I looked through all of the tournament forums but could not determine where to post this. Mike Caro published the below article on tournament play. My question to David and tournament pros is two fold.

1. Is Caro correct?

2. If he is correct, do the points he makes make Senior Tournaments the toughest in which to make money?

Poker tournament truth No. 1. If players are equally skilled, then the ones who make the most-profitable everyday poker decisions will lose money in tournaments!

That’s true in traditional “proportional payout” tournaments, as most are structured today. And I’m assuming that opponents who don’t make the most-profitable “ring game” decisions are, instead, making the most-profitable tournament decisions.

The reason for this strange truth is that proportional-payout tournaments (where first place gets a percentage of the prize pool, second place a smaller percentage, and so forth) require survival strategy. That means folding many hands that would be profitable in a non-tournament setting. It also means sometimes choosing tactics that reduce risk, rather than investing large sums of money at small advantages.

Poker tournament truth No. 2. The winner is penalized.

This truth underscores why I don’t play many tournament events. To me, a tournament should be about winning first place. Why else have a tournament?

But most tournaments have payouts that prevent pure poker greatness from being tested. Greatness is punished!

In a regular game, your small edges add up. But in tournaments, many advantages and finesses that make you a potential poker master must be sacrificed. You often should avoid using many of your most skillful higher-risk plays.

How come? It’s because the eventual winner is penalized. Think about it. The winner must corral all the chips in the tournament. That player has earned each of those chips by conquering all opponents. But now what happens? Usually about 70 percent of them are taken away to pay players who have already gone broke.

And there’s the horrible flaw with those tournament structures. The winner is penalized, while other late finishers are rewarded.

You can argue that it’s fair to everyone, because all players faced the same rules. Fine. But I’m saying that, even though it’s fair, it changes the object of a poker tournament from testing poker greatness to figuring out mathematically how to play worse-than-great to survive into the money.

Essentially, the object of a proportional-payout poker tournament is to avoid taking first place! Sure, you want to survive as late as possible. And you hope to stumble into winning all the chips. But to play most profitably, you must never target first place until you’re playing heads-up.

Maybe you’re wondering why survival tactics don’t matter two-handed. It’s because if first place pays $300,000 and second place pays $150,000, then each player has already won $150,000. Now it’s winner-take-all for the remaining $150,000. At that point first place will no longer be punished and second place will no longer be rewarded.

Poker tournament truth No. 3. Don’t advertise as much.

In regular poker, it sometimes pays to “advertise” by playing weak hands in order to make opponents think you play poorly. This invites extra calls later.

You should reduce your advertising budget dramatically in tournaments, because you aren’t likely to stay with the same players for many hours. In particular, don’t advertise if your table is about to break or if the game is temporarily short-handed.

Poker tournament truth No. 4. Attack near the bubble.

The last player eliminated before reaching the prize money is said to be “on the bubble.” Typically, players try hard not to be eliminated in the bubble position. Too hard.

Unless they have abundant chips, they play almost no hands, hoping someone else will be eliminated first. Often, this is your opportunity to temporarily abandon survival strategy and attack. You can win many pots without a fight.

Poker tournament truth No. 5. Conservative play is rewarded throughout.

A lot of advice has been given about which stages of the tournament to play aggressively and which to play conservatively. These tight-vs.-loose arguments are somewhat bogus.

Yes, you can play more aggressively with a tall stack against a short one. That’s because chip-for-chip short stacks are more precious in terms of survival, and it theoretically costs less potential profit to bet with abundant chips than to call with meager chips.

You should also take into consideration opponents’ traits and current moods. Often in the beginning of an event, many players are playing extra tight and can be bluffed. They fear being wounded or killed early.

But chip differences and player traits aside, you should choose a conservative, survival strategy throughout the tournament. That’s the simplest tournament truth to remember. Why complicate it?

Poker tournament truth No. 6. Tournament simulations don’t require cards!

Much of my poker tournament simulation by computer doesn’t involve poker — or even cards.

Actually, cards just make the results less reliable and error prone. The key is to determine the appropriate degree of tightness beyond normal everyday play. This can be best done by assigning random numbers to hands and not dealing with the intricacies of poker.

After determining how much extra tightness is profitable for the payout structure, then I find the everyday-winning hands that should be excluded to make the most tournament profit.

It’s a weird method, but it works. And it proves conclusively that tight is right throughout proportional-payout tournaments.

Poker tournament truth No. 7. The players who win the most tournaments are probably not the best tournament players!

In typical tournaments, you profit by surviving and taking advantage of the first-place penalty. In doing so, you won’t win as many events as those who target first place.

More money means winning fewer events! And that’s why I think today’s poker tournaments suck. There are ways to structure tournaments to reward playing your best poker, while still providing many players prize money. And I’ve offered some proposals.

But you can’t do that magic by using proportional-payoffs when tables are continuously filled in as players are eliminated. It just won’t work. And, so, usually, I won’t play.

Poker tournament truth No. 8. The best tournament players seldom win.

In typical tournaments, world-class players have about three times as good a chance of winning money as average players.

That’s admirable. But if we continuously held 600-player, winner-take-all tournaments, any average player would win about once in 600 events. Any top player would win once in 200 events. Poor players would win fewer events to balance the chances.

Playing 200 events to win once is scary, even for top poker pros. You could go many years without a victory — or you could get lucky and win five times in a year (and be famous).

Remember: The winner of a poker tournament always got lucky. Usually, the winner won’t rank among the best players.

It’s just one more tournament truth that isn’t pleasant. — MC

there`s a kernel of truth to it. old people are tighter than average, the most common mistake people make is to play too loose, and tournaments reward tightness.

tightness is a small part of playing well though, and old people tend to suck in a lot of different ways. maybe it's the fact that they're getting senile. maybe it's the fact that seniors tournaments are usually low value so they don't attract the best players. maybe it's that intelligent people will by that age have already found better things to do with their time.

it's just a meaningless fluff piece. best not to read too much into it.

What he is saying is true in that you often need to play more conservatively due to payout structure. I think he wrote this before ICM was well understood, so it had some value at the time. He was making an important point that was not well understood at the time. I think this was from like 10 years ago.

On the other hand, aggressive play is particularly important in tournaments, taking advantage of people playing too cautiously. I don't think Caro has ever had much success in tournaments, and perhaps the too cautious approach he implies here is part of the reason.

yeah, that's why I started in tournaments, you don't have to be that good and can get lucky for big payouts

that's a virtue imo

not sure about #7 tho, the best players will win out it just takes a loooooooooong looooooooong time for the std dev to equalize, thats why tourneys are made for online where you can play 50 in a day.

Yes, this has been a Caro stance for quite some time now. But he republished this thought in 2011 so I believe that he believes that his points are as true today as they were then. And quite frankly I believe he might be right. Especially about survival skill. Also, he doesn't poopoo aggressive play. I'm sure he feels that aggressive play must be in a tournament players arsenal. I believe he feels that selective aggression is a key component.

His payout truth is just ridiculous. As if tourneys are won on skills alone. Everyone here know you have to run good to win a tournament, even if you are the best player in the field. Getting into the money is a nice way to bring down the variance a bit.

a lot of bold statements there

I'd love to believe truth no.8

Yeah, gl DDT

He just seems to be saying (in a long-winded, dramatic, word-twisting way) that maximising tournament profits requires playing differently to cash game play (which everyone except a novice already knows). He implies that tournament play is less skilful, mainly on the basis that (a) its different to cash game play and (b) it involves not solely targeting first place.

You need to make adjustments to payout structure, adjustments to other players playing tight because of payout structure, adjustments to players playing agressively because others are playing tight, and so on.

He raises some interesting points. However, it comes down to he doesn't play tournaments because he can't beat them. Therefore, he offers his expert opinion that the best players do not win at tournaments. This must be true, by definition.

This is even more useless than his shtick on live tells.

He makes good points. Pretty much all icm stuff, a chip lost is more valuable than a chip gained = play tighter than you would if that wasn't true = not as profitable to press small edges = weaker players have an ev closer to stronger players because the strong players are the one's to press small edges but now shouldn't.

I dont think you read his article. He based his argument on making money in tournaments not winning the tournament. His is an EV argument.

It is the whole basis of his tournament philosophy.

In reality his points are not out of pocket opinions. His points may be arguable but are logical and bear considerations. He doesn't play tournaments because of what his analysis tells him. It's not a matter of beating them. It's a matter of EV. His EV or win rate must be better in cash games. Most pros that don't play tournaments feel this way. He is not the only "poker pro" that doesn't play tournaments. Ask Mason Malmuth although Mason no longer gets his money from playing. I find it difficult to argue with Caro's point that the best tournament players play a survival game.

It's just that some peoples survival technique is to be aggressive and have more chips than other players so can't be knocked out.

The Seniors Tournament is not tough because the players are mediocre. Their tightness just happens to be more correct than the best cash game strategy in certain situations. But that doesn't make up for the overall skill level deficiency.

Caro actually makes several good points in that article that deserve some thought, but raidalot did a good job of refuting the ones that don't make sense or aren't backed up by evidence

hahahhaahaha

"Poker tournament truth No. 6. Tournament simulations don’t require cards! Wat?

Much of my poker tournament simulation by computer doesn’t involve poker — or even cards.

Actually, cards just make the results less reliable and error prone. Uh? The key is to determine the appropriate degree of tightness beyond normal everyday play. This can be best done by assigning random numbers to hands and not dealing with the intricacies of poker. ???"

David, Thanks for answering. Yeah, I guess my point about the seniors was a bit overboard. I play the seniors when I can because I do believe they play mediocre, at best. I do believe that Caro is correct in that the best tournament strategy is somewhat survival strategy. When, I say the best strategy I mean one that is a positive EV strategy. LAG might win tournaments but if everyone played a LAG strategy chance would determine the winner.