Mathematical Expectation in tourneys vs. cash games

[jb9]

P.S. There is a very nice collection of tournament strategy discussions linked from the Multi-table tournament board link that includes some discussion of expectation (see "Woodguy isn't good enough to pass up small edges early..." and "How much of an edge would the best players fold early..." and others).

[SheridanCat]

[ QUOTE ]
In a ring game each hand has only one winner -- thats the end of it -- like one coin toss.

In a tournament there is only one winner -- the whole tournament is the game -- like one coin toss is one game. All the hands you played in the tournament all add up to produce your result -- winner or looser.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, I see where you're coming from, but you're being very results oriented. It's the combined expected value of all hands played that really matters. Individual results are statistically meaningless.

Regards,

T

Thanks all for your replies, and I believe that jb9 has hit the core of my question right on -- johnzzz to a point also. Tourneys and Ring games seem like completely different animals because the hands in tourneys are interelated into groups called a tournament that awards certain prizes for doing well within that specific period -- only the results of hands within the same tourney will affect moneying in or just busting out of the game and loosing both the buy-in and the possible reward; a collection of all tourney hands are meaningless without having them in the correct groupings within a certain tourney inorder to money. While in ring games, each game is independent of another (if you don't consider image history and limitations caused by ones small bankroll) and one's entire life of playing ring games is one large collection of independent events which will theoretically met the mathematical expection. I also posted my question under Poker Theory >> Forming a book reading/study group for: "The Theory of Poker" and have a response from xhad that is along the lines of jb9 and johnzzz.

With the creature identified (if you agree that they are different), I Hope to get more of your personal experiences of dealing with this other thing called a tournament.

Thank you, jb9, for your thoughts:

[ QUOTE ]
Since the goal is to win the tournament (or at least be in the money), your decisions should be directed toward achieving that goal, not maximizing the long term mathematical expectation of the cards you are holding.

Depending upon the circumstances, the correct tournament strategy with a hand like KTo when it is folded to you in middle position when you are on the bubble could be to fold, raise 3-6x the big blind, or go all in. Early in a tournament, the correct stategy would usually be to fold.

Whatever mathematical expectation KTo has on a particular hand is less important than (1) how valuable it would be to steal the blinds, (2) how likely you are to be able to steal them, and (3) what are the best/worst things that could happen on this hand (i.e., could you get knocked out of the tournament or could you knock someone else out?).

Also, remember that in a tournament you can benefit by not playing a hand (e.g., when someone gets eliminated), which is another major difference from cash game play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been recommended Sklansky's Tournament Poker for Advance Players and the MTT/STT posts from a few of you who responded -- thank you, and I will definitely read them. But with these posts, I'm more interested in you personal ways of handling these creatures called tournaments. Do share...

Thanks again for sharing your experience. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[pzhon]

EV makes sense even when you can't repeat the exact event. You should still make the plays that maximize your expected value, which in the vast majority of the cases means maximizing your expected chips.

The main differences between tournament play and NL cash games come from the different stack sizes. It is almost always right in both situations to make the plays that accumulate the most chips on average, but which plays those are changes based on the stack sizes. Stacks are generally much shallower in tournaments.

People commonly overrate survival. In MTTs, it is rarely a good idea to give up chips to survive. Exceptions may include the final table or if you have a short stack on the bubble. In STTs, surviving the bubble is more important because more of the pize money is distributed on the bubble. Players who value suvival too highly have an exploitable weakness, one that good players exploit routinely.

I actually came across this website a few weeks agot b/c I wanted an answer to the very same question... By my reckoning you have hit the nail on the head in your most recent post.

Look at the ICM calculator link and it's explanation under the FAQ in One-table tournaments. It satisfied me.

I think that there are cases where it may make sense to sacrifice a marginal +EV play if calling would put your entire tournament in jeopardy.

However, the thing is that these situations occur much less often than you probably think.

It is important to remember that tournaments are not just about survival - they are about winning. Playing a "survival" strategy may work at certain points, but if you keep playing that way, you are likely to make it into the big money only on very rare occasions.