Now, in a cash game, this would be just a bad beat, move along - nothing to see here.

My question is about tournament environment.
Should I try to prevent such situations, say by reraising flop and making him fold (obviously sacrificing my chip EV in the process)? Is it more or less profitable over lots of tourneys?

Also, I do realize this is an early stage where the answer is "yes you were correct". Does this change for later stages?

I think it is correct to be a bit more protective at times in tournaments than cash games, but not to the point of losing serious value. It just depends, there are so many varying conditions that I hate to say something in general terms. I shut someone out of a three-way pot the other day and it seemed like a value error, but then again were the value of his chips worth the chance of being completely knocked out of the tournament? The answer to this just depends on so many criteria (outside of ICM) that it can't be easily stated.

In general, if you feel that you are a better player than the competition, playing a pot control style can limit some of the variance associated with bad beats.


In this case, you would have been justified in raising the flop to protect against a flush draw. However, if you suspect he has a big ace, no flush draw, and you have position, you want to let him hang himself. Being upset because he hit a three outer on the river is a bad way to look at this.

When you have a nuttish hand, you have to extract max value. Sometimes you get coolered.

Well, with him raising pre from early position, the chances of him having a flush draw here are really slim. What would he hold, K Q exactly?

I'm not upset at all, I know I played the hand itself correctly. I was just wondering if higher level considerations (like protecting the stack vs building the stack optimally) could in theory be enough to choose a suboptimal but safer line.

Part of that will depend on where you are in the tournament. Near the bubble, you probably want to be more careful, while early on you want to be building chips.

KQcc, KJcc, KTxx, JTcc, QJcc....there are a decent amount of flush draws in his range. That being said, he is most likely on a big ace, so I would probably just let him hang himself.

And playing defensive poker in the early stages of a low stakes tournament is a mistake.

Makes thread about being blocked on Stars when trying to deposit for the million at the weekend, playing $2 donkaments today - easiest way to prevent bad beats is to just open shove with trash so you only get called by better

Hey, what's your problem man?
I did get unblocked on stars (took them 43 hours btw), and I do find it's cheaper for me to qualify for bigger tournaments through $2 sats because my win rate in those is like 30%.
Were you trying to make a point or just being funny? Either way, you failed at both.

Poker is a gambling game, plain and simple. You're going to have to take risks to win in the long run. This means that sometimes you lose with a favorite. Get used to it.

True.



Not every decision is clear cut or easy either.

Based on your stack size, I think check-jamming flop would be fine. Check-calling and then stacking on safe turns is also fine. You can't do anything about this cooler though. You're supposed to go broke on A9xA, and villain is supposed to go broke too. (He's got trips on a board where you can have lots of draws or worse trips, so he's jamming for value).

You seem to have the wrong paradigm. You want to get your money in good. You want to be the one getting sucked out on because it means that you got your money in good.

I would be very happy if every time I was knocked out of a tourney it was directly related to a bad beat.

Pretty sure that good players are eliminated with the worst hand a lot, maybe even more than half of the time.

I didn't say it was a goal.

You can't prevent them

$EV differs most from chipEV when you are close to the bubble or when payjumps are significant compared to the buyin, which is usually at the FT. The difference between $EV and chipEV also fluctuates based on payout structure and the # players left. For instance, that difference is much bigger when you are 9th/10, compared to when you are 900th/1000 in the same tournament, even though the ratio is the same. Your stacksize and the stacksizes of others will affect your $EV a lot when 9th/10, whilst they have virtually no effect when 900th (assuming you are not near the bubble).

Btw: In the cases where there IS a significant difference between $EV and chipEV, you should be avoiding higher variance (ie. marginally +chipEV spots), rather than bad beats. In the example hand you seem to want to avoid bad beats by playing a high +chipEV spot in a non-optimal way. This is just bad play imo and might even increase variance overall.

A better way to reduce variance in this hand would be to fold the A9o pre, since it is at best a marginally profitable call. Again, this would apply more and more the closer you get to the bubble or a payjump.

Just saying that when you get it in good doesn't mean you're playing well. If I wait for aces to get stacks in I get it in good but I lose a ton to blinds and never have a chance to win.

The majority of the time I bust is when I shove K8s and get called when I am short.

Thanks! That's the closest to what I was asking about.
Everyone else, thank you as well, you were all very helpful!