Short stacks have a tendency to widen their ranges on a push, they only have to miss once and they are out. April on other hand can have multiple goes at them and will still be dominating the table.

There are 2 shorties in the hand, they are likely to be holding blockers to each other (A2 in this case).

34 will also be removing the lo draws of any A2 holdings.

I can't help but think the real reasoning is "OMG, I can take 2 out!! OMG, I can take 2 out!! OMG, I can take 2 out!!"

April, came to think about one thing: what is your ROI% ? One can come to the leaderbord with primarily volume too. Are you sure that the play you demonstrated in this hand isn´t a leak?

Unless my math is way off, after the fact, in a pure vacuum, this play is break-even. The pot odds are 1.35:1 and his equity is 1.38:1. Now factoring in hero's massive stack advantage....................

Is my math right?

Wrong...Take his hand, and simulate it vs 2 hands in opp(s) ranges.

Bottom line, in cash EV its a losing play..He knows this.

"Whats your ROI?" is a great question...Sure you win a ton of tournamnts
at Shaun Deeb-like volume....

The question is why? Im sure you could do a lot better then you do.

Big stacks have higher EV per hand, because they pick on middle stacks
giving them extra fold equity, picking up more dead money....Shove first-in,
resteal shoves, etc...In your example, you had no fold equity, and an
Omaha-8 hand is never folding after putting in 4k. The play is horrible
cash or tournament. The chips you stand to win mean about nothing here.
In your case your stack was SO big, your chips to lose also didnt mean
much...Therefore this hand doesnt really effect your tournament EV much
regardless of how you choose to play it, yet it is -ev with nothing to gain,
so its a fold.

My guess is your doing something incredibly well in tournaments that
your not even aware of...Like perhaps avoiding -EV Stack sizes, and
going out of your way before you hit that zone to get your chips in
for tiny edges and either build a stack or bust.

Regardless of your math (in which I have no idea what your talking about)
being right or wrong, how is using your BIG stack to an advantage when
you have ZERO fold equity preflop.

You need to use a big stack as leverage somewhere in the hand.

Dont you think as big stack youd be much better off in NL O8, seeing
flops, turns ,rivers, and putting your opponent to the test then?

You have plenty of fold equity preflop. At the final tables of NLO8 events I always see people folding preflop getting the right price to call.

ok, knocked out of most of my tournaments now. have read some of it, and will reply when i can. i have seen some good answers, mostly good questions. i'd like to see less questions from buzz because he's tough. but some of those questions are basically repeating or further explaining. i will need some more help obviously.

that's not how this works....the cards weren't played face up i doubt he figured both guys hold exactly a52x. you have to assign a range and see how the hand plays against their raise/shove range.

LOL at u 2... Maybe u guys taking this a bit 2 seriously?

The only reason I put up that simulation in the first place, is b/c I personally found it kind of neat that Hero's (55th percentile) hand came out an actual favorite over a (3rd percentile hand and a 10th percentile hand). What a difference those blockers make, ha?......

As far as the 'massive stack advantage', all that was meant by it is just that; in ABSOLUTE terms hero's stack dwarfs all others at the table. In fact the 2nd largest stack at the table is only a 1/4 of hero's stack.

I don't know if this is the final table or not, nor to I know how many places get paid. But if it is the final table, here is one way to consider things IMO:

Hero's stack and style of play favor a setting where he can LAG it up and just continue to PWN his opponents. And obv the less people at the table the easier it is to do; also, considering that each remaining player at the table realize that if they are to get involved in a hand w/ hero the will be playing for their tournament life as this crazy mofo just doesn't give a ****. In other words, as the blinds increase and the player # decreases at the table, players ought to loosen up. but if hero succeeds in making at least some at the table to play more timid and tighten up, well then that's IMO a huge plus.

So basically I guess what I am saying is that the main benefit of that play is the psychological edge gained if it does work out, where is the real cost of such a play seems to be more or less insignificant.

And as far as my math, that's exactly why I stated in my post, a) 'AFTER the FACT and b) in a pure vacuum. But nevertheless I salute the king of the obvious for pointing out that poker is not played w/ everyone's hands up. Just wanted to c if my pot odds and equities into odds conversion was right, cause TBH i suk ballz at math....

OK. That's easy. No problem.

I see your point with your posted hand. Good example.

Buzz

don't take things so personally.....

ok. today is the day of cleaning the apartment, watching spartacus, and replying to the O8 thread.

i also didn't mean that i wished for a decrease in buzz's questions. i meant that i wished for an increase in his answer / question ratio. man, the guy is fighting fire with fire lol! i feel like i just pushed this boulder up a hill and he pushes it back down rather than helping me settle it for a moment to help me push it further up the mountain. but i at least hope that you'll help me reach the top after we leave these foothills.

but i'm very excited there is some info / questions for me to get at and now i have some time today.

there is one major aspect which i feel can go with what i've said to help it be better understood, where right now i need to reread to see how much the points i thought i had illustrated are being overlooked. i think at least 2-3 guys had a good grip on a part of what i was saying. kitty is one. food now, then i will reread the whole thing and reply.

i know i'm just playing hardball and kidding around to stay sane. please don't take my joking personally. i think buzz knows i'm just teasing.

wot?

i'm saying that i was grinding, so i didn't have time to read the thread. but i was guessing that the most likely summary of my response to reading it might have been "buzz you're wrong", also illustrating my contrarian / combative nature.

Glad to have you around, April. Saw you broke 2000 posts . A hard working guy deserves respect.

would you guys prefer that i just respond thought by thought as i'm reading these or in general broad responses? there is a lot of material here to consider, and i'm also multitasking.

Partly disagree. Poker IS about getting the results you hope for. That is +EV (all counted) and winning (partly short term but especially and more importantly long term).

Ok, that is what I think poker is about.
Ps. poker gives the opportunity to discuss with you guys.

Can you do both?

ok, i'll just put this one out there. it doesn't matter that you can't know for sure what your BB/orbit is for my example. this is where my strategy requires one of those poker leaps of faith. i create this metric of BB/orbit in my own head on the fly based on previous estimations. to describe my method in a less mathematical sense, just look at the stacks around you, estimate how big your edges are over them at different stack sizes, then consider that edge as an extra incentive or disincentive toward making a decision which will have a probability of setting your stack to that particular size. but it doesn't matter. my numbers were only for an example.

but that is not as important as this. when describing a stack size as having a new expectation, the expectation is primarily due to the increase or decrease in implied and reverse implied odds you have against your opponents' stacks. if you have 3000 chips, and there are are 3 players at your table with 10,000 chips whom you have a large edge over in deep stacked play, then it is to your advantage to gain those implied odds against them, and yields a higher +EV expectancy, not out of a newly selected style, yet a new mathematical relationship between player assets.

second, the new expectancy is also an effect of the relationship of the new stack size to inflection points in the line selection of both you and your opponents. i will give an example from nlhe because i know it the best. let's assume an opponent always raises to 3BB preflop. if you were to lose a hand such your stack size decreases below the amount of implied odds you would decide you need to call preflop with a certain strength of hand, say pairs looking for a set, then you would price yourself out of this potential edge you might have over the other player, and decrease the expectancy of your stack. further, the alternate lines you might choose to select might impose dramatically different sharpe rations (EV/standard deviation) which impose recursive stack size and speculative odds considerations. for example, if you had a low pocket pair which you would normally choose to call and attempt to flop a set, yet priced yourself out of this by a diminished stack size, you might choose to reraise all in as your highest +EV play. this imposed volatility of the play affects your future stack sizes much more dramatically than the line you might have taken to just call. and the recursive probabilistic stack sizes resulting from all of the plays you make for every hand you could be dealt imply their own their own (EV,standard deviation) tuple which you may consider. as far as your opponents are concerned, they might be priced out as well, or maybe they see that you are so shallow or deep that they decide not to raise. your opponents' line selections will certainly be affected by your future stack sizes.

This may be genius in action.

meant "sharpe ratio", not "sharpe ration".

I am very open minded to this thread, but I feel like I felt in college when I finished Calc III and took Differential Equations and Game Theory. It was just too abstract for me to follow.

But I will say one thing...

A player like me would not benefit from being an enormous stack like you would. I would take that stack and guarantee a deep finish and pick my spots much more carefully. I also don't think that your thought process can easily be taught. I have been doing this for a while and have great finishing results when I do get deep and rarely am I near the chip lead going ITM and when reaching the FT.

Just saw this, the first thing that crossed my mind is that Aprils' "speculative odds" concept is an attempt at putting an estimated value on the effect of Hero's play in this hand on his opponents' play in future hands. Something that Buzz brings up constantly when trying to explain why he would/would not raise with ABCD.

Thought it was kind of amusing that Buzz seemed to be the one giving OP the most heat for that.

I think it's a great idea, forcing your opponent to have to decide to play for his entire stack w/ a low draw, if the chips it takes to do that are relatively valuless. As somebody already pointed out, the knowledge that they will be playing for stacks should tend to make them play tighter than they should, which plays right in to the whole Fundamental Theory of Poker thing.

So, Aprils, let's say you are tracking your stack size vs your opponents'. Your stack size is X times your nearest opponent at that table. at what value of X do you make the example play? Do you play marginally more loosely as X increases, or is it more of a step function? Do you ever do that with something like 6789 rainbow?

Regards

Gar