Let's get a bit more into pushing with over 10 BBs

[trapsetter]

What about tournament structure Phae??
Would this also be a factor in pushing earlier??

What i mean is... i finished ITM in the 10c rebuy, played pretty tight but once ITM is reached then it becomes a lottery because the blinds were huge by this stage!!

I found that if i had been looking to chip up from an earlier position then i would have stood a much bigger chance for a shot at the final table!!!

[Phaedrus75]

@ trapsetter...



I think you are really talking about tournament stage there rather than structure.

At the NTM stage I really don't think you have that much more fold equity over the big stacks than post ITM, but you certainly do over the smaller to medium stacks.

However I do use opportunity cost assessment a fair bit NTM.

When you look at the sorts of EV calculations I did above, shoving wide NTM normally only has a few hundred chips EV. I tend to balance that EV gain with considering overall tournament equity.

For example in my $33 Freezout last night, I was placed about 46th of 56 left. Money started at 54. I folded 77 UTG because I decided that I could find a coin flip soon enough after the money and because there were so many big stacks at my table I didn't really fancy my fold equity that much.

If I had a stack that could really apply pressure then I would definitely have raised 77 UTG

So ultimately I decided that the chip EV gain from shoving 77 UTG was not worth the $50 for an almost guaranteed ITM finish. I guess that is really just an ICM type consideration.

In my experience, in order to effectively abuse the bubble, you need a threatening stack size. Without such a stack, I don't think it hurts to not gamble when you are very very close to ITM. Had it been 10 to 15 places out of ITM, then I probably would have shoved.

[Ares456]

This sounds like bingo poker to me. You aren't in trouble and you probably don't expect to gain much from it or get a call unless someone has a better hand than you, so whats the point of risking so much when the reward is so little compared to the risk?

[Ares456]

I didn't want to bother you too much when you were playing but could you explain this to me please.

JPcontender: hit micro, hit small, hit med, hit big,
and will stay in big til miss hehe.

So you get a good cashin in micro, then you use it to to enter a small stakes tournament and cashin in there, if not, you go back to micro and its the same thing as you get higher up the ladder. I don't understand how this is a good bankroll strategy, wouldn't it be better to save your winnings and move up slowly up to bigger tournaments?

[Grim]

So maybe I will make this my 1st reponse to a post after a long time of just enjoying silent reading.

From my point of view, it it looks quite a bit simpler than the math of the EV of your stacks.

If I am looking at 2 player in a MTT that are nearing or at < 10BB. I am just waiting for them to start thier pushing. As it gets farther I expect that push to be more and more from a wide range of hands all the way to A2o.

While on the other hand, the player at 13,15 or 20+ BB making an All in move from Middle position(from which has probably been playing less All in aggressive up till now). Will most likely get a tad bit more respect from me sitting on the Button, or even in a blind if I am relative or less than twice to his chip stack. Unless I have that big PP.

Now if I was way out in front with chips on this player, I would definetly look to call with a nice range of hands. Which can be an even wider range of hands if any kind of big stack syndrome is going on OR bad reads OR new to table etc. This all plays into the All In players hands with that wide range of hands that are being talked about here.

So if I were down to 20 BB or less but still over 10 BB. I would definetly look to Push if and when the moment was right for that particular table of chips stacks, player types and stage of the tournament. I just make a bit of sense if you are of the midset to vary your game up(if that is not what the table is doing already).

Lastly to add to Phaedrus's lil calculation example, now with the extra chips and the likely hood that the AJo with be coming around in another 1-3 rounds. You actually have the ability to play the AJo with 8 BB instead of 7, allowing you to make more on the better hand. OR bust out totally in either process....

[Phaedrus75]

This sounds like bingo poker to me. You aren't in trouble and you probably don't expect to gain much from it or get a call unless someone has a better hand than you, so whats the point of risking so much when the reward is so little compared to the risk?

It is bingo and that is partly the point. The purpose and rationale for Coop's experiment is explained at the start of the thread.

As you know I am a big fan of Annette_15 and she doesn't do things like this. With 16BBs she would raise and fold to a push with 86s. With TT she would openraise and call a push.
She once stated that she sees players make terrible overpushs when actually 20BBs were a lot of chips to still be playing with in an online MTT.
I am not questioning my Goddess.
But given how well she plays postflop and how accurate her reads are most times I wonder whether players that are not as good (and I include myself here) wouldn't be better off pushing earlier to get a good stack again. I think there is a good reason to try to gamble yourself up to a comfortable stack again once you are down to 20BBs and under.
At least with chemistry and good highcard hands.

There are really two factors at work. Firstly, Coop is exploring a strategy which might off-set some of the skill advantage that his extremely strong opponents have at high stakes tournaments. He are talking about pro level tournaments of $300 to $500+ buy-ins including $109 rebuys. These are consistently the strongest and toughest tournaments you will find anywhere in the world. What Coop is getting at is that you just have absolutely no hope against players of that caliber unless you have chips to manouevre with.

There are the few world class players as mentioned by Coop like Annette15 who can play so well post flop with a short stack that they get better value out of seeing flops - even against world class opponents.

For other mere mortals, particularly at this high stakes level, the danger of making post flop mistakes leads to a desire to simplify decisions to push fold pre-flop.

The second component of the rationale behind this, is that there is a very significant level of skill which goes into knowing when to gamble, against who, in what situations and with what cards, why and at what tournament stage.

If poker was as simple as "play tight till you hit red M and then gamble with any chemistry hand" then it would not take much to be a winning player.

The fact is, it is way more complicated and subtle than that. However, whatever way you view it, analyse it, break it down, deconstruct it, reconstruct it or otherwise figure stuff out, one fact remains constant to ALL strategy approaches. That is you will have to gamble at some point before making a final table. In other words you will have to play bingo at some point. Whether it is racing your AK against 55 or standing up to that fifth button push with A9s from the BB, or whatever.

All Coop is trying to establish with this experiment is whether equity gains can be accelerated by gambling earlier.

Personally I think I can play my flops well enough at my sub $50 buy-in range to not be too attracted by this at this stage. However as we all move up stakes, we will all encounter new challenges. In that respect Coop is the trail blazer for us all I think since he is playing stakes most of us will never reach.

[Phaedrus75]

Lastly to add to Phaedrus's lil calculation example, now with the extra chips and the likely hood that the AJo with be coming around in another 1-3 rounds. You actually have the ability to play the AJo with 8 BB instead of 7, allowing you to make more on the better hand. OR bust out totally in either process....

Yeah, good point. My calcs were all very much on the pessimistic side.

What they do show however is that EV can be considered through a period of time and is not necessarily a static consideration involving one hand in isolation. Think I am now going to invent a term for future analysis. I'm going to call it "Temporal EV"

[Phaedrus75]

By the way, the work Sun137 is currently doing on the Green Monster Spreadsheet will be directly relevant to all of this. I am very very much looking forward to the results of that analysis

[Ares456]

if poker was as simple as "play tight till you hit red M and then gamble with any chemistry hand" then it would not take much to be a winning player.

For other mere mortals, particularly at this high stakes level, the danger of making post flop mistakes leads to a desire to simplify decisions to push fold pre-flop

Thats where I'm at right now. I'm not good at postflop play and I'm pretty predictable since I don't play a lot of hands. I'm going to try to be looser and try to steal more (in low-buyin games, $2-5 tournaments).

Firstly, Coop is exploring a strategy which might off-set some of the skill advantage that his extremely strong opponents have at high stakes tournaments. He are talking about pro level tournaments of $300 to $500+ buy-ins including $109 rebuys. These are consistently the strongest and toughest tournaments you will find anywhere in the world. What Coop is getting at is that you just have absolutely no hope against players of that caliber unless you have chips to manouevre with.

I disagree with that. Most of the recent WSOP winners have been amateurs (Chris Moneymaker, Jerry Yang, some others too) and a bunch of amateurs have won the World Poker Tour. There is no "great" skill advantage that the Pros have over poker players like Coop, only more experience and more cashins because they play more or have played more than he has.

[JP]

As to my stepping up in levels Ares, yes, I used the proceeds of the previous game to mushroom it. So basically I started with a quarter. That's right 25 cents! I played a micro mtt on stars and won a couple dollars, then played the 2k on stars and won couple hunderd. Then played some $10 and $20 games on full tilt and up to the $75 entry game I just went out in 11th.

[Phaedrus75]

I disagree with that. Most of the recent WSOP winners have been amateurs (Chris Moneymaker, Jerry Yang, some others too) and a bunch of amateurs have won the World Poker Tour. There is no "great" skill advantage that the Pros have over poker players like Coop, only more experience and more cashins because they play more or have played more than he has.

http://officialpokerrankings.com/pokers ... 8.html?t=2

Monemaker is not that good . Amatures win occasionally. Pros win a tad bit more consistently

[Coop]

First off I want to thank Phaedrus for a great contribution in this thread.
I didn't want to post anymore today but I took some time off, cleaned the dishes while handing over my $3 rebuy to a friend for half an hour who plays reasonably well, though he is lacking great success up to this point, and who actually gave me my stack back after quadrupling up (not in one hand), listened to some very aggressive music and cooled down.
So I took back over the $3 rebuy. Even though he had won a lot of chips I was still just slightly above 20BBs. Folded for 3 orbits because I only had utter trash and almost every pot was raised. So I get Aces. There are 3 limpers and I am on the button, blinds have gone up and I have 12BBs. All limpers are bad players considering OPR so I just raise to 4x, get one caller, push the flop and win. Fold fold fold without opportunity. Queens 2 orbits later middle position after one limper. I raise to 4x, get one caller in position on me and the limper. Flop comes K high we all check. Turn blanks, the limper makes a minbet. I call and the guy in position calls. River pairs the turn. Limper checks, I check and the guy in position bets 3 BBs into a pot of 16.5BBs (without ante). I call, he has AK and I lose. So I am down again. And from this point on I get on a streak of more than 30 garbage hands. Oh, had I pushed 35off from the button with 13 BBs I would have ran into KK and AJoff and won with trips. Had I pushed the same 13BBs one hand later with 94o I would have run into AQ and AQ and tripled up with one pair.
But I wanted at least some chemistry hands I could push with more than 10 BBs and not offsuit trash. And soon I am down to under 10 BBs. One blindpush with Q2off from UTG and 6BBs. Everybody folds. Then I push K5o from the CO with the same stack, A7calls and I am out.
Even though I was supposed to get a hand from the best 10% almost every orbit I didn't get any in after all 5 orbits. Had I pushed earlier (even though I must admit I don't want to be pushing low offsuit trash too often when not that desperate) I would have given myself a better chance of surviving this time. Now with hands that have at least some potential that seems to be the better route than to just wait until you are desperate enough to maybe even push worse hands.

@Ares: You are correct about the bingo comment, but tournament poker as a matter of fact simply needs gambles. If you want to get deep and bigstacked, you have to take coinflips and certain gambles. IMO it's more reasonable to increase the number of bustouts but get big and deeper more often because of that.

That's it for now. Still playing 2 tournaments and I have to concentrate since I am still playing without TI.

[Coop]

Make that 1 tournament. On Full Tilt I had AJ vs A9. Against a player that was in the same tournament yesterday. There I kicked him when he reshipped his A6s vs my AK. Today it's his lucky time I guess, I will still continue to call his repushs with ATs+ and AJ+ and 55+.

[Coop]

Firstly, Coop is exploring a strategy which might off-set some of the skill advantage that his extremely strong opponents have at high stakes tournaments. He are talking about pro level tournaments of $300 to $500+ buy-ins including $109 rebuys. These are consistently the strongest and toughest tournaments you will find anywhere in the world. What Coop is getting at is that you just have absolutely no hope against players of that caliber unless you have chips to manouevre with.

I disagree with that. Most of the recent WSOP winners have been amateurs (Chris Moneymaker, Jerry Yang, some others too) and a bunch of amateurs have won the World Poker Tour. There is no "great" skill advantage that the Pros have over poker players like Coop, only more experience and more cashins because they play more or have played more than he has.

You are very wrong with this. I mean, somehow experience translates to skill, but it's still not the same. I agree about Moneymaker and Yang most likely having no skill advantage over me, but IMO they are actually pretty bad.
But let's consider the following line-up and make it a winner takes all so ICM doesn't apply: Annette_15, lilholdem954, Rizen, Negreanu, Laak, Elky, Harman, Harrington, Brenes and me. The more deepstacked this game will be, the worse my results longterm will be. Yes, I might win it. I might even win it twice in a row. But longterm given the set of skills I have now they would beat the s.hit out of me. I guarantee you that!

[Phaedrus75]

I just tried to OPR Anette_15 Coop to show a comparison with Moneymaker's results. Seems you are not the only good player who models themselves on her

http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/on ... F.html?t=2

Anyway, here is the real Annette.

http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/po ... 2.html?t=2

http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/fu ... 2.html?t=2

Chris who?????