sam farha vs. (unknown) day1 wsop

[illegit]

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Net, his EV is +63 here and good players don’t pass up EV+ opportunities.

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There is no way Farha could have calculated that at the table and been confident enough that he hadn't made an error to say it was barely, but surely, +EV. It's much more likely that he overestimated the payoff for hitting his set by underestimating the EV impact of Curtis's drawing out on the set anyway. In fact, if he knew with 100% certainty that his EV was exactly 63, I think he would have folded before the flop - too much risk for too little gain.

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This post makes no sense. The idea of EV is that the risk is already taken into account in the calculation itself. The calculations greg did TAKE INTO ACCOUNT the fact that his set could get redrawn on. It' STILL +EV. No, he likely didn't do the exact EV calculations, but so? If he was right he was right, whether it was intuition or calculation is highly irrelevant. Also, it would be even larger +EV if Anthony Curtis had 14K instead of 10K (which is how much he had according to his description of the situation). If he has 14K it's far and away an easy call and in fact a fold would be terrible. The risk = 1/22 of your stack (1K), reward = ~14K.

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We’ll the assume that sammy reads well enough to fold set under set.

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So does that mean that Sammy knew with 100% certainty that he had AA? What if Sammy hits his 3 and a K also flops? According to your EV calculation, the AA will go all-in and Sammy will call, winning a huge pot if there is no suck-out. Is he that sure that he doesn't have KK? If you're 100% certain that he will get away from set over set situations then you must also concede that there's a good chance he'll fold when he's ahead, fearing set over set. Using your exact EV calculation but saying that Sammy will fold his flopped set if either an A or K flop (instead of just an A), you get this:

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87.5% Sammy misses, the guy bets, Sammy fold, and he loses -1000

12.5% Sammy hits. This needs to be broken down into sub-cases
-- No A or K flops, AA goes all in, doesn’t suck out, and Sammy wins (69.5%)
-- No A or K flops, AA goes all in, AA sucks out, and Sammy loses (6.5%)
-- A or K flops (24%). We’ll the assume that sammy reads well enough to fold potential set under set.

.875 * -1,000 = -875
.125 *.695 * 10,075 = +875
.125 * .065 * -10,000 = -81
.125 * .24 * -1000 = -30


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Net EV: -111

Not looking so good anymore is it?

I also find it questionable that all of your scenarios when Sammy hits begin with "AA goes all in...". You're saying that the AA will go all-in no matter what flops? That's quite a read. Sure he's a donk, sure he's likely to make postflop errors after the massive overbet, but are you 100% certain you get his stack? If not, that knocks your EV even lower. (What if he acutally had KK and an ace flopped? You're probably not getting his whole stack there.)

I'm not saying it was a necessarily a bad move. I could see it maybe being good for meta-game reasons. I could also see Sammy just not giving a [censored] about 1k in chips and just wanting to gamble in a slightly -EV situation figuring that potentially gaining 10k that early in the tournament would give him a big advantage going forward. But as an individual hand in a vacuum, I don't think you can say this is +EV without making a lot of questionable assumptions about what the player has and how he will play it. (i.e. your assumption that Sammy knows he has AA and knows he will go all-in on any flop)

[Jordan Olsommer]

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This post makes no sense. The idea of EV is that the risk is already taken into account in the calculation itself. The calculations greg did TAKE INTO ACCOUNT the fact that his set could get redrawn on. It' STILL +EV. No, he likely didn't do the exact EV calculations, but so? If he was right he was right, whether it was intuition or calculation is highly irrelevant. Also, it would be even larger +EV if Anthony Curtis had 14K instead of 10K (which is how much he had according to his description of the situation). If he has 14K it's far and away an easy call and in fact a fold would be terrible. The risk = 1/22 of your stack (1K), reward = ~14K.

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This post makes no sense. Consider the "St. Petersburg Paradox", wherein somebody offers you a proposition based on flipping a coin until a head appears; you win 2^n dollars, where n is the number of flips it takes to finally produce a result of heads. So first flip comes up heads, you win $2. First tails, then heads, you win $4. If eighteen tails come up in a row, then one heads, you win $524,288.

You certainly wouldn't put up your entire life's savings just to play this game, but according to your reasoning in your post above, you should - this proposition has infinite EV ((1/2^n)*(2^n) = 1, and the sum an infinite number of ones is, well, infinite.)

Or surely if somebody offered you a proposition for your entire life's savings where you have a 1% shot of winning 10 billion dollars and a 99% shot of losing everything, you'd take it, right?.....right?

You are not at all considering the fact that you have a limited bankroll in tournaments - in these cases, EV is not everything.

*edit: By the way, "If he was right he was right, whether it was intuition or calculation is highly irrelevant" is also nonsense. It would take a superhuman intuition or superhuman calculating ability to get an answer of +63 EV and to be certain of that answer. It is much, much more likely that the thought that went through Farha's mind when he called Curtis's $1,000 bet was "if I flop a set and he doesn't flop a third ace [or king], I'm going to get all his chips."

[illegit]

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You are not at all considering the fact that you have a limited bankroll in tournaments

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Right... and 4% of his stack is.. way too much you're arguing? He can't "afford" to make this +EV call, why exactly? Because the devastating blow of going from 22K to 21K early in the tournament? LMAO.

But yeah, if the 10K is your total net worth or just more than you're confortable investing in a tournament, and that's going to make you pass up +EV situations you probably should not have entered the tournament.

EV is everything in every situation, tournament or no.

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Implied odds are the key--given Sammy's double up, the 1,000 chip raise means a lot more (double) to the raiser than to him. He knows he busts the guy if he hits, if he doesn't flop the 3, he's gone. I've seen this guy on other shows on like A&E talking about free comps, I wonder if he had some weird reason for raising 20x the BB and then popping for 6K on the flop--either way, a terrible waste of $10k for him, maybe he'll make it back off of cheap prime rib and double blackjacks.

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And another note while I'm on it (I post w/o reading responses, so if I repeat someone my apologies). Sammy's upside of going to 30K that early v. the downside of being back to starting 10k is hugely favorable given that he is a top class player. If he calls the 6 and A&E guy has some weird set over set, so be it---how many times have you busted out of a tournament w/ a smaller set? Not the usual conclusion to a ridiculous raise.

[Jordan Olsommer]

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EV is everything in every situation, tournament or no.

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Nonsense. Read my post again.

*edit: or if you don't take my word for it (which incidentally has nothing to do with me - I didn't discover the St. Petersburg Paradox, regrettably), here's what Saint Sklansky says in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, p. 18: "Balancing your quest for extra EV and your quest for survival is a major factor in proper tournament strategy. In a sidegame, this will not be a major consideration since you should almost always have enough money to keep playing (even if you have to reach into your pocket for more). That will often not be the case in a tournament and we will shortly see that some of the standard sidegame plays that you are used to making are not always correct at the tournament table."

[illegit]

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EV is everything in every situation, tournament or no.

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Nonsense. Read my post again.

*edit: or if you don't take my word for it (which incidentally has nothing to do with me - I didn't discover the St. Petersburg Paradox, regrettably), here's what Saint Sklansky says in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, p. 18: "Balancing your quest for extra EV and your quest for survival is a major factor in proper tournament strategy. In a sidegame, this will not be a major consideration since you should almost always have enough money to keep playing (even if you have to reach into your pocket for more). That will often not be the case in a tournament and we will shortly see that some of the standard sidegame plays that you are used to making are not always correct at the tournament table."

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I don't need to read it again, i read it perfectly. And yes, cEV isn't the be-all-end-all in tournaments, but $EV still is penultimate, tournament or no. That is there are situations you can pass on certain +cEV plays (specifically plays with high volatility), you can never pass on +$EV, and this call is likely both.

Once again, what is it about risking 1/22 of your stack with the possibility of nearly doubling it that is such an egrerious error?

[Jordan Olsommer]

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Once again, what is it about risking 1/22 of your stack with the possibility of nearly doubling it that is such an egrerious error?

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your hand is not always going to hold up, and sometimes you will run into set-over-set on the flop (the idea that anyone would be able to sniff out set-over-set 100% of the time with no false positives is garbage).

And I really hope that use of "penultimate" was a joke.

*edit: "$EV still is penultimate, tournament or no." Assuming by "penultimate" you mean "paramount", again see my earlier post. $EV is not "penultimate" in all cases, since unless you have an incredibly large amount of money relative to the stakes, you will have bankroll considerations. But like I said before, if you want to put your entire life's savings on the line with an 11-to-10 shot, be my guest.

[illegit]

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Once again, what is it about risking 1/22 of your stack with the possibility of nearly doubling it that is such an egrerious error?

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your hand is not always going to hold up, and sometimes you will run into set-over-set on the flop (the idea that anyone would be able to sniff out set-over-set 100% of the time with no false positives is garbage).


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Right. And even taking this fact into account it's still +EV. Haven't we been over this? Are you advocating NEVER playing any hands for set value because there's always a possibility of set-over-set? Or only not to do it when it represents the huge chunk of your stack that is 4%?