Question on Behavior in Tournament Play

[pzhon]

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unless you have a good hand and you are betting for value, then it is of more value to you, if you lose the hand, but the small stack is eliminated, than if you push X of a hand,

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This is wrong. In the vast majority of situations, the value to you of eliminating the all-in player is negligible. The benefit is split among all of the players remaining in the tournament, and your share is rarely worth a sacrifice of equity.

It is silly to make a complete bluff into a dry sidepot. If you are sure you have no equity in the main pot, bluffing risks chips with no benefit. However, it is perfectly reasonable to make a protection bet into the sidepot without feeling you are a favorite over the player who is all-in, or a favorite when you are called.

[Vuron00]

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unless you have a good hand and you are betting for value, then it is of more value to you, if you lose the hand, but the small stack is eliminated, than if you push X of a hand,

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This is wrong. In the vast majority of situations, the value to you of eliminating the all-in player is negligible. The benefit is split among all of the players remaining in the tournament, and your share is rarely worth a sacrifice of equity.

It is silly to make a complete bluff into a dry sidepot. If you are sure you have no equity in the main pot, bluffing risks chips with no benefit. However, it is perfectly reasonable to make a protection bet into the sidepot without feeling you are a favorite over the player who is all-in, or a favorite when you are called.

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This post makes the point that I believe most people don't understand when betting.

If 2 players call an all-in by a 3rd, this leaves only the main pot with a 0 side pot. If you bet into an empty side pot, you risk tripling up the all-in player and winning 0 chips for your bet.

You can see a perfect example of this on the hand that The Mouth knocked out The Sheik at this year's WSOP. 2 players called his all-in and checked it down until Mike made the nuts and then bet. The other player knew that Mike had made his hand and congratulated him before he even saw his cards.

Don't bet into empty side pots!

[pzhon]

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it is perfectly reasonable to make a protection bet into the sidepot without feeling you are a favorite over the player who is all-in, or a favorite when you are called.

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This post makes the point that I believe most people don't understand when betting.

...
Don't bet into empty side pots!

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Sorry, it sounds like you missed my point after all.

Don't bluff into empty side pots.
It is often right to bet into empty sidepots.

[ALawPoker]

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This is wrong. In the vast majority of situations, the value to you of eliminating the all-in player is negligible. The benefit is split among all of the players remaining in the tournament, and your share is rarely worth a sacrifice of equity.

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You're right, but to be clear, in the example here -- 4 players left in a sng -- the value of eliminating a player is not negligible.


As far as #1 goes, you're not violating any unwritten etiquette. If all 3 of your stacks are relatively equal, it would generally be to all of your best interests to agree to it (preferably alternating who steals the BB), but there is no assumed obligation to do so. But if someone has a chip advantage he'd be foolish to accept the terms. A.) because the chips the other players would get would be relatively more valuable, and B.) because his advantage to use his stack on the payout bubble would be lost.

In fact, working off an away player's stack could be viewed as collusion. Even though he is away, he still has equity in the tournament. Working together to ensure that no one busts before this stack slides into the money or the player has time to return really is not much different than collusion in its more usual form.