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Matros has done a clear and concise job of explaining it and backing it up with math.

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Respectfully nath, Matros didn't prove anything with the math in his article.

He says that he has won about 53% of his doubles. Ok fine.

What he has not done is demonstrate any correlation between those doubles and his finishes. Further, he has not done any correlation between those times where he lost the chance to double, but did not bust out and still finished in the money or high up in the money.

I will go out on a limb and speculate that in those tournaments where he has finished very highly that those doubles have come at very key points in the tournament, such as right before the money or at the FT.

I would further speculate that he has probably rarely if ever risked a double very early in a big ticket tournament, and then gone on to a high finish or a win.

If you want to restate the conditions and ask do I take this bet later on in a tournament, then sure, I think everyone and their brother fades the bet. But first hand, I don't think so.

Also, with respect to your point about how to treat tournaments, I made a post recently about generally treating tournaments with the same mindset as a single hand.

In all fairness to you and another poster, I can admit that you have a valid point that to me there is a difference between a $30 tournament and a $10K tournament. Perhaps to both of you there is no difference.

But in all fairness to me, at the small entry MTTs that I play in, I see all kinds of nut-cases and supposed internet rated "top players" busting out or doubling up in the first hand or two. For those that did double, I cannot recall a single instance where the player finished high in the money or won.

You can and have demonstrated the linear increase in expectation by an early double. However, you or anyone else has not established an correlation between an early double and higher finish versus a double at some other point.

The real question is whether or not a first hand double is statistically significant or not. To me, it seems intuitively obvious that the larger the tournament, the less significance the early double would have.

Now if you want to change the parameters and say it is now a 10-player single table $10k freezeout, then I say, heck yeah, I'll fade the bet in a heartbeat. But a 1000-player event, I don't think so.