Hand from Super Thursday final table

[gumpzilla]

Now you've confused me. Your equity in a prize pool of 61,000 is going to be far better than 6100 no matter what the chip situation is unless you're playing winner takes all at that point. But that's not the case. This calculation is pretty muddled, unless I'm missing something, and you can't take its results very seriously.

EDIT: Okay, it looks like it's not actually three handed, which makes a big difference to what I was saying. Still, I'm not convinced that this is a valid approach to distinguishing $ EV from chip EV.

EDIT AGAIN: Here's an example of why I think this can't be a good way to handle $EV. Let's say I have 1% of the chips in play, 6 handed. Now somebody else busts. Your calculations suggest that my equity in the tournament has gone down. But this is pretty clearly false, as before I was very likely to finish in 6th, whereas now I'm guaranteed at least 5th.

[Lloyd]

Here's another question:

How do you do these calculations in your mind at a live tourney? Obviously, you need to be able to put your opponent on a range of hands and determine how your hand measures against that. And then figure out the EV of the various decisions. But what's the easiest way of doing that without sacrificing too much accuracy. I'm assuming that one has the ability to do multiple calculations without a calculator or pen and paper.

[Lloyd]

[ QUOTE ]
Now you've confused me. Your equity in a prize pool of 61,000 is going to be far better than 6100 no matter what the chip situation is unless you're playing winner takes all at that point. But that's not the case. This calculation is pretty muddled, unless I'm missing something, and you can't take its results very seriously.

EDIT: Okay, it looks like it's not actually three handed, which makes a big difference to what I was saying. Still, I'm not convinced that this is a valid approach to distinguishing $ EV from chip EV.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is the only approach I'm aware of. FYI, my degree was in Finance and I'm a CFA. So while not having a PhD in mathematics I have always had a good grasp of numbers. You can challenge the assumptions, but the calculations are correct and so is the approach. We've done these calculations over and over on this board and other than subtle differences I haven't see anyone do it any other way.

[gumpzilla]

I'm not trying to insult your grasp of mathematics, and I'm sorry if you felt that was my intent. What I'm trying to argue is that I don't think that this is a very solid way of establishing $ EV. I think it's a reasonably common approximation, but it makes at least a couple of obviously wrong predictions:

1) My previous example where another player busting hurts the equity of a short stack.

2) If you have a sufficiently large stack, you can have an equity that exceeds 1st place.

I realize that there are going to be flaws in just about any model of $ EV, but these both seem pretty egregious to me.

[freemont]

[ QUOTE ]
The thing about that dynamic is that it will lead you to be able to build your stack up again if you lose. If nobody wants to call big bets you will be able to push with abandon and grow your stack back up even without picking up cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point MLG, that's something I really hadn't considered at the time.

[MLG]

Honestly, you guess. You look at the guy, you think about the hands he might do this with, you think, hmm well the pot is laying me this, and i probably stack up at about this, I (insert call/fold). Then later you run the numbers and compare your assumption with the numbers. The more often you do this the better your guesses become.

Also, sometimes live you will be able to narrow your opponents range down to a very narrow spectrum.

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]

you don't want to take an even money gamble.

[/ QUOTE ]

sorry, i just glanced at your calculations and thought you were doing a straight chipEV calculation.

FWIW, the most widely accepted chip->cash formula is the independent chip model. it doesn't have problems like 99% of chips > first place prize money. you can google it.

[Lloyd]

One thing I didn't do is factor in the 6th place winnings into the calculation. Everyone is obviously guaranteed to win $4,230. So if somebody had 1 chip their expected share of the prize pool is essentially $4,230. If they had 1% of the chips, it would be $4,230 + 1% of the prize pool for 1st through 5th. And if we call and win we are guaranteed 5th place money. We factor that in by including the difference between the two in one of the calculations.

So the revised calculations would be:

If you fold: ($57,632 * 26%) = $14,984 (plus the 6th place money)

If you call and win: $1,057 + (52,345 * 44%) = $24,089 (plus the sixth place money)
If you call and lose: (57,632 * 10%) = $5,763 (plus the 6th place money)
Value of calling = 15,417 + 2,075 = $17,492

The end result is the same but this is more precise and takes into consideration the shortstack scenario you presented.

The calculation for how our hand needs to measure up against the range is changed to:

(($1057 + (52,345 * .44)) * W) + (57,632 * .1 *(1-W))+ 1 = $15,084
24089W + 5763 - 5763W + 1 = 15084
18326W = 9320
W = 9320/18326
W = 51%

This does, in fact, change the calling hands to:

AA-44
AKs-A7s
AKo-A8o

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's another question:

How do you do these calculations in your mind at a live tourney? Obviously, you need to be able to put your opponent on a range of hands and determine how your hand measures against that. And then figure out the EV of the various decisions. But what's the easiest way of doing that without sacrificing too much accuracy. I'm assuming that one has the ability to do multiple calculations without a calculator or pen and paper.

[/ QUOTE ]

honestly, I guesstimate. I see what price i'm being given. I do some quick guestimations of my tourney equity based on my chip position if I call and win vs. if I call and lose. I think about other considerations like table toughness, how easy it is to steal blinds, how many short stacks there are that are apt to go bust soon (thus move me up the pay scale). I don't come close to doing any sophisticated calculations based on the assumptions, but you would be surprised how accurate your instincts can become if you think about situations like this often.
I believe that is one of the best tools that twoplustwo offers: the ability to train your instincts by thinking, talking, discussing situations that we come face every day. This approach can really be applied to most aspects of tournament play, not just endgame chipEV vs. cashEV calculations.

[Lloyd]

As far as I know, ICM only considers the top 3 payouts since it was designed for SNGs. Is there another version for MTTs?