Nearly all respondents to my previous post (yesterday) feel that the magical ability to know the hole cards of everyone else at your table throughout a tournament would make you very likely to win the tournament. Percentages in the 90 to 99+ range appeared in a number of posts. Here are some reasons why I think the percentage is much lower:

1)The facts that we a dealing with: a) a tournament, and b) a large field, both seem important to me. You must accumulate chips fast enough to keep the escalating blinds from becoming a factor, or your flexibility will erode as time passes. Since it is a very large field, dozens among the hundreds at other tables will accumulate large stacks via the usual combinations of skill and luck. You will run into these people starting in the middle stages, you won't always have the dominant stack, and I think the blinds will often start to matter.

2) Usually, few big pots are played in the early rounds. The consensus strategy (with which I agree) is to avoid big confrontations early on unless you are a huge favorite. Such situations often won't arise frequently. Even when they do, you won't always win them. You are very likely to make the middle stages, but not necessarily with an overpowering stack.

3) Unexpected things happen. Sometimes you will "see" someone try to steal with J8, you will reraise with 96 because "he can't call," he'll call anyway, hit the flop and you'll have to fold. Granted, these things will happen a minority of the time, but in some tournaments it will be a big enough minority to be relevant.

4) With nine other people at the table, many of your pre-flop decisions will be murky. Example: Someone raises in early position with 66, you have AT, and someone behind you has KQ. If you fold in these situations, you will sometimes not get enough better ones for enough chips to build a big stack early. If you call, raise (or move-in), you will end up playing respectable-size pots where you are the favorite, but not overwhelmingly.

5) The cards and your opponents won't always cooperate with the approach of playing big pots only when you're either a monster favorite on (or maybe before) the flop or have the best hand on the river. Most often, the big money goes in before the river, and the pre-river monster favorite situations for big money aren't that frequent.

6) When the tournament "really starts" in the late stages, almost every pot is raised. Usually, you won't be a monster favorite over the raiser or over someone who calls your raise/reraise. You'll be facing a lot of 52/48 to 2/1 situations for decent money against short stacks who decide "it's time to gamble." and big stacks who get to act before you to punish the short stacks. Example: You have AQ utg, a small (but not microscopic) stack has 66, and the big blind (who has a big stack and is very aggressive) has KJ.

7) A 2x average player (which I postulated) will make mistakes, especially in multi-way pots. The magical powers don't include the ability to flawlessly calculate odds and EV under playing conditions.

SUMMARY OF MY THOUGHTS: If we were talking about live play, you would of course be unbeatable over any but short time frames. In a tournament with a lot (hundreds or more) of opponents, the escalating blinds and the finite number of hands played will eventually force you to play big pots as a less-than-overwhelming favorite against others whose stacks are relevant to you. It still seems to me that knowing the hole cards will increase your probability by a factor of around five, so that an above-average player might win 10% of the time and a great player (say 5x average without magic powers) might win 20 - 25 % of the time.

Bob Feduniak