APAT Tournament Hand of the Week: November 5th

[LuckyLloyd]

Posted by: LuckyLloyd

Results are irrelevant.

This statement grates me a bit.

Tournament poker is a sport...and there is no other sport anywhere around the world where this statement would carry an ounce of credibility. Sounds like something a left-wing, bearded school govenor would say about a school sports day.

When Yang won the WSOP Main Event I read many a debate about his credibility and hoardes of people offered the opinion that he wasn't a particularly worthy winner with regard to his ability. How irrelevant was his result? Pretty relevant I imagine. I have re-posted below what I posted at the time.

The result is the most important thing in tournament poker...nothing else really matters. I was talking to my mate Marcus the other day soon after he had won the Grosvenor Grand Prix. Yes, he lucked out a few times in the tournament...namely 9-9 Vs A-A in the Final...did that bother him? LOL. Was the result irrelevant to him? LOL.

What's more the result of this week's HOTW is the result because of how YOU played it...the approach YOU took...so how is the result irrelevant? I really wouldn't know.
 

This is going to be my last post in the PHA section of these boards for quite some time. I am not an excellent player by any stretch of the imagination - yet I think that even me continuing to argue with your way of thinking and poker mentality simply amounts to a tapping of the proverbial fish tank.

POKER IS NOT A SPORT. It's a maths based game that carries a lopsided ratio in terms of skill : luck. However, that ratio becomes closer the shorter the sample size. And in the case of a single hand or a single tournament - the ratio can sometimes tilt in favor of luck : skill. As such, if 100k hands at 6 - max cash equates to a premiership season - a single APAT event is closer to Bury at home to West Ham in the FA cup third round in terrible wet conditions and in front of a raucous home support. And an individual hand is the equivalent of a 30 second a half indoor five a side.

Therefore, results in terms of an individual hand or an individual tournament will tell us nothing about whether we are good or bad; or whether something was correct or incorrect. It is possible to play a poker tournament; play EVERY single hand in a negative EV fashion and still win. In fact, it is an accepted reality that tournaments rarely reward the player that plays the best poker.

The smaller the sample, the greater bearing variance will have on the outcome. And, as such, the smaller the sample the less relevant it is for basing conclusions on what the best play in a certain type of situation was; or will be the next time. The "long run" in live tournaments in terms of results is practically unreachable most of the time. You could probably play every APAT event for the next five years and still have no idea what your true edge or expectation for playing them is. And it is definitely possible to play every APAT event for the next five years without making a single incorrect decision or questionable play and never cash once.

This is why professional tournament players play thousands of MTTs a year. The most successful online tournament pros generally work sweatshop hours and invest 500 - 600k+ in buyins per year. They do this in an attempt to defeat the sick variance that the MTT format produces. Their focus is on making decisions in every hand that will equal a positive expectation in terms of chips over the long run. They have no regard for self defeating concepts like tournament life unless the particular hand scenario means that +cEV no longer equals +$EV(sats or on a pay bubble).

A good hand dissection can take place without the actual result of the hand being revealed. What the villian called with THIS TIME and who won the hand THIS TIME  does not matter one little bit. Our goal should be to try and identify what hands he could have turned over this time given the action and work out the best line available against that range given our holding of flopped bottom two pair. That's it. Once results are revealed it becomes impossible for most people to discuss those issues without some form of inherent bias meaning that most of any remaining discussion will be devalued and less useful from a perspective of progression in your thought processes.

I play a lot of tournaments and I post in a lot of tournament hand history analysis threads on various poker forums. The end result of this hand is entirely uninteresting to me. Knowing it will not help me to improve my game one little bit. This broader tournament scenario (APAT event; miles from the money) is meh. And in any case - THIS IS NOT A SWEAT THREAD.

As a consequence, the result of this hand is irrelevant. But it pleases me that you don't get that. Because we need teh value.

[ifm]

Great post but i did say you should stop educating the fishes.

BTW if i flopped 2 pairs i would do whatever i could to get my chips in here because statistically i am going to be ahead more often than not, if i am miles behind in this single instance then tough it really doesn't matter.

[doubleup]

LuckyL - hope you don't stop posting as you clearly have a lot to offer this board.  I agree 100% with your comments about results being irrelevant to the discussion of a hand.  I think this could be an excellent board if a bit more guidance was provided on what was required to start a sensible discussion about a hand and what was expected from respondents. 

[snoopy1239]

To find out the cards in this hand, please see the reveal in the link below:

http://www.blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/13579

[TightEnd]

LuckyL - hope you don't stop posting as you clearly have a lot to offer this board.  I agree 100% with your comments about results being irrelevant to the discussion of a hand.  I think this could be an excellent board if a bit more guidance was provided on what was required to start a sensible discussion about a hand and what was expected from respondents. 

what do you have in mind?

surely one persons sensible discussion/reponse is another's waste of time?

we aim to attract all players of varying standards and experience to this board.

[MANTIS01]

The result has been posted so let’s take a look at the lessons to be learnt from this week’s HOTW.

Firstly, the result for me is both relevant and significant.

Lessons are learnt in almost everything we do by assessing the results of our actions. If I win this hand then the significance of playing blind would almost certainly have been lost on me this time. But in this case it is worthwhile to look at the result of my actions, namely being knocked out of the tournament, and realise that this was an entirely avoidable situation. I can now use the result of this experience to shape my actions and attitude in future tournaments. Tournament strategy and tournament success for me is not about whether you win or loose a single hand.

A infinitely more important point though is this…..

Have you ever heard the expression “play the person not your cards”?

Of course you have…it is one of the first things we learn when we first take up the game. We learn that just playing the cards you are dealt is a strategy for dummies. totalise makes this point in another thread this week , namely “Tremendous Bluff? Or Not? when he says….

Posted by: totalise

“you seriously over estimate how much people give a crap about image/behaviour, most people, especially amateurs, don’t care about this stuff. They play their cards, and be damned about anything else”

In this example it is the first hand of a new table and we encounter an opponent we know absolutely nothing about and so making firm decisions about him, his play and his range is pure speculation

So for example…
Posted by: ifm

“Great post but i did say you should stop educating the fishes.

BTW if i flopped 2 pairs i would do whatever i could to get my chips in here because statistically i am going to be ahead more often than not.”

So while it may sound good to offer the statistic that you will be ahead most of the time with bottom two pair against this guy, in reality this theory has just been plucked from thin air. Your opponent could be the tightest rock at the table. He may only bet the flop when very strong and call re-raises with monsters. You wouldn’t know. So to suggest you are going to be ahead most of the time against him carries no substance at all. If you don’t know what his range is you can’t produce any sort of credible statistic for him. Unless of course you play every opponent like an Average Joe…and this comes back to just playing your cards not the person. A strategy for dummies.

I hope the members who visit the PHA Board and are genuinely looking to improve their tournament play see through the mudslinging and actually take something away from this thread. Because there is a valuable lesson to be learnt. Why people who contribute find it necessary to avoid discussing theory and the practicalities of play in favour of name calling is anybody's guess. It is a shame we find it difficult to learn from each other because the facts of the matter are nobody is going to offer up the best advice on every occasion...it's all just opinion for discussion.

Anyway thanks to all those who contributed, especially those who so readily proved the point I was looking to make.

[TightEnd]

Mantis is now taking a sabbatical from HOTW and I would like to thank him on blonde's behalf for his contributions over the past couple of months. Agree with him on most occasions or not, I think we can all agree that his threads have been thought provoking. Speaking personally, they were much appreciated.

Someone else will be in the "hot" (in more ways than one) seat along with totalise shortly I hope, watch this space etc

[snoopy1239]

Posted by: LuckyLloyd

Results are irrelevant.

This statement grates me a bit.

Tournament poker is a sport...and there is no other sport anywhere around the world where this statement would carry an ounce of credibility. Sounds like something a left-wing, bearded school govenor would say about a school sports day.

When Yang won the WSOP Main Event I read many a debate about his credibility and hoardes of people offered the opinion that he wasn't a particularly worthy winner with regard to his ability. How irrelevant was his result? Pretty relevant I imagine. I have re-posted below what I posted at the time.

The result is the most important thing in tournament poker...nothing else really matters. I was talking to my mate Marcus the other day soon after he had won the Grosvenor Grand Prix. Yes, he lucked out a few times in the tournament...namely 9-9 Vs A-A in the Final...did that bother him? LOL. Was the result irrelevant to him? LOL.

What's more the result of this week's HOTW is the result because of how YOU played it...the approach YOU took...so how is the result irrelevant? I really wouldn't know.
 

This is going to be my last post in the PHA section of these boards for quite some time. I am not an excellent player by any stretch of the imagination - yet I think that even me continuing to argue with your way of thinking and poker mentality simply amounts to a tapping of the proverbial fish tank.

POKER IS NOT A SPORT. It's a maths based game that carries a lopsided ratio in terms of skill : luck. However, that ratio becomes closer the shorter the sample size. And in the case of a single hand or a single tournament - the ratio can sometimes tilt in favor of luck : skill. As such, if 100k hands at 6 - max cash equates to a premiership season - a single APAT event is closer to Bury at home to West Ham in the FA cup third round in terrible wet conditions and in front of a raucous home support. And an individual hand is the equivalent of a 30 second a half indoor five a side.

Therefore, results in terms of an individual hand or an individual tournament will tell us nothing about whether we are good or bad; or whether something was correct or incorrect. It is possible to play a poker tournament; play EVERY single hand in a negative EV fashion and still win. In fact, it is an accepted reality that tournaments rarely reward the player that plays the best poker.

The smaller the sample, the greater bearing variance will have on the outcome. And, as such, the smaller the sample the less relevant it is for basing conclusions on what the best play in a certain type of situation was; or will be the next time. The "long run" in live tournaments in terms of results is practically unreachable most of the time. You could probably play every APAT event for the next five years and still have no idea what your true edge or expectation for playing them is. And it is definitely possible to play every APAT event for the next five years without making a single incorrect decision or questionable play and never cash once.

This is why professional tournament players play thousands of MTTs a year. The most successful online tournament pros generally work sweatshop hours and invest 500 - 600k+ in buyins per year. They do this in an attempt to defeat the sick variance that the MTT format produces. Their focus is on making decisions in every hand that will equal a positive expectation in terms of chips over the long run. They have no regard for self defeating concepts like tournament life unless the particular hand scenario means that +cEV no longer equals +$EV(sats or on a pay bubble).

A good hand dissection can take place without the actual result of the hand being revealed. What the villian called with THIS TIME and who won the hand THIS TIME  does not matter one little bit. Our goal should be to try and identify what hands he could have turned over this time given the action and work out the best line available against that range given our holding of flopped bottom two pair. That's it. Once results are revealed it becomes impossible for most people to discuss those issues without some form of inherent bias meaning that most of any remaining discussion will be devalued and less useful from a perspective of progression in your thought processes.

I play a lot of tournaments and I post in a lot of tournament hand history analysis threads on various poker forums. The end result of this hand is entirely uninteresting to me. Knowing it will not help me to improve my game one little bit. This broader tournament scenario (APAT event; miles from the money) is meh. And in any case - THIS IS NOT A SWEAT THREAD.

As a consequence, the result of this hand is irrelevant. But it pleases me that you don't get that. Because we need teh value.

Interesting post. Is there an argument to say that noting the result is worthwhile to gain a sample of hands from which to identify patterns in people's play in these type of situations. Just a question, I am a self-confessed fish. 

[LuckyLloyd]

Interesting post. Is there an argument to say that noting the result is worthwhile to gain a sample of hands from which to identify patterns in people's play in these type of situations. Just a question, I am a self-confessed fish. 

Obviously we note everything in order to build up information on opponents. But making grand sweeping statements on the basis of one hand is ridiculous.

[ifm]

The trouble is mantis you do these threads with a god complex, you believe everything you say is 100% correct and no matter how many people offer an alternative view you just refuse to budge on your opinion.
The only mudslinger here is you, enjoy the sabbatical.

[Paullie_D]

The trouble is mantis you do these threads with a god complex, you believe everything you say is 100% correct and no matter how many people offer an alternative view you just refuse to budge on your opinion.
The only mudslinger here is you, enjoy the sabbatical.

Words just fail me....almost
[/sigh]

[kinboshi]

The trouble is mantis you do these threads with a god complex, you believe everything you say is 100% correct and no matter how many people offer an alternative view you just refuse to budge on your opinion.
The only mudslinger here is you, enjoy the sabbatical.

Words just fail me....almost
[/sigh]

[snoopy1239]

The trouble is mantis you do these threads with a god complex, you believe everything you say is 100% correct and no matter how many people offer an alternative view you just refuse to budge on your opinion.
The only mudslinger here is you, enjoy the sabbatical.

When did you become such a meany pants?

Mantis volunteered a lot of time here, don't forget.

I have gained a lot of enjoyment from these threads and am appreciative for his time.

[tikay]

On behalf of Team blonde, I'd like to thank Mantis for his contributions to HOTW for the last few months. His efforts were wholly unpaid, & attracted much comment, good & bad. For that, we at blonde are very grateful.

Hope to hear from you again Mantis, the sooner the better.

Thanks fella.

We now need new Contributors to commit to starting regular HOTW threads, but boy oh boy, they need thick skins!

[Delboy]

I'd like to add my thanks to Mantis. I've found his posts to be excellently written and very thought provoking

Thank you