[maddog2030]

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There are some funky implications from this. One is the obvious one about taking close gambles midgame. Another is the 'Gigablock' idea that even a -EV play can be good if the result when you win is a big stack and a loss does not take you below everyone else. Another logical conclusion is that when a big stack raises a medium stack, the medium stack does not lose as much EV as the chips say by folding. There's some other things in there I want to play around with when I get bored later, too.

But the problem with the math is that if everyone plays correctly, the big stack will feed the short stack and starve the medium stacks. How do you overcome that, other than by being dealt aces a lot? I'm not sure of where I am going with this, but I think there's a solution somewhere.

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I've done a decent amount of studying/research/thinking on this. The short answer is that, like most situations in poker, you can't really overcome it. You're inherently at a disadvantage. You expect to lose chips (assuming correct play by your opponents of course) as the tournament goes on. If you can understand this effect you can understand why taking a seemingly -EV play in the right conditions is actually +EV. You're essentially getting yourself out of that rutt and into a situation where someone else is that medium stack that everyone feeds off of.

I can go into more detail when I have more time, but for now I have to go.

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One thing that I'm thinking is that, when the big stack does occasionally fold, the medium stack becomes the effective big stack and can bully some himself.

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Kind of. It definitely changes the dynamics, but I don't know if "effective bigstack" is a good way of describing it. I'll try to go into my thoughts later.