ICM/SNGPT rambling thoughts(long)

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sometimes pushing a very small +$EV play is incorrect.

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Wrong by definition. We play poker to get as much EV as possible.

+EV is good. +EV is good. +EV is good.

That's it (except for gamblers' ruin).

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Again, arguments that say that +EV plays are incorrect are inherently wrong by definition of EV, with the notable but hopefully atopical exception of gambler's ruin. Don't play above your bankroll, and squeeze as much EV out of your play as possible.

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What about situations where there is an expected greater +EV event in the near future, like the proverbial coinflip example in TPFAP?

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That's a -EV play. Making a play that gives you +EV now at the sacrifice of EV later can certainly be negative.

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I offer you a dice game. You pay $10 to play. On a roll of 1-5 you win $3. On a roll of six you lose. Good bet? But you have to roll the dice 15 times before you can collect and if you roll a six you lose all your winnings and your $10 entry. Still a good bet? How many required rolls would make this a good game for you? Or if you have to roll the dice 15 times how high does the +EV on each roll have to be to make it a good game?

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This is not a good example. Sometimes you are called and win, which your example does not factor in. Sometimes you are called and lose, but you cover your opponent so you don't lose everything.

Part of the EV of making pushing things like K5o in the SB is that sometimes you will get called by A8o and suck out, your equity in the pot is not just FE.

Edit: of course, if you don't think that ICM accurately reflects the expected value of your chips, then obviously you can argue with the $EV numbers. But as long as you have a sufficient bankroll, while of course you will have downswings from when you lose showdowns from making +$EV decisions, in the long run you will make money.

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Yeah, I admit the example over simplifies things. The point was that push/fold decisions are not independent trials.

Say you have a huge series of independant trials. You divide this series into groups of any size. The sum of the results for each group will be equal to the sum of the whole series.

SNG pushes don't work this way. Because one negative result can erase several previous positive ones. The size of the groups matters.

Nobody advocates pushing every +0.1%$EV hand. Why? Because there are so many. You would be involved in so many hands with a small advantage that you almost guarantee losing one of them.

Everybody accepts that +0.5% is good enough to push. But why?

Every tourney involves a string of +$EV push/fold situations. I am trying to quantify the length of the string.

If you have X BB you are likely to see Y number of +$EV situations. How high does +$EV need to be to belong in the string?

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What you seem to be repeatedly saying is that there's something more than EV that you're playing for. If your only goal in playing poker is to make money (which is an assumption that I think should be assumed by this forum), you should make +EV plays.

Example: if you offer me 1-1 on a coin flip when I know that the coin is slightly weighted towards heads, I'll take the bet at some amount such that I'll be able to take the swings, and I'll take it repeatedly. I'll even take it double or nothing, until it gets so large that it's unreasonable to make the bet relative to my bankroll.

Your independent trials argument holds some weight, but not in the way you make it. Again, the fact that these are not independent trials means that pushing one hand widens your opponents' calling ranges on the next hand. This should be factored into your decisions (and might be the justification for the arbitrary cutoff point in SnGPT). However, it's an extremely weak effect because most pushes are still pushes even against large calling ranges.

Also, this effect has most of it's significance when your push makes others fold (A called all in tends to change things a lot on the bubble, so these small changes aren't nearly as significant as the other things that may happen... you may be out.. you may be ITM... there may now be a crippled stack.. you may now have a crippled stack, etc.). Since a push that makes everyone else fold wins you the blinds, losing FE on the next hand doesn't matter much (as long as you acknowledge it in your thought process) because it can't on average cost you more than the blinds (Think about why this is if you don't understand it. It's rather annoying to explain but I'm 110% sure that it's true).

Please don't laugh at EV. Two cents of EV is two cents as far as anyone here should be concerned.

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Thanks for the well thought out post.

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Thus, passing on a slightly +EV situation can be correct since we are minimizing our chances of going broke and affording our opponents more oppertunities to make mistakes. This can result in greater +EV situations later on. Although ICM can't directly quantify this effect, we can approximate it by using rules like eastbay's >0.5%.



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Don't misunderstand this post as an "ICM doesn't work and that's why I can't win" post. ICM has been a tremendous tool and I have been very successful using it. I have been playing at the 20s much longer than my bankroll dictates and have a 25% ROI over 1000 games.

At this level I feel that the factor you listed above is much greater (on average) than the 0.5% fudge factor. This is especially true when you are on the high end of the 10BB range and are risking elimination. I think many people know this intuitivly and don't go into "pure ICM mode" until they are below 8BB. At the higher buy-ins, as the skill levels become closer, this discrepancy probably diminishes.

This is what I am trying to quantify.

I know it will be buy-in dependant. But I think some analysis of how many ICM pushes are made in a typical SNG and the chance of being eliminated somewhere along the way should yield a better guideline than +0.5% is goot enough.

I believe a sliding scale based on stacksize could be developed.

Wish my programming skills weren't 15 years out of date.

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Realize that the skill advantage goes down significantly as the blinds increase. Thus, when pushing time comes around it is very small. This is one of the reasons why most of us play tightly early.

[derdo]

$EV is $EV. That's right but what OP is trying to say is there is no way you can calculate the expected value of a move in SNG even if you knew everyone's hands.
You can estimate it with ICM (or with some other model or by guessing) but it is just a model. For some chip distributions it works fine but sometimes it is way off.

So the point is, insisting on a play only because ICM or another model says $EV=+$0.02 for some calling range of the opponent is not wise.
You are right, you should never pass up +$EV if there is 0 risk of ruin. However, calculating the exact $EV is impossible in SNGs. I think this was the real point of OP and I agree with it 100%.

In OP's coinflip example it is possible to calculate the exact $EV so if it is +$EV you should take it. It is not a very good example to suppport the real point.

Again, the $EV calculation we make for SNG tourneys using either ICM or another method are biased and based on assumptions about how opponents play and are approximations at best.

So, one can argue passing a +$EV move in a SNG. Because whatever method you use to calculate $EV of a play in a SNG it will still be an estimate at best.

[golfcchs]

What about the idea that if two people go all in pre flop there combined ev goes down while the rest of the tables ev goes up?vNot sure if this is exactly true, but remember something like this being said some where before.

[golfcchs]

I think I agree with the OP here. Let’s see if this example helps to illustrate the point

Lets say hypothetically you are four handed on the bubble and lets say every time it is folded to you IMC says its a .1% $EV push. Now to get in the money you believe you will need to make 20 of these .1% $EV pushes, but if you loose one of these you will bust out. Now is it profitable to make this 20 .1% $EV pushes, or is should you wait for better $EV spots because you will probably not be able to make 20 pushes without loosing one of them. I know this is an extreme situation, but I think this is the general idea the OP is trying to make. If you have to make x amount of small $EV pushes without loosing a single one could it be possible better to wait for a more + $EV push so you do not have to avoid busting out so many times.

I may be way off base here, but I think this is the general idea the OP is trying to make. If I am is there some flaw in my thinking that I'm not seeing?

[BadMongo]

Along with the OP, you seem to be confusing cEV with $EV. $EV takes into consideration the chance that you will bust when pushing. If this chance is significant, the equity you gain by winning will have to be huge to offset that chance. Likewise, if you gain little equity by pushing and winning, your chances of surviving the push must be very high.

Let me give you a counter example to illustrate this.

Suppose we are playing a 50+5 and it's 4 handed. Everyone has equal stacks of t2500, blinds are 15/30. Your opponents are a bunch of pussies who are scared to go out in 4 and will only call an open push by you if they hold AA. You have 22 UTG and (stupidly) push all-in because you calculated that pushing here is +0.1% $EV (which it is... you can plug the numbers into SGA to see for yourself).

Now, let's suppose, as in your example, that you expect to be confronted with 20 or so +0.1% $EV pushes like this one. Your argument is that you should fold these borderline +EV situations because the chance of busting in one of them is too great. This is wrong, because ICM has already taken this into account.

Your chances of simply picking up the blinds when your opponents will only call with AA is huge - 98.5% in this case. So you are only called 1.5% of the time, and furthermore, 22 will only lose against AA 81.5% of the time. So you only bust out (1.5% x 81.5%) = 1.2% of the time you push. Therefore, you chances of busting over the entire string of 20 pushes is 1 - (98.8%)^20 = 21.5%, and that's assuming you lose back any chips you pick up during that string of pushes.

The moral of the story is that a low +$EV situation does not necessarily mean it is a high "risk-of-ruin" play. Unlike cEV, $EV considers your chances of busting and the effect that has on your prize equity.

[golfcchs]

I some what agree with you on this, but I believe the OP is saying the IMC is not perfect and could leading you to -$EV by taking lots of very small $EV pushes. I do not necessarily agree with this I just think it should be looked into more.

As for you example could you not have low $EV push with a high chance of busting if you hold a terrible hand and opponent has loose range. Like 32o and loose calling range of opponent. I do think IMC is a great tool, but think it is over valued sometimes on this forum.

[BadMongo]

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I believe the OP is saying the IMC is not perfect and could leading you to -$EV by taking lots of very small $EV pushes

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This makes no sense. Your average gain in EV is simply the sum of all those small +EV pushes. If they are all positive, you can they sum to a negative number?

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As for you example could you not have low $EV push with a high chance of busting if you hold a terrible hand and opponent has loose range. Like 32o and loose calling range of opponent.

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Of course. I was just trying to illustrate the fact that a small +EV push, or even many small +EV pushes, does not necessarily imply a high risk of busting out.

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I do think IMC is a great tool, but think it is over valued sometimes on this forum.

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I disagree completely. If anything, ICM is undervalued. If you mean it is misused sometimes, then yes, I agree, but when ICM is applied properly it is a very powerful tool.