Is it good to stay in the red zone?

[kuro]

This conversation isn't really going any where until you talk about what kind of marginal situations you are passing up with 9xbb. There's a good chance that others are passing up the same situation hoping for a better situation but they aren't doing it because they want to be in the red zone where anything you push is ev due to the blinds + antes making up 1/2 your stack.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
This conversation isn't really going any where until you talk about what kind of marginal situations you are passing up with 9xbb. There's a good chance that others are passing up the same situation hoping for a better situation but they aren't doing it because they want to be in the red zone where anything you push is ev due to the blinds + antes making up 1/2 your stack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Say the blinds are 200/400/25 and you have T3600 and AJs UTG. Pushing may be about EV even, but you may be better off folding. After going through the blinds, you have T2700 in late position and you will probably have better opportunities to push. If the blinds go up to 300/600/50, you will be able to push with almost anything and even get good pot odds to call a raise.

[Superfluous Man]

Imagine you have an exam in Differential Equations. You get the exam and the questions are too hard. So, instead of doing all those tough integrals and stuff, you write your own questions, like "what is the product of 8 and 7?" It's easy to come up with 56. Much, much easier than actually thinking about differential equations.

...but you're still going to get an F.

It's easy to be right for the sake of being right. It's much less trivial to maximize your EV in a tournament. To win the tournament, you must accumulate all the chips in play. Having more chips in a tournament increases your EV, at the cost of having to make more difficult decisions. Am I missing something here?

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
It's easy to be right for the sake of being right. It's much less trivial to maximize your EV in a tournament. To win the tournament, you must accumulate all the chips in play. Having more chips in a tournament increases your EV, at the cost of having to make more difficult decisions. Am I missing something here?

[/ QUOTE ]

I won $5K in an online tournament once. I finished 8th. I was in 3rd place with 4.5xBB when I busted out. In this case, I was in the top 5 most of the time since there were 200 left. However, it would have been possible to stay in the red zone the whole way and win the tournament.

[mts]

congrats for being very lucky

You dont win tournaments when your constantly allin with your tourny life on the line.

[Superfluous Man]

[ QUOTE ]

I won $5K in an online tournament once. I finished 8th. I was in 3rd place with 4.5xBB when I busted out. In this case, I was in the top 5 most of the time since there were 200 left. However, it would have been possible to stay in the red zone the whole way and win the tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]
OK, so if the entire field is extremely short, it is like you're taking an arithmetic exam (as opposed to a diff. eq. exam). So, you get an A here for knowing 7*8 = 56. It's a different story when the average itself is above the "red zone."

My analogies suck.

[Autocratic]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This conversation isn't really going any where until you talk about what kind of marginal situations you are passing up with 9xbb. There's a good chance that others are passing up the same situation hoping for a better situation but they aren't doing it because they want to be in the red zone where anything you push is ev due to the blinds + antes making up 1/2 your stack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Say the blinds are 200/400/25 and you have T3600 and AJs UTG. Pushing may be about EV even, but you may be better off folding. After going through the blinds, you have T2700 in late position and you will probably have better opportunities to push. If the blinds go up to 300/600/50, you will be able to push with almost anything and even get good pot odds to call a raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference in position there is significant regardless of stack size. A late position push with mediocre cards if you're the first in, will usually be a better option than pushing a decent hand UTG.

I still think your theory is ridiculous. It has truth to it, but that doesn't defeat the simple premise that when you have a shorter stack, the ideal outcome of these slightly more abundant +EV situations is that you then double that stack. You may have more opportunities for +EV, and it's certainly a bit simpler to play, but your ideal result is a double up, which leaves you with your less ideal stack. It's not that your theory doesn't have merit - it's just irrelevant.

[Whitey]

[ QUOTE ]
It's not that your theory doesn't have merit - it's just irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
I still think your theory is ridiculous. It has truth to it, but that doesn't defeat the simple premise that when you have a shorter stack, the ideal outcome of these slightly more abundant +EV situations is that you then double that stack. You may have more opportunities for +EV, and it's certainly a bit simpler to play, but your ideal result is a double up, which leaves you with your less ideal stack. It's not that your theory doesn't have merit - it's just irrelevant.


[/ QUOTE ]

But maybe you shouldn't take unnecessary risks to obtain pr maintain this medium stack when you can get it more easily with a short stack.

Also you can maintain a short stack for a long time and then turn it into a medium or large stack when you get the right opportunities.

[Autocratic]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I still think your theory is ridiculous. It has truth to it, but that doesn't defeat the simple premise that when you have a shorter stack, the ideal outcome of these slightly more abundant +EV situations is that you then double that stack. You may have more opportunities for +EV, and it's certainly a bit simpler to play, but your ideal result is a double up, which leaves you with your less ideal stack. It's not that your theory doesn't have merit - it's just irrelevant.


[/ QUOTE ]

But maybe you shouldn't take unnecessary risks to obtain pr maintain this medium stack when you can get it more easily with a short stack.

Also you can maintain a short stack for a long time and then turn it into a medium or large stack when you get the right opportunities.

[/ QUOTE ]

In my opinion, working on your medium stack game is necessary, not ignoring it and just working with short or big stacks.

And of course you turn a short stack into a medium one when you get the right opportunities - we didn't need this theory to tell us to take +EV situations.