The WSOP's Fixed Limit Hold'em structure is quite good. Of course most players eventually wind up short-stacked. That happens in NL too, in my experience. If you think it is all luck, that's probably because, for you, it is all luck. But every year, much the same names show up on the payout lists for FLHE events, just as with NLHE events.

If they're lucky in NLHE, why wouldn't they also be lucky in FLHE?

The FLHE events are very easy games, definitely recommend playing.

I see a lot of big NL names in the list of results. Do the big NL players suck at lhe most of the time? If you know this can you exploit them even if they're famous and have been on the cover of magazines (like that haxton guy) ... I see ppl saying the games are soft. Is that because the NL players are so exploitable ?

while what you say may be true (i don't know, i haven't checked the results), the fact that you chose ike is hilarious.

ike used to be a limit holdem player and later switched to nl, which is obv where he made his name. but to think of all players IKE is the one who doesn't know limit is ridiculous

Ya, Ike plays lhe really well. It's not a fluke he's frequently made some runs in these LHE tourneys. Not gonna name names but I've definitely seen some big name online MTT'ers play some LHE hands comically bad in these tourneys.

The more I play these things year after year the more I realize that the good LHE players have a huge edge early on but once you get to the money bubble and beyond the good tournament players do some stuff so much better than we do. At the LHE shoot out final table t soprano quietly said to me that he thought Ian J playing AA UTG might have been a mistake or was at least "close" because of the pay out structure. I'm not sure he was right but us LHE cash players don't even THINK about stuff like that, and maybe if the structure was different or some chip counts were different it would be a no brainer. In fact, this really poor player at that final table nursed a < 3 BB stack from 10th place to I think 5th partially because the other players (myself included I'm sure) might not have made tight enough ICM adjustments

I'd take Ike or Deeb over just about any LHE pro in one of these events.

I think most LHE pros who aren't tourney players undervalue the importance of preserving your chips in these, especially in the mid to later stages. I myself was someone who used to do so, as well.

The rate blinds go up, staying in the game is so important. Nobody has a ton of BBs by the mid stages, and the blinds are big enough that you can go from a small to big stack in just a few hands. You can't do that, however, if in the mid stages you push your flush draw and two overcards draw on the flop hard (as opposed to not jamming it up), miss it, and lose those valuable chips (and go bust shortly after) that could've bought you an extra hand a level or two later when the blinds are bigger.

"I see a lot of big NL names in the list of results. Do the big NL players suck at lhe most of the time?"

On the whole, online NLHE phenoms are not very experienced in serious FLHE cash game play and are almost never talented in FLHE tournaments. High stakes cash game pros from Las Vegas, on the other hand, are often Aria/Bellagio mixed game veterans and are very good at FLHE cash games. Of course all of that is a huge generalization and there are online FLHE specialists.

Getting to the original poster's question: If you are looking for a game with the max dead money, I would assume that the $1000 NLHE events are what you are looking for.

In my experience, this is absolutely correct. Top-notch FLHE cash game players are accustomed to making thin value bets on the river - an important source of profit for any cash game player. But in the tournament context, those thin value bets make a lot more sense when you have 200 big blinds than they do when you have only 20 BB.

Trading off a positive EV for a reduction in variance is a big no-no in cash games. If you can't stand the variance of value betting slightly +EV situation in your FLHE cash game, then you would be better off moving down in stakes to find a game where you are comfortable betting thin value, rather than simply passing up +EV in favor of reduced variance. Right?

I think that FLHE tournament structure makes that less true - particularly when you are short stacked. If you have only 10 big blinds, then betting the river costs 20% of your stack - not a great idea when you are only slightly +EV. If you do bet there, you had better already be quite sure how you will respond to a raise.

I tend to doubt that Soprano is right about that because AA has such a huge advantage even UTG at a full table. Of course I do not know the specifics of that situation. But I can think of circumstances where the stack sizes and payout structure could make Soprano correct (ie where it might be correct to fold UTG with AA).

However, I think folding AA UTG at a WSOP final table sounds ridiculous, particularly for a serious pro like Ian. I expect that the bracelet could well be more valuable than the $116,118 first prize in that event (because the added credibility that would come with it could help him make money away from the poker tables). In such a situation, it would certainly be a mistake to fold AA UTG because you are afraid of having them cracked and winding up in 9th place with only $9,225 (which is apparently what happened to Ian J?)

But, as you say, DeathDonkey, it is fascinating to learn that a knowledgable player could even consider the possibility of folding AA preflop.

I find that highly credible. I suspect it happens all the time.

Here's the official account of that hand from WSOP.com:

6/14/2012 5:17:34 PM PST (about 51 days and 12 hours ago)

Ian Johns Eliminated in 9th Place ($9,225)

Ian Johns raised preflop only to find Brian Meinders three-bet. Johns four-bet and Meinders five-bet Johns all in. The hands were turned over only to find that Johns was way out in the lead.

Johns: AsAc
Meinders: JhJd

A flop of Qh6h3d was spread in front of the two and Johns' aces were still way in the lead. The 6s turned and Meinders was in need of one of the two remaining black jacks left in the deck. Fortunately for Meinders, that's exactly what peeled off on the river. The Js completed the board and just like that Johns' aces were cracked and he became our ninth place finisher.

Brian Meinders 310,000 120,000
Ian Johns 0 -98,000

Copied from:
http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/upda...rr=5&curpage=3

Right, the hand itself was quite uninteresting (and its definitely easy to argue that you are better off raising UTG and quite often stealing the blinds with everyone playing very tight than you would be if its already open raised somewhere and now you will with 100% certainty see a flop and risk the variance of a bad beat). My recollection is that another player was very short stacked (Preston, the guy I mentioned who got 6th but was very short even 10 handed) and that was the key factor in t soprano even mentioning the idea of folding. It's also possible that I misinterpreted him or even that he might have been being sarcastic, lol I guess I'm second guessing my own memory since it does seem like an easy raise for all the reasons you said + the obvious unsaid ones.

Imagine a 10-handed Final Table scenario like this:

1. The chips are distributed very strangely such that most of the players are very short (like only 3-4 big blinds each).

2. You have observed that all of the short-stacks got to be short because they are bad players who call way, way too much preflop. This is not a WSOP event, but rather a $200 live event, or a $20 online event.

3. You have something like 10 big blinds and get dealt AA UTG.

4. The payout structure is very steep (steeper than the WSOP), such that the vast majority of the money gets paid to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

5. The biggest stack in the game is in the big blind with a stack of 30 big blinds.

I suppose it could conceivably be correct to fold UTG with AA, here. Because the short stacks are all players who call too much, you are likely to be called in many places, which is undesirable for AA. Also, no matter what you do, it is likely that this hand will be a massive multi-way all-in, which will eliminate 4 or 5 players at once. The presence of so many (in their minds) pot-committed opponents means that 5 or more hands will showdown. Even though this pot will be large, you do not need to win it. Allowing one of the short stacks to bust all of the other short stacks will move you up the prize ladder quickly.

Also, if you enter this pot and lose, you could easily be knocked down from 10 big blinds to 6. Consequently losing would be far more harmful than winning would be helpful. Even the possibility that the big stack will defend his big blind and could pull even farther ahead is not much of a problem for you, as moving his stack from 30 to 45 does not really hurt your position nearly as much

Entering this pot, even though you have a decent chance of more than doubling up, may not be worth it.

It is important to recognize that the prestige value of taking first place in this event is essentially nothing (unlike a WSOP event).

PS Obviously there could also be certain on-the-bubble Super-satellite situations where folding AA preflop could be correct because of the incredibly flat payout structure.

Do the ICM or it's just handwaving.