Thanks for finding a more concise way to say it

And this.
So for players not in top 5%: cashout after building a stack if final table is unlikely is correct strategy right?

YES FTP please!!! do this.

RUSH!!! cashout tourney: 90% goes into the cashout pool, 10% goes just for first place. You can cashout any portion of your chips at any time.

Ok so just finished my 3rd of these cashouts(6k Guaranteed, 1097 players). Results so far: cashed out 4X BI; busted; cashed 12X BI.
Again was in top 10-15 thru good part of mid-late stages...got down to 32 left and had slipped to 17th(60k chips, 2kbb, 4 bigger stacks at my table...felt I was getting outplayed/pushed around a bit..so considered: 1)go for it..bust out anywhere before final table(#30-#10) I make $25-$63, no cashout value obv. *Again, feel a fair # of remaining players have an edge on me here also; 2)cashout buyin and freeroll with a crippled stack; 3)cashout whole stack, $103 + $25 for 30th. Took door #3 before the blinds hit. Flame away.

I think that's a fair way to put it. The value is the potential. It's just like ev. Note that, by analogy, two people Bob and Phil can have $100 in value. Bob can have $100 in cash. Phil can have a raffle ticket that has a 5% chance of winning $2000. Either way, it's $100 value. In the specific case, the $100.13 (or actually more!) value cited in the tourney situation is what your actual expectation is to win. It's not what you're *hoping* to win. It's not that you have a *chance* at $100.13. You have something that is absolutely valued at $100.13. It's like holding JT with a board of 9832 rainbow, one card to come... your heads up opponent has already moved in, you've called him, there's $550.72 in the pot after all action, and he's shown down A9. Although you're *probably not going to win*, you definitely don't want to muck before seeing the river! Your cards are worth $100.13.

You correctly deduced, in your next post, that this is not really the right way to look at it. It's more like risking $120 for $100+$120.

However, let me add that even it *were* the case that you were risking $120 for $100 (again, not the case), there's nothing inherently wrong with risking $120 for $100. That doesn't express the probability of success or failure! After all, casinos are routinely willing to risk $3500 for $100... any time a roulette player puts a $100 chip on a single number bet.

You're moving in the right direction here, but you have to go all the way to accepting the idea that it doesn't matter that you're probably not going to make the final table. "Probably not" doesn't matter. Whenever you get your chips into a pot against multiple opponents, unless you're a *huge* favorite, you're probably not going to win. You play anyway because the payoff is more than sufficient for the risk. You've got an overlay. And here, though the chance of making final table is less than 50% (perhaps substantially less), there's a lot of money to be made those times you do make it... especially if you make final three, and especially if you win!

Players also routinely tend to underestimate their chances of going deep into the money at this point. They're demoralized with a short stack when they realize that they're probably not going to make it. They can't grasp the fact that their small shot at big money is substantially valuable.

We do have a way to quantify your chances of moving up to better money position... in fact that's exactly what *has* been quantified, and is represented in that $100.13 tourney value cited above.

True. Also, in a cash game, if you lose your chips you don't get the cashout value of the chips you lost. That doesn't deter people from playing cash games.

You play on anyway, and take your chances. Your chances are good enough to justify the play.

I don't agree that there is any point where cashing out is +EV relative to playing on.

Sticking to my guns on this: no, cashing out because final table is "unlikely" is incorrect strategy.

P.S., I guess that, though I feel the overall line I took above is correct, I should acknowledge that I was at least given pause by the extreme case of being forced to play all-in blind. In that specific instance:

-We generally should not ever find ourselves forced all-in blind in any tournament, unless a very strange fluke occurs, where we've just gotten *almost* all-in against someone who nearly had us covered, then lost. That unusual case is unfortunate in any tournament, but the exceptional case here can hardly be extended to draw conclusions about normal circumstances, any more than abstract examples where it's correct to fold AA preflop in a normal tournament can tell us how aces should usually be played.

-If we literally possess only ONE big blind worth of chips, then almost any realisitic scenario will put us in a situation where our stack's "cashout" value is miniscule, *or* we're deep enough in the money that surviving just one orbit can be highly rewarding in terms of tourney money.

-"cashing out" is still selling your chips short of their value. I think that this is significant enough to argue that's it's worth getting in blind, rather than sell. For another analogy, how would you handle the following proposition? I hand you $150 cash. Then I tell you that, if you're willing to stake that money blind in a $75/$150 NLHE cash game, I'll pay you *double* the value of the pot you take down if you win.

This seems a fair analogy because the the value of the chips, as long as you're alive, are worth more than double the value you'd walk away with in cash. This has to be significant compensation for the disadvantage of being forced in blind. Note that I've definitely survived some all-in blind situations and, especially if there are any antes, you can quickly triple up, quadruple up, or more. Opponents who know you're in blind will often gamble with you with less than premium hands, and sometimes you'll benefit from "protection" when one opponent raises another out on the flop, thereby increasing his *and* your chances to take the pot at showdown.

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/tip-ema...sit?utm_id=214

heh

no

LOL if you think this is bad for us...

They cash out chips for half the chips' value, the value of the chips that stay in play increases. How is this not good for regs that don't use the cashout function?

If it's fair to object to the format at all, I would say that the cashout option is *too much* of a sucker's option, and that it should be damaging to a site's reputation to design and offer a game that's so unfairly skewed against the novice gambler.

I felt persuaded by Sklansky when he said (I'm paraphrasing from... maybe "Getting the Best of It"...) that casinos shouldn't run really bad games like the wheel of fortune which just destroy players. They're already getting a good price from recreational players in games that are *almost* fair, like craps, slots, or even roulette (which in the American version is also quite devastating to the gambler). But adding a "wheel for suckers" is at least distasteful, possibly shady, and potentially bad for long term business. Of course, everybody does it anyway. But whatever your ethical point of view, that's what Full Tilt has done by adding a "give away your money" option to some tournaments.

Why are these skewed against the novice gambler? I think it's the opposite, these are tailored for many novice gamblers.

Consider the case of Joe. He enjoys playing poker but is purely a recreational player, playing micro stakes online. He likes tournament poker but never gets to play large field MTTs because he rarely has 5-7 hours of uninterrupted time in his schedule. So he basically sticks to turbo SnGs. He is also honest with himself about his abilities and knows that if he did play a large field MTT, he would be very lucky to go deep enough to get any serious money.

Aren't cashout tournies ideal for someone like Joe, who can now get some MTT play knowing that he doesn't have to commit 5-7 hours and doesn't have to worry about playing 3 hours and busting out with nothing to show for it?

No, because Joe will lose a ****load of money long term by playing cashout tourneys in that way.

But I get your point, there's a recreational appeal to this kind of concept and I'm sure that's the thinking behind it.

Why would he lose a ****load of money playing this way? Most of the arguments I've seen in this thread against them are that playing for the final table is where the profit is. But if you're someone like Joe, and you don't seriously expect to make many final tables, couldn't these be far more +ev than playing the odd MTT and busting out or min-cashing? Obviously it would be stupid for Joe to give up huge equity by cashing out if he runs really well and builds up a good stack, but for someone like Joe there will likely be far more opportunities where cashing out makes sense (like some of the examples people have brought up in this thread).

I mean the way you put it is exactly how Joe will prolly see it, but the fact remains that he's lighting money on fire every time he cashes out

just got 40th in the ftops 200 cashout for a whole $350. Going to jump off bridge now. Could've cashed out for 3 grand when i was like 15th in chips.

same boat, 29 left and have 18bb. wtf am i to do?

but i mean it's really no different/worse than busting a 6k equity stack in a normal mtt. since it would be massively -EV and long term a horrible strategy, it's not like you ever really had an option to cash that out.

yeah, i'd never take the cashout...just brutal going deep and getting peanuts.

LOL I got 70th or something for $230, ship the $15 profit I guess. My stack was only worth $800 or so at its peak.

These things are great for the better players: essentially a tournament with a super steep pay out structure, and the option for people to make hugely -EV decisions (by cashing out).

It's also good for good players having the possibility of cashing out, as sometimes you can't or don't want to play more. If it's other who cashes out, your prize pool equities increases, which is also great. In my opinion, it would be great is this would be extended to every existing MTT.

I just lost a 3k cashout flip, poised for 10th, also my cashout button is now missing.

pokerstars already have "only final table paid"


cashing out with less than 1BB:
When you have 1BB or less in Cashout Tournament and there is ante then your all-in is definitly +chipEV. Since it is +chipEV, you should go all-in and cashout in next hand...

honestly, I kind of like this type of tourneys but I approach them differently. In regular kind of MTTs, naturally, you'll go for the first place finish but in this kind of format I never do it, and since now I'm pretty successful.

The main reason for it is my aggression - most of the times it gets me up in the first few places long before the bubble (offcourse, there are tourneys when I just lose it...) and by that time I usually make my first cashout so that I'm left with about 4/3 or equal to stack of the next person on my table (offcourse, it still has to stay above average stack at tourney) and further more I keep on cashing peace by peace because until the bubble bursts - at that point in most cases I already cashed around 3-5 BI so then I try to build my stack as much as possible and in the middle of the rest of the game (if 90 places are payed when there are 45 of us left) if I'm in the front I'll cashout to be somewhere in the middle with an ok stack - all from 25-75 BB is ok, it just depends on stacks of my opponents and the reason is simple - I just want to lower the variance and try to take as much as possible (and in this kind of tournament it is) so that I'll have a pretty nice profit even if I get a bad beat at the end.

The great example that this strategy works is my friend who busted out in 8th place (kings lost to sevens) and still got payed out almost 25% more than the 1st place finisher how never cashed out in tourney. Offcourse, I'm regular MTT player and I always look for that deep runs and FT where all the money is but I think that in these kind of tourneys you just have to adapt to some new "rules" of the game...

Offcourse, I'm always open for discussion...

EDIT: There is one more reason why there are so many fans of this tourneys - it seems that many not so experienced MTT players play a lot better when they don't feel pressure so when they cashout an amount of BI they are pretty much freerolling and that is a big plus for them and there game overall - offcourse if you have a good strategy you could play a level or even two above what BM rules would suggest for a regular MTTs which is pretty nice when you are building your bank....

People will always rationalize the bad play of cashing out... so I guess these tourneys are here to stay. Now I wish I could personally try to profit from them, but Full Tilt is blocked in my country... damn it!

please elaborate why you think it is so bad? I really don't understand how come it is better to win without cashout that partial cashing out and finish 8th with better profit than the winner?