Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 2,314
Different people have different opinions on this, but I'll say what I think about it.
For Freezeouts....
If you think you have a good post flop edge (or I guess an edge in general) then you should be less inclined to flip than if you thought that your opponents had an edge over you. Arnold Snyder briefly talks about a situation that occurred in a tournament where a Pro (forgot who, and I'm not going to look it up) ends up in a a spot where he's very confident his opponent has AK preflop, and has to call a big all in bet if he wants to continue. His opponent is also a very strong player, and they were the best two at the table. After thinking about it shortly, he calls and tables a hand like 78s or 67s, and he loses the flip.
Of course seeing that occur got a lot of people talking, and most saying he played it bad. But Snyder says that his play was the right play. His reasoning is basically that even though he's sure he's an underdog against his opponent's range, and even knowing that he isn't getting the right odds - he's getting just short of it, the effect of knocking out the other good and aggressive player at the table would make the call worth it. Basically, the difference between being able to run over the table to 40% of the time that you'll win the flip is worth the 60% chance of losing in that spot according to Snyder.
Basically, the idea is that if you can grind out an edge over a table, you should be less inclined to want to get it in with tiny edges or breakeven spots that increase variance. But if you're unsure that you have an edge over some player - or if that player significantly eats into your edge - it may be worth it to flip against that player. If you're a huge underdog to the field, then of course it makes sense to try to get it in during flip situations.
To be honest, even though I can't give you a defintive answer (and quite frankly, I don't think there's an answer as simple as yes or no) I can say it depends on a lot of factors. Therefore, there will be times when flipping early in a tournament is correct, and other times when it's not.
For rebuys, I sort have an intuitive guess, that you should be more likely to want to flip in a rebuy, especially if you think you have an at least slightly +cEV flip. My reasoning is as follows
1) Since most of the value in a tournament comes from finishing in the top few, and because people end up with much larger stacks in rebuys than freezeouts, you should be more inclined to take bigger risks to become a big stack earlier than you would take similar risks in a freezeout.
2) People play looser in rebuys, so you may have more equity in spots that are likely to be flips.
3) If the person you're flipping with is worse than you, they can rebuy - and then you can continue to apply your edge, and by the same token if you lose you can rebuy and keep playing that opponent. In a freezeout, if you take a literal breakeven cEV line, then you're missing out on an edge you can express over that opponent.
So I guess take my analysis with a a grain of salt, and wait for more experienced tournament players to weight in but my guess is the best simplified answer is that if you have an edge, you shouldn't want to flip as often, and if you don't you should.
