Aww is this your first betgo infused thread?

Betgo,

I use to play a lot of the same MTT SnGs as you did three or four years back and also did play a similar style to what you have suggested in some of your posts.

This style was profitable back then because:

a) people called way tighter than optimal
b) keeping your stack to a point where you could min raise open people all day long and they would only play back with the same range they'd call a shove with was hugely profitable

In today's games people:

a) call way closer to optimal
b) defend opens much better whether 3betting wider over loose openers or just calling more and defending somewhat proficiently post flop

The games are just not the same as they were when you played them and in todays games you get punished for a lot of the types of plays you are suggesting.

My points are

-- If you don't steal, you wind up with a microstack with like 3xBB in a few hands.

-- At this stage, I think there is merit to gambling to maintain FE.

-- There is not that much of an ICM issue here. If there were, and you could fold your way up in payouts, then I would push much tighter.

-- The mincash is not the main part of your equity.

-- I am not suggesting to play that way mainly to take advantage of weak play by opponents, but because of the tournament situation.

-- Yes, I am aware that people are calling lighter in 2014 at these stakes.

You could call it low stakes, but I had the highest ROI of anyone in 2-tables with about 60% regs. I was planning on moving up to the highest stakes with about 75% regs, but BF happened. I play with my own money and am very cautious. So, yeh I think I know a little about turbos, but I haven't been able to play on sites with a lot of them for the last few years, so I could be out of touch with some changes, and I know they have gotten a lot tougher.

I also know that is not a super big deal or anything, but I do know a few things, and am not FOS on this sort of thing. I was responding about that to remarks about my fraudulent coaching or whatever.

I feel like I am making important points above here, and however light we should shove here, and whether you think I am right or wrong, they are not total BS. I don't understand some of the reaction to what I was saying.

stop saying how you crushed the games, no one cares

almost everything you say is wrong

let's use your latest post as an example

If your goal is just to mincash, are not we better off trying to steal? Otherwise, we will have to gii with nofe eventually before the bubble.

Betgo you realize that if in each orbit you get one chance to push first and you do it with double the range that Nash suggests you are actually more than doubling the chance to be eliminated? But you are not by winning the blinds or a lucky double up (which by the way is not happening twice as often now but less than twice) making it 100% certain you will cash either.

So you need to balance things, not nitty and not too risky. And then the open project is how to deviate from Nash if others play bad. Its not for example the trivial result that if others are tight you need to abuse them very wide. You win by the mere fact if you push properly they dont call you as often and they dont steal your blinds as often as well. So why make it easier for them than it is to take you out?

Nobody here is suggesting to stick to some 5-10% hands and fold all else. Just adjust to each position and know roughly within 2-3% what the proper ranges are and hope the others make 5% errors or worse in the same guesses. We all play wrong live in complex spots. One can only hope they play less wrong than the others. And if that is true then suddenly it becomes important to survive to witness those errors and benefit from them. Errors like 2 big stacks killing each other wide or others not pushing to steal at all or calling very wide etc.

Yes managing to maintain fold equity is important. Just make sure you do not do it in such a way that the fraction of times you are now eliminated more often than before , which is a big loss, doesnt get covered by the improvement when you are still alive and have taken the blinds down or doubled up. A doubled stack doesnt have double the equity for example. Chip and a chair matters. Just dont be a nit about it though. Good risk must be taken without fear. But it has to be good risk.

When I said don't play for the mincash, I meant that it would be a disaster getting blinded out trying to mincash for 1/4 of what your stack is worse now and less than your buyins.

If you want to take a mathematical approach, you have to look at ICM in terms of the value of the stacks. You can say there is ICM, but is the value of your chips really less per chips if you steal or double up? If you steal, you have a a pushbot stack after going through the blinds. You also probably then can fold your way into the money if you want to.

If you go through the blinds without playing a hand, then you have like a 3xBB stack, which you can push or call with and get allin against 1 or 2 players. That isn't that big a disaster. However, I think the chips you gain when you steal are worth more per chip than your original stack.

Therefore, since the chips you gain by stealing or doubling up are not worth less per chip than the original chips, you should go with the cEV+ push.

Regardless of exactly what hands you should push here, it is important to look at factors like losing FE if you don't steal. You can run Nash or whatever calculations, but I find it is better to make adjustments for the tournament situation and where you are going to be on future hands with different stacks.

this thread is pure gold <3
where is michael jackson and his popcorn if you need him?

if we were a little deeper we could go for a new york backraise

Would be really interested to see your math on how this spot differs depending on whether we are in for $200, $400, or $600 (which is impossible, but you mentioned earlier in this thread for some reason)

It doesn't, but the mincash looks big, but it is really 10-15% of the prizepool, and we have half of an average stack. So it shouldn't be the primary concern. Someone was saying the mincash was 3 buyins, which it is technically, but it is less than what many people bought in for.

Also, stealing light may improve your chance of a mincash, so I am not sure how we play for a mincash, except by blinding out, which doesn't work and isn't good.

If we are in for 200 I Cash Minimum model says we should play tight as min cash -200 = profit

If we are in for 400 I Call More model says we should push twice as wide as Nash as no one who sees us push J6o for 25bb will possibly adjust ( ha ha fools ) or give us fish tag and we can get top top moniez = profit.

Let me know if you want some help I offer coaching. I crushed the $11 rebuys in 2004 and dont believe in maths and stuff so have a big edge over those ' maths guys'

I just explained what I meant. Of course it doesn't matter how much you bought in for, but the mincash is probably less than one buyin for an average player in the tournament, so what lissi was saying about the mincash being huge because it was 3 buyins was false.

Some of you are being really silly about this. I made a mathematical argument about why the value of the chips you gain when you steal is greater per chip than your original chips in this situation, because they enable you to maintain FE. Some people choose to ignore it, and get into some silly discussion about how many times you bought in, which is obviously totally irrelevant.

I suppose a math guy is someone who runs some software and blindly follows the results rather than makes adjustments for the tournament situation. I have a math degree from a good school, and a lot of experience tutoring calculus and so on. So I think I know more math than most of these "math guys".

What kind of 'good school' is that where they allow the following to be called a 'mathematical argument':

I specifically enjoyed the term 'therefore', as if the two babbling paragraphs preceding it had actually proven something.

Johns Hopkins.

It isn't possible to do a mathematical proofs of this. I am saying that if you have a 7xBB stack and and add 2.5xBB by stealing, then the additional chips are worth more per chip than the original chips. I can't prove it based on theorems and postulates. However, I think there are situations where you should open up your range to maintain FE.

I don't see anyone doing proofs here. People can do calculations of cEV or use ICM or Nash software. I use mathematical knowledge combined with software, intuition, and experience. You can't play by straight mathematics.

No one ITT is claiming to have solved this spot; you OTOH basically said 'if we steal we have more chips' and called it a mathematical argument.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

''As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

Well i did calculate the Nash equilibrium vs 5 left, approximated as i described earlier to compensate for 2 tables left, came at about 20-21% push range and about 7-10% calling ranges and 98s was out, T9s in (to get an idea how close) but the btn sitting out the hand made it ok as push but still leaves it likely as bad idea if the btn is out for good because the table then has excessive value that doesnt worth marginal crap until he is back if at all.

But yeah Betgo needs to explain what he means by mathematical argument lol.


I plan one of these days to do this; (But its lengthy) (unless theory guys want to helpas they once promised but never delivered with true simulations)

Consider a 3 player test table and give them bad ranges away from proper Nash (say 5% errors ie instead of calling 15% they call 20% or instead of pushing 20% they push 15% etc all possible styles, tight, loose , icm idiotic chip EV calls between big stacks etc ) for 3 hands back to back and give ourselves good ranges exactly as Nash and then try to see what happens if we skip a marginal hand in the first time to our overall equity after 3 hands to see the effect of how bad others play in what needs to be done about marginal spots. (to see how it propagates i mean in future avg equity over all possible outcomes 3 hands later)

My guess is that when others play bad you need to avoid marginal ideas unless you have a very clear understanding of how bad they play and in what direction. I think preserving local survival probability is important in games others make errors. It allows you to do small errors on the tight side and be ok. But i need simulations to see if this is really true.

I can't help but to agree with your guess.

People asked me for a mathematical argument, so I was trying to oblige. All I said initially was that most of the equity was not in the mincash, and that is not what you should focus on. More importantly, you should pushbot somewhat lighter because you are about to lose fold equity and be blinded out, and the ICM payout issue is not that big at this point.

I have explained these points repeatedly if people misunderstood. I don't understand why I am getting this kind of reaction. Most people were saying it was a push, and I think I said it was a really easy push.

I am making reasonable points. If you disagree with them, I would be interested in counterarguments, not in saying I am just wrong. I particularly appreciate NSB's brilliant contribution suggesting I was recommending varying your strategy based on how much you bought in for.

''I don't believe in mathematics.''

Quoted in Carl Seelig. Albert Einstein.

I mentioned several reasons why this is a good situation to open your range, 1)the mincash is maybe 1/5 of your equity, 2)you can't fold your way in, 3)you are about to lose FE and be blinded out, 4)the ICM effect of payouts isn't that great at this stage.

I did have success in turbos by opening and tightening my range based on factors like this. I would be interested in counterarguments. However, "betgo is a donk", and "duh, it's $600, so fold your way in" are not helpful. I am getting all sorts of abuse but no one has really answered my points.


Exactly, a mathematics background is useful, but you won't win in poker by reducing it to a math problem.

Betgo,

FE isn't that important in ICM if people are calling accurately or too wide (as if it were a cash game, etc.). If people are playing like a cash game then it's a fold because the bubble will burst pretty fast, or someone will open their 87o HJ and you'll get a decent spot if you pick up a hand at some point.

This isn't 2004 where you shove in EP and people just fold everything, there is a very real possibility at some tables that this shove gets called off way wider than it should and that's a disaster for a hand like 98s that is going to find itself not just getting called, but in some really way behind spots quite often.

The 'future game' factor is important here, because if the table is mostly nitty then 1) this shove gets through way more 2) because of the nit factor the bubble is going to take longer on average to burst 3) by picking up chips you could eventually become the bully, etc.

However if the table is playing cash game ICM suicide then it's a fold because you will get better spots even if you lose fold equity. Playing against ICM suiciders is tricky business because you basically have to pick up hands and hope they all bust each other in the meantime.

So the real answer to this is decided by what type of table hero is playing on, if it is full of nits (SB/BB especially) or if it is full of ICM suiciders, and since it is both you have to make the most reasonable guess possible.

But based on my experience, people tend to tighten up vs calls way too much on the bubble, but absolutely ICM punt hard on final tables, which is bizarre. So yes we get what you're saying for the most part but I don't think fEQ is nearly as important as you're suggesting (in certain spots, like vs ICM suiciders). It's clearly important vs. nits, but again if we're playing vs nits this is a clear shove.