Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 494
Wondering if someone can direct me to a post/article/book/piece of software that can help me better understand stealing/restealing equilibria at the end of a tournament. I understand what a resteal is, and am able to effectively resteal, but I mostly base it on feel rather than any strong theory.
I final tabled FTP's 150+13 40k guarantee yesterday, and while I felt good about my play overall, the play at the final table was somewhat foreign. I'd improve with practice, but I can't just assume I'll have too many oppotunities to do so.
A couple thoughts:
1) The standard raise size seemed really small. 2.5xBB, when there are antes, is like 1.8xBB when there aren't, which isn't even a legal raise. It seems like big stacks should be calling with a lot of speculative hands on their big blind. Given that a c-bet is almost automatic, you're getting pretty sick implied odds. On one occasion I called a loose raiser with JT from my BB, the flop came ten high and checked through, I bet-called a push on a blank turn and won against a beaten pocket pair.
2) It seems like there should be a way to determine fairly decent equilibrium playing probabilities for these endgames, given stack sizes, a standard opening raise, and payout structure. ie, raise from this CO with top x% of hands, resteal from SB with top y% of hands given a raise hijack, etc. Not that you'd necessarily want to play the equilibrium strategy, but it'd be a useful guide.
I eventually busted after twice losing big coinflips to the same guy. Very happy with my play/finish, but nonetheless looking to improve.
