No-Limit Tournament "strategery"

[Iron Tigran]

I have watched ESPN's WSOP coverage over and over. It has made me think about poker, tournament poker, the role of luck in poker, etc.

One thing I wondered was, seeing stuff like Amir Vahedi (sp?) drop 1M chips in two hands... If your goal was simply to finish in the money, and not to win the whole thing, would a legit strategy be to, if you had amassed a great number of chips (several hundred K, f'rinstance), just stop playing? Just sit and wait for others to bust out...

A variation would be to only play when in the blinds, and/or when dealt great starting cards.

If you played not at all, it would be a race between the blinds eating you up and other folks busting out.

It is probably unwise, but I was just wondering...

[act]

You would not play like this in a regular tournament because it pays much better to finish high than just in the money, but a satelite would be a different matter. In a satelite you can be in a position where every hand should be folded preflop. If for example five players qualify, you are chip leader there are six players left and several small stacks you should probably fold anything (or at least almost anything).

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
If your goal was simply to finish in the money, and not to win the whole thing

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but most people's goal is to make the most money in the long run, in which case sitting on your hands once you get to the money is almost always bad strategy.


That being said, I can't understand what Vahedi was doing. It was either real stupid or so advanced I can't comprehend it.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Iron,

Yes, to some extent you have to protect a big stack, and there are times when the wiser course is to sit back and let the smaller stacks eat each other. But the blinds do escalate quickly and if you simply sit back and fold every hand, they will bleed away even a big stack very quickly.

An example from a two-table SNG at PokerStars: You're the chip leader with T9500 and six players remaining (top four pay, with the payout 40%-30%-20%-10%). Blinds are 300/600 with 50 antes.

It may seem as if the smart play is to sit back and let the small stacks die, but consider that it's costing you T1200 per round to sit there. What's more there's T1200 in the pot (blinds and antes) before anyone does anything, so the stacks can change radically in a single hand.

If you just sit on your lead like a hen on eggs, you'll find the foxes have come and stolen your eggs, and having had their fill of eggs for breakfast, they now want chicken for dinner.

At the WSOP and WPT events, the blinds relative to stack sizes are almost as severe in the final stages. And most of the money is in the top three places. So sitting on a stack is not a winning strategy.

Cris

[CrisBrown]

Hiya east,

I think Vahedi was just exhausted, to tell you the truth. He took the tough loss to Jason Lester when Lester had AK to Vahedi's KJ on an A-K-J flop, and that seemed to take all the life out of his eyes. After that, I think it was just a matter of time.

Cris

[HajiShirazu]

While I didn't see all of the hands, I am pretty certain that Vahedi was confident that he could come back for the win even after the Lester hand. He had won the 2,500 buy in event a few days before, and obviously this run couldn't just be due to good cards. Vahedi was likely at the top of his game, picking up reads on his opponents and probably being successful bluffing them out in situations just like when he tried to bluff out Sami Farha. Plus, with the big win in the 2,500 buy in a few days earlier, I don't think Amir cared so much about the money as the title, at least in this case. He wanted to win, and while he may have just given up, as was said, he may also have been thinking that he sensed weakness and that he could bluff out Farha. Of course Farha would have none of it, as with the exception of a few hands, he was also playing championship poker and was able to snap off his bluffs. It does help to have the nuts when your opponent is bluffing at you.
In the end Vahedi's luck just ran out.