Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantomshark
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Any minor advantage you may have is negated by the fact that you have less chips than the average player. I'd rather start a tournament on time in the big blind than come in late in the CO (best position you can) with a below average stack.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NickMPK
Argh...why do people keep saying stuff like this?
The basic take-away of ICM theory is that being below average makes your stack worth more in tournament equity than it has in chip equity. Starting the tournament with a relative short stack after many people have already been eliminated is a mathematically provable advantage over starting with an even stack at the start of a tournament, as long as you hold constant the percentage of the total chips in play that your stack represents.
It is amazing to me how much of the conventional wisdom of fishes gets regurgitated on this forum. And with such confidence!
And why do people keep bringing up the ICM advantage when it has also been roundly panned as irrelevant when it comes to this topic?
I think the reason phantom and others have brought up the relative chip-stack disadvantage issue is to counteract the supposition that registering late for a tournament is advantageous. Some people have made it seem like registering late is actually something people should be doing on purpose because of perceived advantages. And this has become conflated with the issues surrounding the post/no post rules.
IMO, the fairest rule would be to require late regs to wait for their natural bb to play. That way no one, not the late reg, nor anyone at the table gets any real or imagined advantage by the late-entrant's sudden appearance at the table. This would of course be somewhat disadvantageous to the late-registrant. I am wiling to live with that. I believe the majority of poker players would agree.
