Gigabet unplugged: percentage payouts and the value of disparate goals

[Irieguy]

When I read Gigabet's post I knew immediately what he was talking about, even though I didn't understand a word he said. I don't think explaining this concept is all that -EV for Gigabet (or me) because a large percentage of the readers will not understand it; a large percentage will disagree with it; and a large percentage will agree and understand but will not be able to implement it with anywhere near the devastation that Gigabet does. Also, if you mess this concept up even a little bit... you will become a loser. Lastly, this concept isn't very important in SNGs, actually. But it's HUGELY important in MTTs. Here we go:

In TPFAP, Sklansky acknowledges the fact that his concepts are not optimal if your goal is to win as many tournaments as possible. They should be maximally +EV... but if you want to win as often as possible, the Sklansky way is not The Way. Look at what happens if the following conditions are true:

1. You are a winning player
2. Some of your opponents are losing players
3. You want to win 1st place
4. Your opponents want to cash

When these conditions are true, a very interesting situation develops when the blinds are big and the money is close. You want everybody's chips and everybody else is pretty happy to merely hang on to what they already have. If you have a large stack as this situation develops, you can exploit your opponents to such a large degree that I don't even think Gigabet understands just how +EV that situation can be. (Actually, I think Gigabet does understand this.) The fact that your opponents will fold too much when the blinds are big and your goal is to acquire every last chip is remarkably good for you. So good, in fact, that you should do everything within reason to land yourself in this situation. That will often mean making a -EV call at a particular stage of the tournament, with particular relative stack sizes.

The "correctness" of a -EV call is influenced primarily by the following conditions:

1. Calling and winning makes you a big stack
2. Calling and winning eliminates a player close to the money
3. Calling and losing will not eliminate you
4. The blinds are big

I already explained why #1 is so important. #2 is important because eliminating a player near the bubble not only gets you closer to first place, it gets your opponents closer to cashing... and that's important. #3 is important for the obvious reason: you can't win if you bust out. Besides, being a short stack is not really a big deal. The nice thing about being the shortest stack is that you can double through everybody. You will be able to get maximum value out of your chips, and that's more than anybody else can say. #4 may be the most important condition of all. As the blinds increase, the amount of time that your opponents have to wake up with a hand decreases. This is critical. You want to get all of their chips before they have a chance to find a hand. Also, escalating blinds feed right into your hands as the big stack. With everybody else folding too much, you want to extract the maximum possible from that situation.

So, that's basically it. If you want to win and your opponents want to cash, you should place a higher priority on acquiring chips. Your acquisition of chips will then have a snowball effect that reaches maximum force at the bubble. This allows you to acquire even more chips until you finally have them all.

The reason why I say this concept is not as important in SNGs as in MTTs is because you can play a bajillion SNGs a second and it doesn't really matter if you win first place. EV is King and volume is Queen. Maximizing your earn rate is really more important than maximizing your first place percentage. Sklanskyesque reasoning is likely the best way to get there.

But MTTs are a different bird. There's a BIG difference between a bracelet and a bare arm. There's a BIG difference between being on TV and being listed as 7th place in Cardplayer. There's a BIG difference between winning a Million-Dollar guaranteed tourney on line and placing 2nd. Still, you don't need to play this way to be successful. Erik Seidel, Howard Lederer, and even Phil Helmuth don't play this way, whereas Daniel Negreanu, David Pham, and Scott Fischman clearly do.

Gigabet plays SNGs the same way he plays MTTs: he plays to win. I tend to agree with his line... especially in the Step 5 Highers.

Irieguy

[Myst]

I think this is more true at the higher limit games than at the low level $33s that I play, where a cash of $60 doesnt mean nearly as much as a cash of $10,000.

Well thought out and explained Irie.

[handsome]

I think this post has some alright content, most of which most good SNG players are familiar with, but the way you expressed yourself is really bad.

"... that I don't even think Gigabet understands just how +EV that situation can be. (Actually, I think Gigabet does understand this.)" Just indicate that it's a very large exploit.

Also, a lot of these concepts are very general and it's gonna take a lot of experimentation to apply them "correctly"

[Irieguy]

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I think this post has some alright content, most of which most good SNG players are familiar with, but the way you expressed yourself is really bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

You mean I expressed myself really badly.

Irieguy

[The Yugoslavian]

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but the way you expressed yourself is really bad.

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Wow....if you're handsome...I don't wanna know what the ugly version of you is like.

You want Irie to like come over to your place with a chalkboard, chalk and a f*cking diagram in a Mr. Rogers getup or something?!?

I'm basically speechless after reading your post....all I can think of is:

Way to suck at life....

Yugoslav

[iMsoLucky0]

If it makes you feel any better, I liked your post [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Sabrazack]

So what you are saying people like Negreanu and Giga are accepting bad gambles in $EV because they want the glory of winning? Or do they take these -$EV gambles because they think they can use the chips if they win to gain more money than they lost from the bad gamble?

This made me think of a live rebuy tournament i was playing in, people who seemed to be pretty decent at poker were calling ALL-IN with all kinds of crap during the rebuy period. Do they think they can turn the possible winnings from these bad gambles into more +$EV than they loose from the gamble or are they just filthyrich kids who want to win the tournament?

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
So what you are saying people like Negreanu and Giga are accepting bad gambles in $EV because they want the glory of winning? Or do they take these -$EV gambles because they think they can use the chips if they win to gain more money than they lost from the bad gamble?

This made me think of a live rebuy tournament i was playing in, people who seemed to be pretty decent at poker were calling ALL-IN with all kinds of crap during the rebuy period. Do they think they can turn the possible winnings from these bad gambles into more +$EV than they loose from the gamble or are they just filthyrich kids who want to win the tournament?

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By definition, any gamble that figures to make money is +$EV.

The plays may be -$EV from an ICM standpoint, but they conclude that there are other things to consider that may make a -$icmEV play into a true +$EV play.

[johnnybeef]

[ QUOTE ]

The "correctness" of a -EV call is influenced primarily by the following conditions:

1. Calling and winning makes you a big stack
2. Calling and winning eliminates a player close to the money
3. Calling and losing will not eliminate you
4. The blinds are big


[/ QUOTE ]

ok, so how does this pertain to a situation that may be a +chip EV decision (but -$EV) such as this one

[Freudian]

I think without Gigabit explaining in detail how his game changes with a huge stack compared to a big stack we have no way of judging if it is a sound strategy in SnGs.

And I don't think he is particularly eager to do so (for obvious reasons). I have a hard time believing he can turn that 800 into 2000 on average, since it would mean his opponents never play back at him. And they are at least supposed to be a competent crowd, right? But it is possible that he is able to run over the table pre-bubble/bubble when he has 3k+ chips.

We have heard the uninteresting part of the story this far.