Question re: EV allins in the first hour of a live tournament

[GambleAB]

Bear with me on this one.....

I am putting a friend into a decent sized buyin land based event next month. The field will be right around 100 people. Starting stack 10k, one hour levels, top9 pay out (may be top 18 if a few more then 100 show up, but 10th-18th will basically be buyin back).

Here is the scenario. I know that my friend is at LEAST the 3rd best player that will be in the tournament. There are 2 other people that are comparable in skill to him, but I'm not sure if they have ever played a live event, or one as high a buyin as this, or even anything with these long levels, so it wouldn't be a stretch to say that my friend would be the best player in this event. I was going over some specific situations with him just now, preparing him for higher-level tournament thinking, when for the first time in my life I came across the old "would you fold aces" scenario.

Stop.

Listen.

Seriously.

Here is my contention: If you get kings in the first level, raise to 100 (blinds start at 25-25), and someone pushes allin after you, I said to him "you have to fold that". He disagreed. I said that even if he said "I'm allin" and turned over jacks you STILL had to fold this. He reminded me that that would basically be the same situation as if you had aces and someone did the same thing (way way overbet allin preflop). MY contention was that the EV of you being in the tournament...as the most highly skilled player there....at 10k in chips is going to be higher than your EV of having 20k in chips 80% of the time and not being there the other 20% of the time. He disagreed, and said that you should ALWAYS play aces allin pre, and 99% of the time play kings allin pre. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this.


The readers digest version: 100-125 person live tournament with a very slow structure, filled with all online players. You are the best person in the tournament. Is it worth it, in the first level, to play a pot for all of your chips preflop, even if you KNOW you have the best hand? I say no, because against these players, you will chip up regardless by playing smaller pots and outplaying them over the course of the 2-3 days, and the risk of busting out 20% of the time isn't worth the reward of doubling up 80% of the time. You will more than likely get the chips anyway, it will just take a little bit more work.

Any thoughts?

[curtains]

Cmon of course you want to go allin as an 80% favorite!

[freehat]

This is a pretty ridiculous post, its just poker no one has that much of an advantage, call all-in as an 80% favorite.

[Exitonly]

well 1) if you raise to 100 w/ KK and someone pushes for 10k... yea fold it.

2) if you raise to 100 and someone pushes and exposes JJ... uh call in a heartbeat.


You're going to have to win some allins to win this, doesnt matter if it's early or late, if you know you're best, you get your money in.

edit: even as the best player in the tournament, he won't cash more than 30% of the time. (Normally i'd say 20%.. but in a smaller field w/ deep stacks, could be a bit more)

[GambleAB]

[ QUOTE ]



You're going to have to win some allins to win this, doesnt matter if it's early or late, if you know you're best, you get your money in.

[/ QUOTE ]


Not true at all. I've played many tournament where I've built my stack up to over 10 times the starting stack, never exposing more than 33% of my stack on any one hand.

Anyone who has actually put some thought in this, please chime in, I'd love to hear your opinions.

[AtticusFinch]

My first thought is that I disagree completely. Even if you're the best player in the tourney, short term luck is a huge factor in any MTT. There simply aren't enough hands in any MTT to overcome the enormous variance in play. The best player in the tourney might consider passing in a small edge for all his chips. But on AA vs. JJ? I don't buy it.

The slow blind structure is an interesting twist, but I still believe that this is simply too much of an edge to pass up.

[ClaytonN]

[ QUOTE ]

Any thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's definitely bad to depend on 'dominant favorites' for surviving in MTT tournaments, but the immediate double up is fairly crucial for your budddy here, especially as a 80/20 favorite. He can build himself a stack to maneuver through the field and give himself a better chance at the final table.

Or, he can go card dead for a few hours and still have a stack to work with.

Yes, your bud is the 2nd-3rd best guy there. But you still need cards to win, just like all MTT's. He's not gonna makes it to the end just by outplaying. Those extra 10k chips are very vital.

[AtticusFinch]

Let's look at it from another angle. ICM values an early double-up at roughly 1.9 buyins, but of course, it doesn't take skill into account.

looking at the numbers, .8 * 1.9 + .2 * 0 = 1.52. So your EV is 152% here if you're an average player. But of course, your friend is not an average player.

What would you guess his EV is with 1 buyin vs with 2? A very very good player may have a 100% roi giving him a 200% EV for one buyin. But that same player will also have more than 152% EV after an early double-up. He'll likely be able to leverage his early big stack into more chips.

His skill created a 100% ev shift at one buyin. It only needs to make a 33% ev shift at two buyins for calling with an 80% edge to be correct. The math clearly favors calling.

[beenben]

By raising/folding you create the illusion of being weak; you still have close to 9900 and the blinds are still only a very small percentage of your stack. You're sure you're one of the best players there which means you can outplay your entire table after the flop. If you call the all-in you're throwing away your advantage. Instead, fold and take with you the information that the raiser is an overaggressive fish who overbets premium hands and the impression that you might be weak and wait for opportunities to milk your advantage. Doubling up early is nice but not necessary for this player. The risk of going out right away is too big.

[Seadood228]

I don't get it. Is there a player in the world that is good enough to pass up on a 4/1?

Am I missing something?