the time to write about what can't be a very fond memory. Congratulations on making the money at the WSOP.

Chris

[M.B.E.]

I just posted a calculation in another thread on the math of Moneymaker's call. My conclusion was that he should call if he thought there was a 35.4% chance (or higher) that Boyd was bluffing with overcards only:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=319704&page=0&view=&s b=5&o=&vc=1

Here are some other threads commenting on this hand:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=262710&page=&view=&sb =5&o=&vc=1

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=310749&page=&view=&sb =5&o=&vc=1

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=314160&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&vc=1

[trillig]

Hey Dutch!

Yeah. I was pretty stunned that Chris 33 called your bet with that board, that was dumb luck on his part.

Amir's 4/6 fiasco, what was he thinking?

You guys all looked like ya needed sleep, I wonder if I ran into you down there, I live in Vegas... I came down there one night near the end and only saw 3 tables and certainly no camera crew, was like 9pm... Only recognized Humberto and Ralph Perry, certainly was within the 4-5 days it took for the main event to end.

I am a bit ticked at ESPN, they replayed the last two shows again last night and
didn't show the finale!

Looking forward to seeing Sam eat his ______, he was the bluffamatic at that table, of course our view is a bit incomplete with only a fraction of the hands being shown and I like how people who were never exciting at the table got very little face time. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

-t

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

This guy is out of his league, and there is no way he's going to risk busting out of the WSOP in 15th place when he has $500k in chips.

This is the flaw in your thinking. This is precisely why he makes this call and a Howard Lederer does not. 15th place is a win for Moneymaker and he knows that to handle the final table, an adequate stack won't do, he needs a giant stack.

[microlimitaddict]

"The flaw in the reasoning here, imho, is that *if* you are fortunate to get AA v. KK three times, and you get all the chips in each time, the odds of you getting busted are very small, unless you get busted on the very first one. Certainly if you've won 2 of those, it is very likely that the third one would not be for all your chips since you would likely be the chip leader or close to it after winning the first 2.

And that's the point really. Sure, there's a risk to putting all your chips in the middle, but the reward of doing it is that it makes it likely that the *next* time you need to put all the chips middle, you're going to be the bigger stack. "




I understand the ideas you are presenting but can't say i agree. however, it should be noted that the following concepts are presented by a total amateur who hangs around the low-level tourneys (hey, i finished 2nd out of 297 in a $1 tourney the other day..so maybe i don't suck so much afterall).

first, i think that throughout the course of a 5-day tourney you can't exactly count on your first one or two AA all-in's not being met by another situation where most or all of your chips are not at risk. with that many players in that long a tourney youre bound to run into other big stacks as the tables are combined.

by going all-in at the beginning (in the AK vs. QJ example) you are putting yourself in a position where you have a decent chance to be the first player eliminated.

dutch's point is well taken and i couldn't agree more. you don't want to be going all-in (pre-flop) throughout the course of a large tourney even when you are at an advantage.
if you are going to survive then all-in's need to be saved for the nuts and situations where you are confident you will not be called. obviously, dutch was under the impression of the latter in his all-in.
i suspect that the players that go all-in when they figure they are at an advantage are the players that either get very lucky OR don't get to the final table.

a couple of other points - first, there was a post on an earlier thread by someone who says he was there and witnessed the exchange between dutch and chris on the hand in question. obviously, this seems to contradict Dutch's assertion that it was edited in from a different hand. i wonder if someone not as lazy as me could find that post or if perhaps the poster in question could defend his claim.

even with the knowledge that the famous "tell" didn't take place on this hand, i still believe it was played poorly by both sides....but not quite so much as i did before.

special thanks to Dutch for coming on here and going into such terrifc detail on his logic on the hand. great to read such in depth analysis from the player himself after all the discussion on the forums. he didn't have to do it...especially after some of the criticims he took (from yours truly included).

it is also interesting to note that as i write this i just got knocked out on an AA all-in in a $3 NL tourn. AA vs. KK vs. AQs. the K came on the flop of course and someone had a nice triple-up at my expense. oh well, maybe next time. i just found it somewhat ironic and wanted to share.

however, i am up 55 BB's in a ring-game on a terrific run of cards (my boats are coming on suited boards...my 24 in the BB is met by flop of A35...etc etc....love it when that happens).

[Tyler Durden]

Does everyone believe that this is really Dutch Boyd?

I'm not saying I don't, but it's not tough for someone to create a new e-mail address and register with any name they choose.

And if it really is Dutch Boyd....do you feel like talking about Pokerspot?

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
dutch's point is well taken and i couldn't agree more. you don't want to be going all-in (pre-flop) throughout the course of a large tourney even when you are at an advantage.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, OK, I don't neccessarily *want* to go all-in early on, and I won't be shoving all my chips in if there is not a damn good reason to do it, but lets say you have AA on the first day and someone shoves all-in preflop. Are you calling or are you folding a hand that you know is a *significant* favorite to win preflop agasint anything the other player may have (unless you are tied, of course).

I understand the logic where you may not want to purposely try to get all your chips in even with a fairly big advantage. That is, given the choice between taking down a 2000 chip pot now and having a chance to double up my 10,000 on a 70/30 shot, I can see taking the 2000 chips. But I'm not going to fold AA just because "I don't want to risk all my chips early in the tournament".

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
by going all-in at the beginning (in the AK vs. QJ example) you are putting yourself in a position where you have a decent chance to be the first player eliminated.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, but there's no particular shame in being the first player eliminated -- especially when you had much the best of it at the time you put in your chips. It depends on your goal. If your primary goal is to maximize the probability of still being around on day 2, then of course fold the AK. But if your primary goal is to maximize your real-dollar EV then this is an easy call. Yes you've got a 1/3 chance of being eliminated, but you've got a 2/3 chance of substantially increasing the probability of finishing in the money. To take a rough estimate, suppose you figured before the tournament that you had about a 10% chance of finishing in the money. If you win the first hand and double through, you're then going to have about a 20% chance of finishing in the money. If your goal is to finish in the money (or to maximize your real-dollar EV, which is not the same thing but close for present purposes), then you've got to take these risks and stick in all your chips when you know you're a 2:1 favourite.

I do acknowledge however that you don't want to take the risk if you're only a small favourite. For example, I would not go all in with pocket 7s against the flashed QJ, even though pocket 7s is a small favourite. Against QJo I'd probably want, at a minimum, K9s which is a 3:2 favourite.

Also, I would assume that those who say to fold AK against the flashed all-in QJ would agree that you should call with AA. So on both sides it's really just a question of where you draw the line.

One interesting variation: suppose the player going all in flashes QJo and you happen to have QJs. If you call you'll probably tie but you have a 7% chance of winning and a 2% chance of losing. I say that's a very easy call.

[ QUOTE ]
if you are going to survive then all-in's need to be saved for the nuts and situations where you are confident you will not be called.

[/ QUOTE ]

That just doesn't come up often enough. To do well in a no-limit tournament, you simply have to call sometimes for all your chips without the nuts. That's what Chris Moneymaker did on the KQ vs. 33 hand. He was getting 2:1 pot odds and he figured there was a high probability that Dutch was bluffing (I posted the mathematical analysis on another forum (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=319704&page=0&view=&s b=5&o=&vc=1)). Folding would have been terrible. Even if he thought there was just a 50-50 chance that Dutch was bluffing, Moneymaker had an easy call. On the other hand, if Moneymaker thought there was only a 30% chance that Dutch was bluffing, then folding would have been correct.

[ QUOTE ]
i suspect that the players that go all-in when they figure they are at an advantage are the players that either get very lucky OR don't get to the final table.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. But the important question is this: how many players at the final table have played the tournament in such a way that they constantly fold before the flop where they figure they are a 2:1 favourite. The answer is very few, if any. All the players at the final table got lucky at key points -- usually several key points. But most of them also were unlucky once or twice during the tournament and managed to survive.

Look at it this way. Over a 5-day tournament with 800 entrants, perhaps 200 are going to be "fairly lucky" over the 5 days. That doesn't mean they win every single hand, but it means they win more than their "fair share". That part is just random, it has nothing to do with their skill. Now the final table is simply going to be a selection of some of the most skilful players from among those 200.

If you take several calculated risks during the tournament -- such as putting in all your chips preflop when you're a 2:1 favourite -- then I agree you might not make the final table. You might be among the 600 players who are not "fairly lucky" over that 5-day period, through no fault of your own. But if you consistently turn down those high-EV situations, then almost certainly you won't make the final table. And that would be your own fault.

[ QUOTE ]
a couple of other points - first, there was a post on an earlier thread by someone who says he was there and witnessed the exchange between dutch and chris on the hand in question. obviously, this seems to contradict Dutch's assertion that it was edited in from a different hand. i wonder if someone not as lazy as me could find that post or if perhaps the poster in question could defend his claim.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's the link:
Jedi Poker's post of May 23, 2003 (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=262710&page=&view=&sb =5&o=&vc=1)

[prospector]

M.B.E, I have a hard time believing that doubling through on the first hand in a five day tournament will come anywhere close to doubling a player's chance to finish in the money. Of course it does increase the chance, but I would think it might increase a 10% chance to 10.1% or even less. Could you explain how you arrived at the 20% figure?

[M.B.E.]

You're right it's a little less than 20% but way more than 10.1%. It should be something like 18% or 19%.

The reason is the same as why you should generally rebuy in tournaments where that's allowed.

It's well known that if all players are equally skilful, your probability of winning the tournament is precisely the number of tournament chips you have divided by the number of tournament chips in play. Double your chips and you double your probability of winning. Your probability of finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. might not double but it would be close.

[Ed Miller]

You should read Tournament Poker for Advanced Players.

[Mikey]

Dutch in no way am i saying that your play wasn't good, for the reasons you suggest I think it makes sense to put the chips in the pot as you did. You correctly put him on an underpair and you tried to represent a hand to him which had him dominated.

What I don't understand is this, many people say that how could Moneymaker make such a call with only a pair of 3's at that point, they also say it was a gutsy call, even though he put in all those chips on that hand most people say it was gutsy and he really got lucky there, now I want to take it a step further and would wonder what people would say if you were in the hand with Johnny Chan or Phil Helmuth and made that play and they called and took down the pot with those little 3's, would it make them exceptionally great players and fantastic card readers and prove to the rest of the Poker World why they are fantastic players and probably boost up their credibility in being such fantastic players.

Moneymaker had to make a decision for those chips and he put them in there and made a fantastic call. For those that say that Moneymaker got lucky there just don't understand. By him making that play and making that read it enabled him to acquire a lot of chips and thus win the tournament.

Had the Q or K fell on the turn/river for you, who knows what could have happened, you may have been the next world champion.

[prospector]

Usually whne I rebuy, I'm increasing my chances from zero(to which they've just fallen) to a slightly higher number.

[Legato]

Regarding this thread in general:

I find it quite fascinating that so many posters seem convinced that they are very much better than the average player even in tournaments such as the WSOP. Not taking chances when you know you are a clear favourite should only be reserved for the great players. Players that are merely better than the average won't get better opportunities than this in my opinion. If I raise with AA and get reraised all in early in a tournament I am very happy. I know I'm getting great odds at doubling up. I know I am a fairly good tournament player, winning considerable amounts playing mostly single tables $50-$300, but not taking my chances when I truly get the best of it is something I wouldn't even consider.

[Dutch Boyd]

Yes, it really is me, and no, I wouldn't have any problems talking about Pokerspot. Just put any questions you have in another thread... probably shouldn't be under the tournament forum.

I have pretty much stopped responding to anything that's not a question, since there isn't much that I have to say that I haven't already posted on rgp.

Dutch

[Dutch Boyd]

No disrespect meant towards David, because TPFAP is truly a great book. So is TJ's tournament books. Both of these guys were at my table on the first day.

I don't believe that the same strategy you use for a 5 hour tournament has much to do with the strategy you use for a 5 day one. I definitely know I wouldn't have gotten as far in the tourney if I did everything TPFAP suggests to do. For what it's worth... it's still the best tourney book out there, but I think it has a lot more relevance when playing the smaller events.

[M.B.E.]

Suppose on the first hand you lost T5000, half your chips.

Would that reduce your chance of making the final table from 10% to 9.9%?

[prospector]

Before any further discussion of the effect of one hand on a player's chances, I believe we need to have a mutual understanding of the situation we are talking about. I think there are two cases. Case 1 (which I understood to be the case in your first post on 10%-20%) concerns an expert player in a large slow-moving tournament. This expert is much better than most of the field; so good that his initial chance of making the final table is 10%, even though there are a large number, say 500, players in the tournament. Case 2 (which you seemed to be describing in your first answer to my 10.1% post) is a ten player tournament where all are equally skilled.

Let's dispose of Case 2 immediately. I agree with you (and S&M). Doubling through in the first hand does nearly double our hero's chances.

In case 1, it's my intuitive belief that doubling through in the first hand does not have as large an effect on the expert's chance. His expert play in many, many hands will dilute the effect of that first hand. Of course, one might argue that an expert would never allow the chance that the first hand would knock him out of the tournament. But that is beside the point. We could set up artificial cases in which the expert (A)starts with the same number of chips as everyone else or (B)starts with twice as many as everyone else. How say you about case 1?

[microlimitaddict]

again, i consider myself to be something of a novice on these ideas....but i believe this is kind of like the corollary of Sklansky's tourney All-in principle.

and i would have to agree with Dutch that there is a big difference when we're talking about 5 day tourneys. there is virtually no point in trying to double up on the first hand in this situation.
i think Dutch said he had gone all-in just one time prior to his hand with Moneymaker (did i remember this correctly>> too lazy to confirm). if this is true then think about it....just one all-in in 4 days. if true, that means he built his stack by clawing his way along.

in one of the WSOP episodes I saw Lederer lay down a couple of hands where he was at the advantage and I think he sensed that he was at an advantage. but he would rather live to fight another day then to roll the dice there. i thought his lay-downs were impressve even though it probably didn't look that way to most viewers since he indeed had the best hand when he got pushed out.

of course you have to take risks in order to move up and make it to the final day....but if you take more than one 3:2 risk or more than three 2:1 risks (with all your chips on the line) in a single tourney, then you are letting luck take an even greater role in your tourney fate.

i believe the influence on the +EV of doubling up early is being greatly exaggerated here and would be very interested in Sklansky or Malmuth's opinion on this. in a 5 day tourney, i would suggest that doubling chips in the first hand certainly does not double your chances of making the final table.

regardless of your impressions of my novice observations
I have enjoyed reading the ideas presented in this thread.

[M.B.E.]

No, you totally misunderstand.

I was positing a case where the player is somewhat above average, having a 10% chance of finishing in the money (i.e. top 65) out of 800 players. I say that if this player doubles through on the first hand, his chance of finishing in the money will almost double: it will increase to something like 19%. Your "intuitive belief" that doubling your stack would only increase your chance of finishing in the money from 10% to 10.1% is ridiculous.

This thread is not concerned with what you call case 2, "a ten player tournament where all are equally skilled". I don't know why you brought that up. This thread is about how to play in the WSOP.

Your "case 1" concerned a player so skilled that he has a 10% probability of making the final table (i.e. top 10) of the WSOP. Well, nobody can be that skilled, unless they have X-ray vision so they always know what their opponents hold and what cards are coming.

On the other hand, it's pretty reasonable to suppose that someone who plays a little better than average has a 10% chance of finishing in the money (i.e. top 65).

[Daliman]

Well Dutch, with the small amount I have for context,I think it was a case of a couple excellent plays, preceded by a bad one. I like your thinking on what you want him to think, and also what you wanted to represent having. MM's call with the 33 was NOT lucky. He made a good, strong intuitive call. I agree that you may have been better served by more like a 300K raise, and think he may have possibly folded to it given that it represents a bet that wants to be called more, but that's my opinion. It annoys me severely when people say MM was lucky there. If he was lucky, please tell me where he was ever behind in the hand. The BAD play was him calling with 33 preflop, a hand in which you are always either a small favorite or big dog, plus, you never know exactly where you are with it. The play to make there is all-in with the 33, if you're going to play it at all. I think you took it pretty well overall, and may be one of the few people you understood your "chip tricks intimidation" was tongue in cheek, as well as most of your other interview talk. You're a young guy, having a great time, doing well in the biggest tourney in the world, period. Cocky? Maybe a little, but more of an affable cockiness. My question on the Pokerspot issue is: wouldn't you being 22 or so now put you at about 18 at the time of Pokerspot? How the hell did you end up running a fairly major(at the time) poker site, and do you feel your age and lack of experience had something to do with the ultimate downfall? PS died owing me about $900 (maybe more, maybe less, tuff to remember now), and, though I'd love to have you pay me that $$$, I kinda have to agree with your stance that those are corporate debts, sorta like if people invested in a company with a positive expectation yet never recieved their dividends, although I wouldn't place it anywhere near the level of smaller scale ENRON; I'd like to think it was mismanagement and poor business model that doomed PS, and not corporate malfeasance. Also, if you graduated law school at like 18, what the hell are you doing with your life now? I'd have to consider it a shame if someone of your intelligence and drive now just plays poker for a living, but hell, who am I to talk. I have a 151 IQ and sell tires for a living, (mainly).

[prospector]

If I may quote form a post in this thread by a self-acknowleged expert:

"It's well known that if all players are equally skilful, your probability of winning the tournament is precisely the number of tournament chips you have divided by the number of tournament chips in play. Double your chips and you double your probability of winning. Your probability of finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. might not double but it would be close."

It was you, not I, who brought up this point. If my
position is so ridiculous, please refute it rather than insulting me and my posts.

[Daliman]

The AK vs. QJo discussion seems to boil doen pretty easy to me; Call. There are going to be very few instances where you are going to be able to make a bet all-in and be guaranteed a win. Tournament poker is all about pressing edges; if your edge is that you are of of the best players, maybe you might not want to make this call. If you have to playing edge, your edge is playing good cards, that's all. You will be outplayed otherwise, so get it all in there with an edge whenever possible. A corollary to this was posted a few moths ago in the probability section I belive by me which was brilliantly responded to by Bruce Z. I believe, where I put forth the hypothetical situation of myself vs. Johnny Chan where on the first hand of WSOP big event, I go all-in with 67s, show him my cards, and he has aces. I wondered whether or not he would be better off folding than taking a 25% chance at being knocked out of the tourney and Bruce Z said no, under any circumstances player-wise in this situation, Aces should call, and that the mathematical probability of doubling his stack FAR outweighed the possibility of being busted. And yes, doubling your stack effectively doubles your chance of cashing; it's just the exact chip-for-chip average of all things being equal that makes it so, in most any situation. For example: lets say 100 people are in a tourney, you go all in, double through, everyone else chops and has exactly what they started with. you have just gone from having 1% of all chips e.g. a 1 in 100 chance of winning(all things/players equal) to 2% of all chips, PLUS ONE LESS PLAYER TO HAVE TO BEAT, now making you more like a 2 in 99 shot, or 1 in 49.5!(a bit off, i'm sure, but only a bit) See, MORE than double. MAKE THAT CALL!
/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[prospector]

O.K.M.B.E.. lets take your player and your formula and go a little further. Doubling his stack doubles his chances, right. So, he begins with a 10% chance of being in the money.In the first hand of the tournament, he doubles through and now has about a 20% chance, as you said. In the second hand of the tournament, he get two more players all in and doubles his stack again. Now he has about a 40% chance to get paid according to your formula. And in the third hand of the tournament four opponents bite the dust and he double up again. 80% chance, right. And in the fourth hand of the tournament,..... well, lets not go there, M.B.E. Lets leave him with his near 80% chance to be in the money. What do you think? Does he have an 80% chance?

[Bozeman]

No, but he probably has at least 50% chance (the corrections become significant, though not huge, as the stack gets larger and the probability approaches one), while you would say that he has 11%.

You really think even a great player hardly cares to double his stack?

Craig

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
So, he begins with a 10% chance of being in the money.In the first hand of the tournament, he doubles through and now has about a 20% chance, as you said. In the second hand of the tournament, he get two more players all in and doubles his stack again. Now he has about a 40% chance to get paid according to your formula. And in the third hand of the tournament four opponents bite the dust and he double up again. 80% chance, right.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with Bozeman that the probability would be less than 80%, but still excellent -- easily over 50%.

If we were just looking at this player's probability of winning -- finishing first -- then having octupled his chips so early on his probability of winning would have close to octupled. If this player were exactly average in skill, i.e. he started off with a 1/800 probability of winning (assuming exactly 800 entrants), then yes I think if he somehow octupled his chips early on he would then have a 1/100 probability of winning the whole thing. But not precisely, because we've already had something like six or seven players eliminated, who probably were some of the weaker ones. That means that even though this player began the tournament with an average skill level, among the 793 remaining players he's a tiny bit below average. (On the other hand, his huge flukey early lead could have a psychological effect on other remaining players, which would increase his chances if he took advantage of it properly.)

If the player was a little above average in skill, let's say starting with a 1/600 probability of winning the whole thing, then octupling his chips should theoretically result in a probability of slightly less than 8/600 to win (but only very slightly less).

However when we're looking at the probability of finishing in the money (top 63 or so), even if every player in the tournament was equally skilled the probability would not exactly octuple when your chips octuple. It's because the increase in your probability of finishing first interferes with the probability of finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc.

Prospector -- sorry if you were insulted by my earlier post; I might have gotten carried away with my sarcastic tone. I am enjoying this debate and have nothing against you personally. Also the confusion between "finishing in the money" and "making the final table" was partly my fault because I accidentally mixed them up in one of my own posts on this thread.

[prospector]

Apology accepted, M.B.E. I probably owe you one as well. I'm still perplexed about the mathematical foundation for your assertions. You state your conclusions, but don't demonstrate how you get from here to there.

[Daliman]

Saying a person has a 10% chance to cash means he must have 10% of the totaL $$$ in a tournament, all else considered equal. So, let's say he's 1 of 10 starting(about the only way to have a 10% chance exactly for these purposes;there's others, but this it cut-and dried) with 1000 in chips, and only 1st place cashes(kinda like a shootout tournament. As a matter of fact EXACTLY like a shootout tournament) First hand, he doubles up. He has 2000 chips of the 10000, i.e. a 20% chance at this point. Next hand, he busts 2 other people. He has 4000 chips of 10000, i.e. a 40% chance of cashing. Next hand, he doubles again, and now has 8000 of the total 10000 chips, i.e., yes an 80% chance of cashing, and well, I guess you got me on the next double up, since, no he doesn't have a 160% chance of cashing, but for most of us, 100% is just fine.
I think where your logic went amiss is the fact that MBE stated that 10% figure, you took that almost as meaning you could have a 20% chance to cash by going all in first hand WSOP main event, which is nowhere near the case, but he is entirely correct in his whole line of thinking, probably even more than he knows, as doubling your stack not only increases your chances by adding chips, it compounds this increase by reducing your competition, albeit very slightly.
If you won an allin first hand this year at ME-WSOP your odds esstially went from 1 in 839 to 2 in 839. No great shakes, of course, but yes, double the chance. Even if you were to bust your whole table on the first hand, you'd still only have inproved to 1 in 83.9, barely over 1%. The AK vs. QJ hand is a classic case of perfect information of risk vs reward. You have a 64% chance of doubling your chances in the tourney. If it were a 55% chance of doubling, well, then, that's more of a decision, predicated more so on your abilty and lack thereof of others at the table, but no player, and I mean NO PLAYER PERIOD, not Hellmuth, Chan, Nyuyen, Cloutier or anyone else is good enough to logically offset those odds enough to warrant folding. Only feasible case here is a late-table situation. First-hand, stick it all in there AK vs. QJo, period.

[daryn]

M.B.E.:

you are wrong.

if you double up on 4 consecutive hands starting the wsop, there's no way you have a 50% chance to money. can we get the man himself David Sklansky to chime in? I just finished tpfap and am eager to learn. i believe m.b.e.'s logic to be ridiculous, but hey, maybe i am wrong, someone please shed some logical light

[Tyler Durden]

I heard a rumor that you stated if you won the WSOP you would repay those who lost their money in the PokerSpot debacle.

Any truth to this?

[M.B.E.]

In this year's WSOP the vast majority of players who finished the first day with T60,000 or more (http://www.thegoodgamblingguide.co.uk/spotlight/wsop2003/wsop2003_dayonechips.htm) did eventually make the money (http://www.thegoodgamblingguide.co.uk/spotlight/wsop2003/wsop2003_worldtitle.htm).

Of course we have to be very careful in drawing conclusions from this. I'm not saying this proves my hypothesis that if you're a slightly-above-average player and manage by fluke to accumulate T80,000 early on you have a better-than-50% chance of getting paid. That would be flawed reasoning. However, it's fair to say that the observation in the previous paragraph is consistent with my hypothesis.

[Daliman]

the 1 in 83.9 chance was to win the tourney, not cash. Cance to cash were you to bust your table would be about 10 or so to 1

[adios]

"PS died owing me about $900 (maybe more, maybe less, tuff to remember now), and, though I'd love to have you pay me that $$$, I kinda have to agree with your stance that those are corporate debts, sorta like if people invested in a company with a positive expectation yet never recieved their dividends,"

Question for you, if you broke even in your poker playing and PokerSpot would have thrived, how much would you have anticipated that your account there would gave grown in value? I don't think people who deposited their funds to play poker had any reasonable expectation of their deposited funds increasing in value because the sight succeeded, likewise I don't think they had any reasonable expectation of having their funds disappear if the sight went under. Sorry you're wrong in believing that it's like an investment that went awry.