Worst deal of the year (PStars $500+30, April 25)

[M.B.E.]

The situation was as follows:

There are 1.6525 million chips in play. Blinds are 15K/30K, ante 1500. As a percentage of the chips in play, the current chip positions are:

Earlbry -- 33%
Tallal -- 26%
Ulosenash -- 25%
Cristal C -- 10%
Exclusive -- 6%

Total prize pool is $330,500, of which $129,225.50 (39.1%) has already been distributed to players who finished 6th through 63rd. The scheduled prize payouts for the top five are:

1st -- 25.0% -- $82,625
2nd -- 14.3% -- $47,621.50
3rd -- 9.2% -- $30,406
4th -- 6.9% -- $22,804.50
5th -- 5.5% -- $18,177.50

Exclusive (whose stack was barely three times the big blind) proposed a deal where they would continue to play, but the payouts would be restructured as follows:

1st -- 17.0% -- $56,274.50
2nd -- 13.6% -- $45,000
3rd -- 12.1% -- $40,000
4th -- 9.1% -- $30,000
5th -- 9.1% -- $30,000

The chip leader (Earlbry) wanted a little extra regardless of his place of finish, and so each of the four other players agreed to transfer him $500 after the tourney finished.

I find it astonishing that Earlbry, Tallal, and Ulosenash are skilled enough to beat out over 600 players in a tourney of this calibre, but then gave up such a huge share of their EV in such an unfavourable deal.

[Nottom]

Depends on who you ask, if you ask Exclusive he will tell you it was a great deal.

Just another reason why a successful tourney player should know how to make a good deal.

[fnurt]

This deal was brutal to watch. How someone with 6% of the chips gets guaranteed 3rd place money is boggling to the mind. I guess the moral is that it never hurts to ask.

[TheGrifter]

It looks like these players were just very intimidated/scared of Exclusive. He does top the TLB at stars, but this deal is not good for the rest of the table.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
It looks like these players were just very intimidated/scared of Exclusive.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think that was it. Of course I don't really know, but I suspect that they just didn't understand the logic of why restructuring the payouts like this can only help the small stacks.

[La Brujita]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It looks like these players were just very intimidated/scared of Exclusive.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think that was it. Of course I don't really know, but I suspect that they just didn't understand the logic of why restructuring the payouts like this can only help the small stacks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with M.B.E that this was probably the case. I was shocked watching it. I think they might have been punch drunk after playing the tournament.

[fnurt]

It was originally Cristal C, who claimed to be a "big favorite over anyone here," that vetoed the idea of a deal based on straight chip counts. I don't play Stars enough to know who any of these people are, I guess.

[Bozeman]

For the independent chip model (of equal players), which slightly favors the small stacks, the raw payouts give expectations of:

33%:51100
26%:46400
10%:31800
6%:26700

with the new deal, they would be:

33:45100+2000=47100
26:43200-500=42800
10:36200-500=35700
6:33800-500=33300

I can't believe they (big stacks) gave up so much. They must have felt like they were big dogs and not had any good understanding of deal making, since the variance reduction is not that big (the already have 18k locked up).

Errors due to the independent chip model should be less than 1% in the absolute, and significantly less in the relative #'s.

Craig

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]

I think they might have been punch drunk after playing the tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or just drunk drunk from drinking too much. :P

[M.B.E.]

Incidentally, the actual order of finish was

1. ulosenash
2. Cristal C
3. Tallal
4. Earlbry
5. Exclusive

So even though it was a terrible deal for Earlbry at the time he made it, in the final result he was better off because of it.

[Johnsears]

The more shorthanded the game, the more luck involved. There is nothing keeping a big stack from getting AA or KK(obligated to go all-in), getting called by another big stack, somehow losing, and then getting 5th place instead of 1st or 2nd. No one wants to risk 30-40k over that. I know I wouldn't.

[curtains]

JohnSears it was a terrible deal for the big stacks. You shouldnt play a $500 buyin event if you are going to just give away thousands of dollars of equity at the end. Whats funny is that not just one chip leader decided to give away lots of money, but all three of them!
I find it interesting, because I think that even if they waited a few hands....just to see if exclusive would bust, and lets assume he doesnt bust and doubles up or steals some blinds, they could almost surely get a very very similar deal after this!
One last thing, I posted this on the internet board but Im curious what you think over here....

With 2 tables left, Exclusive raises like 35% of his stack, the BB goes allin, and now its back to Exclusive and he thinks for like 30 seconds, calls TIME and everything...and then finally calls with AA. [censored] thing to do or not?

[ZeeJustin]

I was watching the final table thinking "Why does Exclusive want a deal? He will never have a chance to play against people that dumb for that much money ever again.".

He then proposed the deal. I laughed. They accepted the deal. I cried.

He truly outplayed them all.

[DougBrennan]

The only excuse I can come up with for what you describe on Exclusive's AA play (I wasn't watching at the time) would be if he were seriously considering not playing at all. Now I can't offhand think of any situation with 15 left in this tournamentwhere it would be correct to fold Aces pre-flop; maybe Exclusive thought he knew something.

I agree however, that if he was just screwing with the BB it was a censored thing to do, not to mention a silly waste of his time clock.

Doug

[eMarkM]

I find it hard to believe someone like EARLBRY, who seemingly plays every tourney and is currently 10th on the TLB list, would be scared of Exclusive. Not with a mere 3 rounds worth of blinds Exclusive had at the time, c'mon. I was more shocked he accepted those terms than any of the others because he should know better. I would never had acceptted those terms. OTOH, EARLBRY was also right in the middle of bubble time in the $650 super to WSOP so he may have wanted to concentrate on that, but still.

[Johnsears]

Well they were running out of time to make a deal(the manager said 3 minutes more and all deals were off).

As for the AA, was there anyone left in the pot to call?
Exclusive can be pretty rude sometimes though, so who knows. Honestly, though, pissing people off bad can be pretty useful on final tables.

[Lottery Larry]

"that not just one chip leader decided to give away lots of money, but all three of them!"

Didn't the third place stack gain $10K?

[Bozeman]

"Didn't the third place stack gain $10K? "

Fuzzy thinking. This player lost more than 3K of expectation.

Craig

[CrackerZack]

Well, he should be able to figure out the EV he gave up is much more than his reduced chance at the WS seat.

[MuckMuck]

I didnt know if I wanted to laugh or scream watching that deal take place. Man did Exclusive whine and badger his way into a good deal. I think Lee would have bitch slapped him if he had the chance.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

I hope when I make the final table you're there. With that attitude, I'll know I can get a good deal out of you. I mean, why should YOU make a bad deal to avoid hitting some bad luck? Why shouldn't I be the one to give up some EV? Just think about it that way, and you'll see why your attitude is mistaken.

If you give up EV, it was a bad deal. It's really that simple.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Johnsears]

I'm not saying that the deal was 100% fair, im saying it was better to take the slightly unfair deal than to take no deal at all.

[Bozeman]

nothing slight about this. if you believe this was a good move, I have a bridge to sell you,

craig

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying that the deal was 100% fair, im saying it was better to take the slightly unfair deal than to take no deal at all.



[/ QUOTE ]

That is so incorrect I don't know how to respond.

[fnurt]

no deal at all = guaranteed $18,000 in this case.

[togilvie]

So buying insurance is a bad deal? It's a clear case of trading EV for variance, and only your personal utility function determines whether or not it's a good trade off.

If you're a 19 year old without a family or mortgage, life insurance may be a terrible deal. If you're a 45 year old sole breadwinner with kids, it's a near necessity. In both cases it's -EV, but there are often compelling reasons to avoid the variance.

For someone with fixed or limited income, the ability to guarantee $30K with a more limited upside may be well worth the tradeoffs made here. Financial utility is not linear; a fact that has been proved by economists repeatedly. And without knowing more about Earlbry and his personal utility, you can't make an assessment of whether the deal is good or bad.

That said, kudos to Exclusive for negotiating an excellent deal for himself. I sure wouldn't buy a used car from him /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Johnsears]

Are you rich? Do you have a family to support or bills to pay?

[cferejohn]

Togilvie makes a good point. To make an extreme case, if you have a bookie coming over tomorrow morning who is going to break your legs if you don't come up with 25K, locking up the 30K, even at considerable expense to EV is clearly the right move.

That said, ideally in poker you should have a bankroll that is large enough relative to the stakes you play that you should not have to sacrifice EV for the sake of reduced variance. If you were playing a very high-stakes cash game and you were given an opportunity to draw to the nut flush with the correct odds (let's say an all-in 10K bet into a 40K pot), you should call. If you feel like you can't call because 10K is a significant chunk (or perhaps all) of your bankroll, you are playing to big for your bankroll.

Tournaments offer a strange situation. While your bankroll may be sufficient to allow you to play $500 buy-in tournaments, at this point we are talking about amounts of money that may have an extremely significant effect on the size of your bankroll. You may feel that the marginal value *to you* of the dollars from 18K to 30K outweighs the marginal value of the dollars from 30K to 80K to such an extent that you are willing to give up a significant amount of EV to get the 30K.

It's hard to judge whether that is right or wrong without knowing someone's situation. Clearly Chris Moneymaker felt he was in such a situation when he offered to chop with Farha as something like a 2:1 chip leader. And evidently these players felt that they were in such a situation with Exclusive.

It is obvious that the deal was a poor one in terms of EV, and in my opinion they probably should have tried to get Exclusive to accept a more equitable deal, but without knowing their financial/bankroll situations, I agree with togilvie that it's possible that the deal actually could have made sense for them.

To make a somewhat ludicrous comparison, would you rather recieve 1 million dollars or an 8:1 shot at 10 million dollars? The EV move is clear, but I think the quality of life change from 0-1 million is significantly greater than the change from 1 million-10 million.

That's extreme, and we're not talking about percentages of that magnitude, but I think it illustrates the point.

That said, no way I take this deal. I'm in this poker thing for the long haul, and I'd take the risk for the sake of the EV. On the other hand, I'm single and I have a well paying day job (at which I do productive things like write overlong messages on 2+2)... /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you rich? Do you have a family to support or bills to pay?

[/ QUOTE ]

But John, the logical extreme of this question is to stop playing poker altogether. Assuming you are a winning player, you are sacrificing EV, but you are reducing your variance to 0...

[Johnsears]

I just always thought the point of good poker was to maximize the effect of skill and minimize the effect of luck.

[CrackerZack]

There's the problem. Its to win the most money.

Edit: I'm not disagreeing the the point of making a deal although the deal appears ludicrous, but the point of poker is to win the most money. It how you keep score.

[Johnsears]

This is exactly what I was trying to say, and, [apparently] failing at.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Somebody else brought up the utility function of money, and they make a point. However, this is a really bad deal for some of the players. If they're so hurting for cash that this is a good deal for them (in the sense that it's better than no deal at all), then they're playing WAY over their bankroll.

Now, my real point is this. We don't know the utility function of any of these people. As such, why is it that person A should make a deal that's -EV? Why shouldn't they be the one to get the +EV deal at the expense of player B?

If we know nothing about the utility function for any of the players, the only way to evaluate the deal is via EV. And in terms of EV, this was a great deal for some, and a terrible deal for others.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
To make an extreme case, if you have a bookie coming over tomorrow morning who is going to break your legs if you don't come up with 25K, locking up the 30K, even at considerable expense to EV is clearly the right move.

[/ QUOTE ]
I sure hope your bookie has a PokerStars account. Because otherwise you don't have time to wait for a cashout.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying that the deal was 100% fair, im saying it was better to take the slightly unfair deal than to take no deal at all.



[/ QUOTE ]
It was pretty clear watching the chat that none of the three chip leaders realized just how bad this deal was. Tallal and Ulosenash (each of whom was giving up about $4000 of EV) didn't even try to negotiate. Earlbry asked for $3K extra but settled for $2K; there was no reason for him not to hold out for more.

John Sears, as I understand him, is saying that we shouldn't criticize the three chip leaders for accepting this deal, because it is conceivable that given their individual financial positions, it made sense to sacrifice all that EV in order to reduce variance. First, given that they were already guaranteed $18K, it is just very unlikely that reducing variance was so important to them as to be worth $4K in EV. Second, if they were in fact in that situation, they had nothing to lose by trying to negotiate something a little better. Exclusive would certainly have given up more and still done the deal.

At the very least, we can say that Earlbry, Ulosenash, and Tallal are poor negotiators.

[Cazz]

Lets see if anyone would take this deal.
You and I bet $100 on a football game w/ no point spread.
As the forth quarter starts your team is up by 4 points and
I suggest that we reduce the bet to $50. After all,
one touchdown can decide the whole thing and "These things tend to be a crapshoot in the 4th quarter anyways."

Is anyone going to take this deal? Anyone? Come on, it will cut down your variance.

If I'm on the winning side and you offer me $50 to cancel the bet, I will think about it. But reduce the bet for zero dollars??? No thanks.

By not getting cash (or enough cash) for taking a less favorable payout schedule, thats what some of these players did. Hell, 2 players paid $500 for the honor of taking a bad deal.

[wrongpond]

At the very least.

[Tosh]

Well if that was the case I certainly wouldn't make a deal that throws away thousands of dollars.

[togilvie]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, my real point is this. We don't know the utility function of any of these people. As such, why is it that person A should make a deal that's -EV? Why shouldn't they be the one to get the +EV deal at the expense of player B?

[/ QUOTE ]

A very good point. But given that they did make the deal, and on the surface it's incredibly one-sided, seems to me that the chip-leaders were probably way above their heads in terms of the $ on the table, and gave up EV to take home what seemed like an enormous payday.

[theBruiser500]

When I started playing tournaments on PStars I was chatting it up the tournament leader board players asking questions trying to learn from them. Me and exclusive are buddies now, he's a nice guy, glad he fooled those tools, I just sent him to www.twoplustwo.com (http://www.twoplustwo.com) for the first time, to this thread, maybe h'll give us all a reply.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To make an extreme case, if you have a bookie coming over tomorrow morning who is going to break your legs if you don't come up with 25K, locking up the 30K, even at considerable expense to EV is clearly the right move.

[/ QUOTE ]
I sure hope your bookie has a PokerStars account. Because otherwise you don't have time to wait for a cashout.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please redirect all communications with this individual to the recovery ward at St. Mary's hospital in San Jose, CA. That is all.

[7PeaceOnEarth7]

Simply... Exclusive is god.
If you want to do good at poker, especially online poker, then build a shrine to Exclusive and pray at it every day.
Also, Pokerstars rewards people who transfer Exclusive money with extra luck. The more $$ one sends, the more luck.

Let there be harmony.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
Simply... Exclusive is god.
If you want to do good at poker, especially online poker, then build a shrine to Exclusive and pray at it every day.
Also, Pokerstars rewards people who transfer Exclusive money with extra luck. The more $$ one sends, the more luck.

Let there be harmony.

[/ QUOTE ]

So am I to take it that 7PeaceOnEarth7 here is Exclusive?

[daryn]

you know, you just may have something there Holmes.

[theBruiser500]

[ QUOTE ]

So am I to take it that 7PeaceOnEarth7 here is Exclusive?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's some good analytical pokre thinking there.