First three SNGs

[leykis]

Regarding all-in preflop with QQ early. I have seen way to many times that these players will go all in pre flop with AXs Kxs and also absolute garbage. I believe that at the 20+2 and below level on party you have to make this play. Will you lose some, of course but if you lay it down you are usually folding the best hand.

[fujowpai]

Well, getting back to my original point of early tournament behavior in this structure and level, I'm starting to get a glimpse of why I see these suicide pacts. The 2+2 players see it as a good play; the WPT-wannabes see it as a good play, and I imagine there are some other rational players who intuitively feel it is a good play, but can't explain why.

Then there's me.

Let's say you start in the big blind, and sitting at your table are Heckel in UTG and Jeckel with the button. You've played Heckel and Jeckel before so you know there modus operandi is to come out swinging, hoping to intimidate the 2+2 players. What's more, Heckel writes in the chat box "I'm taking someone out on the first play" and Jeckel writes back "Oh yeah, you're going down, fool".

The cards are dealt and you hold QQ. Heckel bets 200. Jeckel responds by putting in half his stack (400 chips). So you know you have two certain callers. You push it in.

Then someone puts a curse on you that dooms you to start every SNG in this exact way. You will lose over half of your SNGs on the opening play. How many depends on Heckel and Jeckel, and not getting another 2+2 player with AA, KK. Although you will continue the remainder of the SNGs with 2x as many chips as the other players, that doesn't guarantee you a spot in the money. You would have to now modify your ROI to include the automatic >50% hit. That's some powerful damage to make up for.

[DownLow]

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Let's say you start in the big blind, and sitting at your table are Heckel in UTG and Jeckel with the button. You've played Heckel and Jeckel before so you know there modus operandi is to come out swinging, hoping to intimidate the 2+2 players. What's more, Heckel writes in the chat box "I'm taking someone out on the first play" and Jeckel writes back "Oh yeah, you're going down, fool".

The cards are dealt and you hold QQ. Heckel bets 200. Jeckel responds by putting in half his stack (400 chips). So you know you have two certain callers. You push it in.

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If the table talk came before the cards, I would push here every time, no question. In this situation I think these jokers could have any 2 cards. I'll happily take queens against 2 random hands.

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Then someone puts a curse on you that dooms you to start every SNG in this exact way. You will lose over half of your SNGs on the opening play.


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I thought the "lose over half" calculation was for a very limited subset of push hands. I think you are probably better than 50% against 2 random hands.

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How many depends on Heckel and Jeckel, and not getting another 2+2 player with AA, KK. Although you will continue the remainder of the SNGs with 2x as many chips as the other players, that doesn't guarantee you a spot in the money. You would have to now modify your ROI to include the automatic >50% hit. That's some powerful damage to make up for.

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On Party, it almost does guarantee you a spot if you are skilled. With 3x more chips than any other player at the moment, you can probably post and fold into the money. There have been plenty of anecdotal reports of diconnected players moneying and with the aggressive blind structure at Party I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that a skilled player can money given 30% of the chips in play early.

[AleoMagus]

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The 2+2 players see it as a good play; the WPT-wannabes see it as a good play, and I imagine there are some other rational players who intuitively feel it is a good play, but can't explain why.

Then there's me.


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To be honest, I like the tone of your posts (argumentative, which is good, yet still polite) so I hate to have to disagree with you so much, but I have to re-iterate how wrong I think this is.

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You would have to now modify your ROI to include the automatic >50% hit. That's some powerful damage to make up for.

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Well, put like that it might seem so, but I'll attempt to explain why you will, in fact make up for that damage. You seem to understand the idea of an equity edge, but see the tourney structure as the factor which makes the equity edge no longer important. This is correct, the tourney does make a difference, but not so much as you are suggesting, especially this early, and far from the money.

You are not going to be doubling up those times that you win, you will be tripling up. You will hold 30% of the chips at the table plus maybe the blinds.

so, assuming all players are equally skilled this brings your tournament equity to about 25.5% from the 10% it was formerly.

To see how I got this you might want to search a bit about the ICM. THIS is a good recent thread, with a link to an ICM calculator.

what this means is that despite busting 58% of the time in this spot straight away (that's assuming the earlier solid range of hands that you might be up against), you will increase your equity.

42%*25.5%=10.71
58%*-10%=-5.8

so, this move is worth about $10.71-$5.8 or $4.91 in a tourney with a $100 prize pool (10+1).

I know what you are thinking here and you are right. But that's with players of equal skills! I'm better than these guys! Why am I going to let them bust me 58% of the time straight away?

Well, because even though you are better, your skill advantage is still going to be present once you have tripled up, and with that big stack, you might find that you are presented with more opportunities to exercise it.

I tend to think that these types of moves are exactly why a good player can claim a skill edge. You need to take advantage of these opportunities early.

Will a move like this lower your ITM? Sure it will, but that doesn't mean it won't help your ROI as you can expect to take 1st more often with this large boost of chips. Also there is another very important factor to consider - hourly rate.

You will be busting on the first hand 58% of the time, but making a move which has an overall +$EV result. This means that you will be improving your ROI while at the same time reducing the time it takes to play your average tourney. Even if you were lowering your ROI slightly (which you aren't) this result would increase your $/hr.

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Then someone puts a curse on you that dooms you to start every SNG in this exact way.

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I wish this doomed curse would befall me

I suppose if it was possible that you were so much better than your opponents, that you could easily guarantee a much better finish by avoiding this gamble, then it might be incorrect, but many people overestimate their advantage in this respect (IMO). Your advantage often comes from these types of calls.

This all disregards what is perhaps the most important aspect of this whole discussion. On the early rounds of a low stakes SNG on party, you cannot count on your opponents having hands this good. You will often be a strong favorite to win the hand, when they turn over two underpairs or even worse hands.

In higher stakes or under different conditions, all-ins like this might almost certainly mean AK, KK or AA and under those conditions, of course a fold is in order. That is the 'it depends' of this conversation.

On up to a 30+3 party SNG, I'm calling these all-ins almost every time. I don't play enough higher than that to comment with any real credibility but I really think you have to make the call at these levels.

Regards
Brad S

[fujowpai]

That is an outstanding presentation of your case. I don't have enough SNG experience to evaluate its merits, but I very much appreciate a thought-out argument.

Eric

[fujowpai]

Having played some more at this same level/structure, I'm still of the opinion that initiating the suicide pact is a mistake. (I even had this exact scenario occur, which was good for a laugh when I pushed in honor of this thread. I lost to short-stacked kings, but beat the 3rd guy so I wasn't eliminated)

Yet my reasoning is now based more on the skill difference than mathematics. I end up with at least two fewer opponents (when others do this), and the one still alive has revealed himself a fair amount. It's apparently not uncommon to see this behavior several times in the first or second levels. It turns out that their resulting big stacks seem to be irrelevant to their chance of success.

However, I think it is already time to move up as the competition is too weak to be very useful. Any suggestions for what is just above Party's 5/1 in terms of competence of participants? Preferably I'd have only slightly better players (or somewhat more of them) because I want to compare. I'm interested in more challenging tournament-specific scenarios. Any suggestions are appreciated. Eric