I'm looking at the payouts for the Jamega Tour and they're incredibly top-heavy. I believe this suggests clearly that every player should be playing for the win all the time?
A golfing friend disagrees and I'm struggling to get the point across using ICM principles, can anyone provide any input?
Looks like they're encouraging the top 2 to have to play very aggressively. 2nd place gets no monetary punishment for being aggressive and it not working out and finishing third. And leader has to know this as they are trying to take it home, so may have to play more aggressive as well anyway since the payouts are so different for 1st & 2nd.
Looks like they're encouraging the top 2 to have to play very aggressively. 2nd place gets no monetary punishment for being aggressive and it not working out and finishing third. And leader has to know this as they are trying to take it home, so may have to play more aggressive as well anyway since the payouts are so different for 1st & 2nd.
No, its like this because there was a tie for 2nd place.
Taking risks/being aggressive in order to go for the win if second, rather than not taking risks and looking up second for example.
But why do you think the payout structure you posted is so unusual to change behaviors? I just posted payout structures from a variety of individual sporting events, and they look pretty much the same, which suggests that your characterization of "incredibly top heavy" is a bit of a stretch. But anyway, there is more to the story than a simple EV calc for an individual tournament . Winning has ancillary effects (exemptions, endorsements, pride, glory, etc.). Failing in going for a win with really long odds has side effects, too (embarrassment, viral videos, etc.). People are humans not calculators.
Do you think guys in the Masters are trying to win less than a dude in the Jamega Tour because the prize money is slightly flatter? If not, what exactly is your point?
In a SNG optimal playing style varies hugely based upon the prize pool payouts, why does this change in a golf tournament? The prize pool in the Jamega Tour is a lot steeper than the Challenge Tour which is much flatter and hence there is value in just placing high and not taking risks for the win.
In a SNG optimal playing style varies hugely based upon the prize pool payouts, why does this change in a golf tournament? The prize pool in the Jamega Tour is a lot steeper than the Challenge Tour which is much flatter and hence there is value in just placing high and not taking risks for the win.
how many tournaments are there in anything where you don't strongly prefer playing for 1st? seems like if you are 3-4 behind but 1 stroke up in 2nd, you play for second? or needing to keep your card?
and i saw another post. can't believe 2nd and semi-finalists same in wimbledon.... may e i misunderstood presentation tho
Can you not troll the thread if you've got nothing productive to offer that could help me understand the situation.
Not trolling, trying to help. If you haven't played golf then nothing I say will help you understand other than the fact you cannot compare poker and golf in this way.
I'll try this. In a poker tournament if you play balls to the wall let's rate that a 10, if you play tight simply trying to avoid busting out let's rate that a 1. Those are the extremes. Well, in golf the aggressive extreme is a 6 while the passive extreme is a 4. In poker you can push all in with 72o and it will succeed. That's the equivalent of trying to carry 400 yards of water by bouncing it off two turtles at the 280 and 350 marks.
Golf is totally different from poker, non-golfers cannot apply poker principles to golf and hope to succeed.
Have you ever finished highly in a tournament that paid significant money?
Quote:
Originally Posted by voldemort
Can you not troll the thread if you've got nothing productive to offer that could help me understand the situation.
Don't let him derail you OP. At the core, both poker and golf can be modeled with probabilities, so if you're purely trying to maximize earnings then similar logic applies.
Why do I ****ing bother? I'll just be like the rest of you internet kids and go tell Sheldon Cooper all the mistakes he's made regarding string theory.
You can use it to determine how you play but it has a lot less relevance than in poker.
Golf doesn't have a continuum of shots that you can choose from like you poker has with different hands to play. In golf you're already pulling your Driver on most par 4/5s and pulling whatever club is necessary to hit the green on par 3's. Yeah if you're up a few with a hole to play you can pull iron off the tee or if a hole offers the opportunity to drive it or lay up you can choose the more aggressive option if you need to make something happen but most holes don't offer that opportunity. It's not like you can just pull out your super driver and try to drive the green whenever you want.
The main thing you could do is start shooting at more pins and there are still situations where you are best off not doing this because the return on getting it closer to the stick is really only evident when you can get it real close and its just hard to do that from far away that you won't be meaningfully closer often enough (the surface area of a 5' circle is a lot less than a 25' circle) to offset the times you get in trouble from being too aggressive.
In general there will just be a right way to play a hole with small deviations that you can take to effect the outcome of the score and any major deviation from that best choice scenario is inferior.
Other factors: In golf the end is a set number of holes and the end of a sit n go isn't a set number of hands, golf isn't a zero sum game
A lot of people are wondering the same question. People ask questions, and you tilt your answers to make it seem like they don't have the golf resume to understand anyway. You think you are helping, everyone else thinks you are trolling.
OP asked a math question that involves golf, not a golf question that involves math. If your math background isn't strong enough to help, then try not to derail him.
A lot of people are wondering the same question. People ask questions, and you tilt your answers to make it seem like they don't have the golf resume to understand anyway. You think you are helping, everyone else thinks you are trolling.
OP asked a math question that involves golf, not a golf question that involves math. If your math background isn't strong enough to help, then try not to derail him.
+1
Voldemort should lay down some crucio **** on his ass
In a poker tournament if you play balls to the wall let's rate that a 10, if you play tight simply trying to avoid busting out let's rate that a 1. Those are the extremes. Well, in golf the aggressive extreme is a 6 while the passive extreme is a 4. In poker you can push all in with 72o and it will succeed.
BO
This is dead on.
Depending on the strength of field (and since I've never heard of the tour I'm assuming not the deepest), it would likely be beneficial to play more conservative given an extremely top-heavy payout. Let the others play more aggressive and melt away.
Way more often than not aggressive play raises scores, not lowers them.
Competitive golfers will not change their behavior because first place is 50% of the purse or 18% of the purse. Like someone mentioned before, there are other things that come along with winning such as exemptions into future events. Comparing golf tournaments to SNG's is not good because in golf their is not an effective way of measuring +EV play like could be easily done in poker. I think you are making the assumption that a competitive player is looking solely to maximize their ROI with low variance or a risk/reward scenario that tilts in their favor. This really isn't the case because the effects winning can have.
For example, a Nationwide tour player could just go all out every week, miss 22/25 cuts, but the three weeks his strategy works and he wins and he goes straight to the PGA Tour and is better off than every single player on the Nationwide tour who plays what could be considered a more +EV strategy. Obviously this example is a bit of a stretch.
I am hoping you see my point that winning can have non-monetary effects down the road that could lead to greater monetary benefits so you aren't gonna see some guy saying "well I'm 1 shot back and have to go for a par 5 to get into the playoff, instead I'll just lay up so that I am sure that I get second." The only exception I can see to this maybe would be if the guy needs to finish in 3rd to secure his PGA/Nationwide tour privileges the next year and he is currently T2 and losing a shot could result in him being 4th. But even then, if he is worried about that he is not playing a +EV strategy because anyone here who has played competitively will tell you that playing golf in the rear view mirror is probably the worst thing you could do when in contention.
There just isn't some rigid mathematical equation because in golf you don't necessarily experience the "long-run" since winning opportunities may not be as plentiful. If you are playing tournaments or SNGs and you have a mathematically solid strategy that works you over a long enough time span you will win. There are just no mathematical guarantees in golf so you will see guys go for something that may mathematically be not worth it, but all your decisions are short run decisions because the whole tournament lasts only 4 rounds, not 10,000 SNGs or tournaments over a year where clear trends will begin to form.
Way more often than not aggressive play raises scores, not lowers them.
This is why BO wasn't trolling. He didn't explain it, but this is what he was saying.
You're talking about trying to win a coin flip in poker when there's 6 guys left to try to double your stack. That one-time 50/50 (60/40, 75/25, whatever) flip puts you on top half the time, and half the time knocks you out in 6th.
When you're on the golf course, what you as a non-high-level golfer are thinking about as far as "being aggressive" is that a player is taking a shot at trying to go for a pin that's tucked away instead of aiming for the safe part of the green. Let's say realistically that going for the tucked pin will be successful 50% of the time (holy **** that's way too high of a percentage, but that's erring in your favor, trust me). So 50% of the time, he pulls it off. Now 50% of the time he's royally ****ed and makes a bogey or double. So he's giving back 1-2 strokes to the field. The time he DOES pull it off, he still has to make a 10 footer, which he's only 50% to make, so he's really only going to make birdie 25% of the time he goes for the tight pin. ADDITIONALLY, if he played for the fat part of the green, there's nothing saying that he won't "miss" the shot closer to the pin, and there's nothing saying that he can't drain the 25 foot putt, but he's almost guaranteeing that he will make at worst a par.
And this is just one shot. Being aggressive multiple times is going to most likely increase your score, not decrease it. Realistically, the aggressive play mentioned before where I said it was 50/50. It's more likely to be around 25/75.
It's just not the same. I hope someone else can elaborate more on why.
I didn't say they are the same, I said that principles can apply. I'm not sure some of you really understand the theory either.
Golfer Thinks:
-I play aggressive, I average 4.2 on this Par 4
-I lay conservative, I average 4.0 on this Par 4
Therefore best play is conservative.
ICM based Theory:
-Payouts are steep, play aggressive, make birdy to increase my chances of winning, to win you need to make lots of birdies. Take the aggressive play as the payout is significantly larger for 1st. Make birdy 0.3 times, in 10 times you win 100k 3 times, so 300k EV, playing conserative, 1 time you win 100k, 4 times you win 20k, 5 times you win $0, EV $180k.
Obviously I'm not talking about shooting at every flag, hitting driver every hole, but where there is the opportunity to be aggressive.
Why do I ****ing bother? I'll just be like the rest of you internet kids and go tell Sheldon Cooper all the mistakes he's made regarding string theory.
I didn't say they are the same, I said that principles can apply. I'm not sure some of you really understand the theory either.
Absolutely, and we're not just talking about winning the tournament. Most guys who play 18 on Sunday are not in contention, but they are faced with some kind of payout distribution (probably estimated).
In reality, most golf pros math skills are limited to addition, and several can't handle that (Roberto De Vincenzo?) so it's not surprising that nobody cares. But they should!
