Matt Matros article in Cardplayer about coinflips

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I've seen players in tournaments of various sizes who rather than avoid the 50/50s (and sometimes even some less favorable odds) actively seek out such situations early in a tournament in an effort to either quickly accumulate chips or bust out and do something else with their time (as opposed to spending several hours to just barely make the money or end up busting out on the bubble b/c of a low chip stack).
Tiffany



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You can't be serious. If that "logic" is true, then the player should take his buy-in to do the whatever is better option , skipping the tournament completely

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I am serious as I have seen people do it (or at least this is the explanation they've given at the time). In reading the posts here I can see arguments for taking on the 50/50 chances and arguments against risking your entire tournament on such situations. I'm not sure which is better/correct; it may be as previously suggested that it all depends on the player's skill level. The more highly skilled players will probably be capable of grinding their way through the less skilled players in the tournament; but I do see the "logic" (or thinking) of people who prefer to take a 50/50 early in a tournament, even if it means their tournament life is on the line, in order to acquire the chips they believe necessary to allow them to place higher or ultimately win the tournament.

Tiffany

Thing is, people have argued about passing up on edges ranging from 60/40(common) to as ridiculous as 80/20 (GambleAB post), and by doing that the only person you are going to "outplay" is yourself. A GENUINE 50/50 situation has been debated before, and Mat shows us how much of an edge you really shouldn't ever be willing to pass up on, no matter your skill level. People don't realize how big those "small" edges actually are.

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On the other hand, if I'm one of the top players in the tourney and figure that I'm even money to get to minimum cash and maybe 9-1 to make the FT, then there's no way I take that risk when I know that I have more than a reasonable chance of grinding this player and other players out of their chips.

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Wow. Ship it!!!

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Spree, yours might be the worst post ever.

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Agree. The point of the article isn't calling an all-in when you don't know what the person has...it's a hypothetical on whether it's worth it to risk all your chips when you have a small edge.

The argument has been debated endlessly on these forums as to whether you would risk your tourney life with a small edge if you think that by passing up on this small edge you might be able to gain more chips and avoid the risk of ruin when you have a bigger edge later in the tourney.

I for one am all for pushing any small edge I have in a tourney as I am working on being an accummulator as oppossed to a survivor.

In Erick Lindgren's new book he says he always pushes his small edges whenever he can. I think his results means 'nuff said.

[SoloAJ]

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i call 55 in a heartbeat...

ask yourself this, would you do it if the buy in was $10 instead of $10,000 of course you would! now go back to the $10 games where you can make good decisions. 10k will be a penny in no time.

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So what you're saying... is that if you knew you where 75% better than your opponent... and your EV was positive every time you played him... you would take a 55% coin-flip to beat him? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

I hope people don't back you in heads up tournaments. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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You have to remember that we aren't heads up, so don't bring that into the conversation. You are at a table with 8 other guys thinking the same thing you are. So even if you are 75% to beat him overall, you really are only about 11% to even get the chance to be the one who takes him out.

So yes, you should call as a 55% even if you are 75% better. Because that 75% really translates into about 9%. Hope that helps.

-Solo

[Exitonly]

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He says you only need a 59% chance or better of doubling your stack at some point if you fold here. I don't have the data to back it up, but I think this is definitely possible at a table full of crap players.

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Your missing a key point of his analysis.

It isnt that you just have to double up at some point in the tournament. For the situation to be equal you have to catch up to the 20K stack.

Here is a good way of thinking about it.

You clone yourself and enter into a tournament. Both versions of yourself have the QQ vs AK scenario for the first hand. Version A takes the flip, version B folds.

From there both versions go and accumulate chips. As soon as Version A (assuming he wins the flip) increases his stack, version B now has a new target. You not only need to make up for the 10,000 chips you missed out on by the coin flip, but also all of the chips that version A has won in the same amount of time.

Where the 59% came into play in the article was taking into account these 'newly accumulated chips'.

We take any time frame
-1 hand

If Version A of myself failed to accumulate any chips, I would only need a 53% chance to double up to be even with him (in terms of EV)

53% of the time A has 20,000 chips, so EV = 10600
We want to know how often we need to get to 20K
20,000 x X% = 10,600......X% = 53%

-100 hands
Version A is expected to win 700 chips. Now my target is 20, 700 chips. During the same time frame, how often would I need to double to be equal to A in terms of EV?

EV(A) = 20700 x .53 = 10,971
EV(B) = 20000 x X% = 10,971
X% = 54.8%

The longer it will take you to double up, the higher frequency you will have to do it with to be even with the Version A (takes flip) of yourself.

It is easy to pass on a flip, then look back at the 1st break and say "hey, I doubled up anyway, I must have been correct to pass". We forget to think about the fact that if we had taken the flip, we would be at 3x our original stack now, not just double.

hope this helps

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Wouldn't a better way of comparing it, be that Player A has to catch up to Player B's EXPECTED value.. so it's not 20,000.. it's 10800.

So if player A can get to 10800 chips, 60% of the time, then it would be good.

[pooh74]

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I've seen players in tournaments of various sizes who rather than avoid the 50/50s (and sometimes even some less favorable odds) actively seek out such situations early in a tournament in an effort to either quickly accumulate chips or bust out and do something else with their time (as opposed to spending several hours to just barely make the money or end up busting out on the bubble b/c of a low chip stack).
Tiffany



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You can't be serious. If that "logic" is true, then the player should take his buy-in to do the whatever is better option , skipping the tournament completely

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Thats not what she means.

I am not sure I agree, but what she is saying has less to do with hourly rate considerations and more to do with what acquiring a big stack early does for you.

IOW, a good player feels that their edge might come from covering the table where their edge is magnified. In order to do this, they might feel it is worth risking their "life" (sigh, sorry) on getting this edge. Because "you", as the better player, will be able to put those extra chips to better use than the other guy if he were to collect those extra chips.

On the other hand, being an average stack early is like being superman on crypton...not worth your time.

Again, not saying I agree, but i think thats what Tiffany was getting at.

[Exitonly]

Yep, i've officially changed sides...

I'm definitely folding here, and i like it.

In an incredibly slow structure, in a tournament FILLED with idiots. Theres no way that this +800 chip (8% of our stack) move is worth the ginormous variance. And, i don't think it's +EV. My value doesn't quite double (as Mason's big ole post has been suggesting), i'd guess i'm worth between 60-80% more. So i'd need a 60%+ chance (in one shot) to double up for me to feel right doing it.

And the stats Matt quoted at the end, about how he countned that he double dup in 55% of his tournaments or somethign... that was online tournaments right? with fast structures/low chips? In a tournament like this it's gotta be more likely to double up. Maybe i'm just an arrogant prick though.

[gergery]

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In Erick Lindgren's new book he says he always pushes his small edges whenever he can. I think his results means 'nuff said.

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rotfl, can you think of any reasons why Matt Matros' thoughts and those expressed in Lingren's book might be very similar?

-g

[A_PLUS]

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Wouldn't a better way of comparing it, be that Player A has to catch up to Player B's EXPECTED value.. so it's not 20,000.. it's 10800.

So if player A can get to 10800 chips, 60% of the time, then it would be good.

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I looked at it like a probability distribution of different stack sizes. Since the EV of A = 10800 isnt a possible value, you should look at it the other way.

I give Player A a 10,000 chip head start. Does player B catch him > 53% of the time?

In order for Player B to make more money, at the very least he will have more chips than player A at the time that A goes broke.

The longer that you expect to last in the tournament, the more the two player's converge, and the less you should be willing to call the QQ vs AK bet.

How we view our distributions is really the only question that needs to be answered. I dont think I would catch player A often enough to fold.