Hypothetical Hand - What do you do

[mal666]

People underestimating the knock on effect of winning here and overestimating their hedge.

[TheSnapper]

Wow lots of claims itt about "our edge", "doubling up more than doubles our edge[citation needed]" etc and no sums to back up those estimated edges!

The bottom line is that ROI is the truest indicator as to our edge, a confident sample size is likely not achievable for live play and impossible for our ROI specifically in instances when we double up first hand.

If you know you suck at poker - call.

But given most of us will believe, rightly or wrongly, that we have an edge on the field. Then it"s a fold.

^^ This about sums up the dilemma.

What we can confidently consider are the factors or skills that give us an edge.

If the assumption is that we make better decisions than our opponent and since we are in a decision making contest with them, the more "rounds" we play in this decision contest the more our edge accumulates. Conversely, reducing the contest to one round reduces that edge.

[Jon MW]

...

Also +1 to what John said, doubling up at this point MORE than doubles your chance of winning/finaling the tournament

It"s the chip stack and structure that decide whether this is true.

If the big blind is 50 and you have 15,000 chips and your opponent has 30,000 chips - you"re not going to play any differently.

Therefore having the 30k doesn"t give you that much of an advantage - obviously it gives you a safety margin, if you get unlucky or mess a hand up you"ve got more chips to throw away;

but if the blind goes up to 100 and the 15k player has lost 5k and the 30k player has lost 5k; you"ve both still got deep enough stacks to play your own game - if you going for the double up because there"s a danger you"re going to lose 10k in the first level - that"s probably the right indication of skill level where you should be taking the flip after all.

There was some game theory concept that addresses this about risk/reward - but you have to accept that you can"t win a 2 day tournament in the first hour (only lose it)

[AAroddersAA]

OK, thank you very much for your help on that guy"s.

This is one of those where you can"t really show who is right or who is wrong, there is no mathematics for it really comes down to personal opinion. I wanted to know how people felt about taking a large gamble in a "high variance" spot.

I personally believe that given a double chip stack I could adjust my game to increase my chances more than double but not massively. You can push certain spots harder when you have a large chip stack and do it more often as it matters a lot less when you are wrong as you have more chips to exploit more of those spots. You will eventually make chips this way but might lose some in the short term.

I can"t say how much of an edge calling here gives you over folding but it is obviously going to be pretty small. The fact is, it is an edge though. This is shown by the fact most people would say if it was a re-entry to get it in, although the fact it is a re-entry does not make a difference. It just means you can enter an identical tournament immediately instead of having to wait until next month.

Now I could easily be totally wrong on this one as I know it"s not the opinion of most people. I was interested in the arguments for folding, which have been made.  I disagree with folding but some good players do indeed believe it is a fold (as I knew would happen) so I will respect that.

fwiw I think most poker player"s think they are better than they really are (me included) and that why we so often here fold and find a better spot. Out of interest would anybody be prepared to say what % of apat tournament they have played in they have actually doubled their starting stack in? I have played 15 and doubled my stack in 9 of them so 60%. To do it first hand 54% of the time looks pretty good in comparison.

[Fatcatstu]

Not nearly as pointless as your reply though eh?

[duke3016]

Not nearly as pointless as your reply though eh?

Loses its impact a when the ban master has removed the post  

[Fatcatstu]

Yea, now I just look like more of a loon than usual

[undisputed]

Hmmmm INSTA-CALL. You have a Q and another Q. Whats the problem

[Jon MW]

Hmmmm INSTA-CALL. You have a Q and another Q. Whats the problem

that a poker hand is made up of 5 cards and not 2?

[noble1]

if u read the theory of doubling up in the book mathematics of poker, u will see there after reading about size of field and the players perceived edge in buy in"s that u can begin to work it out...
go to page 316 and there example of QQ v AK in a 250 player mtt, the maths works out that in which to decline the perceived flip you would have to have a edge of 3x the avg equity in the mtt... as they go on to say, to have such an edge of 3x in a typical mtt field u would be amongst the best players in the world...

losing players should encourage variance, as it is their best chance to win. The more that other players get a chance to
apply their skill, the worse off the losing player will be. Hence, they should be willing to commit
all their chips in zero-EV situations or even slightly bad ones.

good book, math intensive but worth persevering with....

[AAroddersAA]

if u read the theory of doubling up in the book mathematics of poker, u will see there after reading about size of field and the players perceived edge in buy in"s that u can begin to work it out...
go to page 316 and there example of QQ v AK in a 250 player mtt, the maths works out that in which to decline the perceived flip you would have to have a edge of 3x the avg equity in the mtt... as they go on to say, to have such an edge of 3x in a typical mtt field u would be amongst the best players in the world...

losing players should encourage variance, as it is their best chance to win. The more that other players get a chance to
apply their skill, the worse off the losing player will be. Hence, they should be willing to commit
all their chips in zero-EV situations or even slightly bad ones.

good book, math intensive but worth persevering with....

Serious question:-

Are you saying that if you hold AK vs QQ you should call going by this? I would have assumed that to be a fold.

[noble1]

how many players in the mtt, how good are they, are we on a good table, do we have the skill to pick up chips in other ways besides hoping to pick up good hands, how good are we?

how many times do we need to double up to even get into the money?

factor in all the above [plus more] and yes sometimes call with QQ...