I know this may be controversial to some of you...

[MagnoliasFM]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't understand the reluctance, common to this forum, about gambling early in the tournament. A player whose ROI would be 18% if he refused to gamble all his chips on a 50/50 on the first hand of every tournament figures to increase his hourly rate by over 20% if he chooses to accept that gamble, assuming he increases his equity by a factor of 1.9 when he doubles up.

I suppose you might argue that his normal ROI is as high as 18% largely because he tends to "wait for better spots" and get his chips in as a large favorite against the loosey-gooseys. This IMO is bull. With his fold-fold-fold strategy in the early going, he rarely has a chance to snag the looseys before they lose all their chips to someone else. Many times these loose players luck into big stacks and make all sorts of trouble for our Hero come bubble time with their wild&wacky calling standards. As long as Hero is a sufficiently winning player (gambling early isn't a good idea if your ROI is very small) and knows how to handle a big stack (i.e. he actually increases his equity by at least 1.9 when he doubles up), he does better taking a 50/50 on the first hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Doubling up early is a huge advantage to a 2+2 player because it almost guarantees a smooth ride into the "push or fold" rounds where you have an enormous edge. If you don't take early gambles you have to start desperately pushing as soon as the blinds get to 50-100 and win a coinflip to double up. Why not gamble early instead when you get the better of it vs. worse players? They don't care about how high the blinds are...they'll call you with AJ etc.

[Oluwafemi]

[ QUOTE ]

But early in a sit and go if you are faced with a non steal raise and the blinds are low, please stop reraising with AK!! Just call and play the hand!!!! I really hate reraising with AK in some of the posts I've just read (like 3 in the last 15 minutes), so I'll just make a blanket statement.

Trust me it'll make your life much easier.

[/ QUOTE ]

i had to learn this the hard way through experience. i'm glad i learned this in the $5.50s and $11s than at the $55s-$215s.

[45suited]

[ QUOTE ]
btw everything is situational, Im basically talking about when the stacks are deep. In your situation where you say there is a raise to 90 and a call for 90, I would usually move allin if I had 800 chips, because the stacks aren't deep enough.

However if it's a raise to 45 and a call for 45, I would just flat call.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly the way I feel. I made a more controversial statement earlier today in response to an AK post. IMO, some losing players on the lower levels overplay AK so badly (automatically continuation betting and building huge pots with nothing, especially against multiple opponents) that I would not be surprised if the average losing player at the 11s and 22s only played PPs in level 1, their ROI would improve. Or at the very least, only played AK one of two ways: all-in preflop or fold.

(I'm not suggesting that as a long term strategy, since every player should try to improve, but I honestly see people knock themselves out of tournaments so often at the 11s and 22s by butchering AK that I'd like to see a losing player take this approach just to see if it helps their results.)

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't understand the reluctance, common to this forum, about gambling early in the tournament. A player whose ROI would be 18% if he refused to gamble all his chips on a 50/50 on the first hand of every tournament figures to increase his hourly rate by over 20% if he chooses to accept that gamble, assuming he increases his equity by a factor of 1.9 when he doubles up.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem with that reasoning is that you assume Hero won't have a chance to accumulate a lot of chips when he calls with AK instead of trying to get all the chips in preflop. That is simply not the case. AK should be a winning hand in level 1-2 when you include postflop play. And you definately won't lose your entire stack when the board doesn't help you at all.

When you take 50/50 situations in level one you don't even beat the wig. And that you can squeeze more of those situations in per hour just because you bust so often in 10th is backwards logic. Because all you accomplish is having to lean more on your other skills in the other SnGs you play to support your early gambling in the previous SnG.

A player that doesn't have a higher profit from entering level 2 in two SnGs with 800 (or 1000) chips compared to a single SnG with 1600 (or 2000) has some serious flaws in his game.

[curtains]

1 pair is usually enough in these sit and gos to get all your chips in, so you don't really have to worry about that.

[microbet]

The thing I'm a bit on the fence about with AK is continuation bets.

There are a lot of situations where it seems like a continuation bet seems to maybe work often enough, but maybe not.

[AceofSpades]

[ QUOTE ]
The thing I'm a bit on the fence about with AK is continuation bets.

There are a lot of situations where it seems like a continuation bet seems to maybe work often enough, but maybe not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I get into trouble with those too...Which is why I like
limp reraising AK all-in to a single raise (but folding to another person's reraise of the original raise) or open pushing into a field of limpers. Seems to work pretty well. But I'm happy to pick up 100-200 chips with AK.

[45suited]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah I get into trouble with those too...Which is why I like limp reraising AK all-in to a single raise (but folding to another person's reraise of the original raise) or open pushing into a field of limpers. Seems to work pretty well. But I'm happy to pick up 100-200 chips with AK.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that this is good, simple advice for the lower level players to follow. Especially if their post flop skills are poor, this is great advice.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]

The problem with that reasoning is that you assume Hero won't have a chance to accumulate a lot of chips when he calls with AK instead of trying to get all the chips in preflop. That is simply not the case. AK should be a winning hand in level 1-2 when you include postflop play. And you definately won't lose your entire stack when the board doesn't help you at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that in many situations flat-calling with AK is more +$EV. However, situations when flat-calling is dubious, like the two I outlined, crop up quite often.

[ QUOTE ]
When you take 50/50 situations in level one you don't even beat the wig. And that you can squeeze more of those situations in per hour just because you bust so often in 10th is backwards logic. Because all you accomplish is having to lean more on your other skills in the other SnGs you play to support your early gambling in the previous SnG.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see the flaw in my logic that you do. Say I play the $20s and make an average of $26 for every tournament I enter, for a net profit of $4/tournament. Now, say I can choose whether to take a 50/50 on the first hand of each tournament. If I don't, I expect to win $52 over 2 tournaments. My net profit will be $8 and my rate will be $4/tournament-hour.
If I do choose to take the flip, I will make $0 one out of every two times and a bit less than $52 the other time. Doubling up on the first hand probably doesn't quite double one's equity, but it's close. So say I make $26*1.9 when I win my coinflips. My total over two tournaments is then $49.40. My profit plummets to only $2.7/tournament, but my rate rises to $5.40/tournament hour.
Not only do I beat the vig, I gain ($1.40/tournament-hour)/tournament-hour.

[ QUOTE ]
A player that doesn't have a higher profit from entering level 2 in two SnGs with 800 (or 1000) chips compared to a single SnG with 1600 (or 2000) has some serious flaws in his game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, your ROI will go down quite a bit. But your hourly rate will increase, as shown above.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]

Sure, your ROI will go down quite a bit. But your hourly rate will increase, as shown above.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's where we differ. I don't think a player who busts out in 10th in half of the tournaments/and doubles up in level 1 half of the time is a winning player at all no matter how many new tourneys they start up in an hour.

Of course this is disguised by this situation not happening often enough to make a serious dent in an otherwise winning players ROI.

I don't want to discourage people from doing it of course. I would be delighted if a solid player takes a coinflip vs a donks PP in level 1 on a regular basis.