Constructive criticism required

[LuckyLloyd]

should be no difference in your decisions on the basis that a situation is in a tournament or a ring game.

You have to be levelling right? I mean you can't have that many posts on a strat forum and seriously write the above?

This really is gibberish son. But it does show your lack of sensitivity for unique tournament situations and how best to cope with them. You will always be able to justify a single play by using the statistical argument but by placing so much emphasis on the simplicity of a one-size-fits-all strategy your mind will forever be closed to the creativity needed to formulate those mystical "magical" strategies that seem to be fantasy to you right now. Your reliance on maths as the ONLY answer is stifling your creativity LLoyd and this is a shame because I can sense your creativity bursting to come out.

The Americans steamed into Iraq because it was the right thing to do...and created a right social mess because they invested no thinking into their longer term strategy. This is like raising pre-flop without a specific plan of attack. Foresight is needed in tournaments...especially when you have few chips.

With regard to Helmuth, sponsored entry into every tournament allows profitibility much easier to achieve I would think.

Don't refer to me as "son" thank you very much.

Tournament situations that are unique are pay bubble or sat bubble scenarios where +cEV may no longer equal +$EV. I already have said on this forum many times that stack preservation and the value of "tournament life" in those types of scenarios may force us to take decisions which would be suboptimal in a ring game.

However, the rest of the time (i.e. most tournament hands you play) there is NO difference. It's poker. You play hands to win chips. There is less chips of course, but the principles of what is good and bad play are the exact same as what would be good or bad play in cash games that were relatively shallow in terms of stack depth.

Now, saying that I can't "cope" with unique tournament situations is teh lol. And using the analogy of the Bush Administration's foreign policy in relation to a poker hand is  

What is your full name btw?

[boldie]

should be no difference in your decisions on the basis that a situation is in a tournament or a ring game.

You have to be levelling right? I mean you can't have that many posts on a strat forum and seriously write the above?

This really is gibberish son. But it does show your lack of sensitivity for unique tournament situations and how best to cope with them. You will always be able to justify a single play by using the statistical argument but by placing so much emphasis on the simplicity of a one-size-fits-all strategy your mind will forever be closed to the creativity needed to formulate those mystical "magical" strategies that seem to be fantasy to you right now. Your reliance on maths as the ONLY answer is stifling your creativity LLoyd and this is a shame because I can sense your creativity bursting to come out.

The Americans steamed into Iraq because it was the right thing to do...and created a right social mess because they invested no thinking into their longer term strategy. This is like raising pre-flop without a specific plan of attack. Foresight is needed in tournaments...especially when you have few chips.

With regard to Helmuth, sponsored entry into every tournament allows profitibility much easier to achieve I would think.

Don't refer to me as "son" thank you very much.

Can he call you "Daddy"?

[LuckyLloyd]

With regard to Helmuth, sponsored entry into every tournament allows profitibility much easier to achieve I would think.

ok hellmuth bad example. how about jason strasser and alec jacob then. nobody in their right mind could say they're -EV donkament players.

Look, I think continuing with this particular point is ridiculous. Everyone has some expectation of return when they buy into tournaments. It's admittedly something that is difficult to quantify in the live tournament arena, but good players will expect to have a positive return and bad players a negative return over the longterm.

Quantifying your edge with some degree of accuracy is undoubtably possible in online tournaments with less than 500 runners because it is possible to put in such a high volume.

[LuckyLloyd]

Can he call you "Daddy"?

Lloyd will do. Though I'll accept sir (once it doesn't come before: "you're making a scene"). 

[boldie]

Can he call you "Daddy"?

 Though I'll accept sir (once it doesn't come before: "you're making a scene"). 

lol.

[LuckyLloyd]

End of the day you shouldn't ever get 'em allin with TPTK in an unraised pot especially as you are above average and have 30BB's.

Nope. That sweeping statement is wrong.

Appologies i meant on the flop.
Care to elaborate if you still disagree?

Do we never see Q10; QJ; KQ; 87; XcXc if the money goes in here given the description of the villians?

Yes, on some dry flop textures getting it in here couldn't be good - but this is the perfect board to spunk it in with teh top top.

[Longy]

Mantis what are you on about, I really hope you are either joking or not making yourself clear.

 So in tournaments no-one will win in the long term, thats what your statement is saying. There are at least 100 clear examples of Online Mtt professionals to suggest you are wrong who have reached the long term in terms of sample size and even more in sng's (tournaments in affect).

Your ideas that Maths can be simply ignored in poker by simply being more creative, shows a real lack of understanding on the fundamentals of poker.

You make some interesting posts about psychology of poker and what others are thinking but make ridiculous statements like some of the ones in this thread, that make you look a little silly to be honest.

End of the day you shouldn't ever get 'em allin with TPTK in an unraised pot especially as you are above average and have 30BB's. Unless you're in the rebuy stage
How many words was that?

IFM, wow i can't believe this is true. There are tons of opponent who will felt 30bb's with alot worse hands than TPTK and these hand will make up more than 50% of their range making felting TPTK always correct.

[ifm]

What is your full name btw?

I know, i know

[ifm]

IFM, wow i can't believe this is true. There are tons of opponent who will felt 30bb's with alot worse hands than TPTK and these hand will make up more than 50% of their range making felting TPTK always correct.

How can you tell?
I think as a rule it is a good one, overall TPTK on the flop unraised is not gonna be a profitable long term place to be shoving.

[LuckyLloyd]

IFM, wow i can't believe this is true. There are tons of opponent who will felt 30bb's with alot worse hands than TPTK and these hand will make up more than 50% of their range making felting TPTK always correct.

How can you tell?
I think as a rule it is a good one, overall TPTK on the flop unraised is not gonna be a profitable long term place to be shoving.

Against certain players; on certain boards, yes. Against these players; on this board, no.

[Longy]

IFM, wow i can't believe this is true. There are tons of opponent who will felt 30bb's with alot worse hands than TPTK and these hand will make up more than 50% of their range making felting TPTK always correct.

How can you tell?
I think as a rule it is a good one, overall TPTK on the flop unraised is not gonna be a profitable long term place to be shoving.

Hard and fast rules like this in poker are a pretty poor idea generally. Poker is about different players, different situations and therefore different ranges.

The telling part is what seperates bad players from mediocre player to good players. Your ranges are never going to be perfect but in most situations you should have an idea of what an opponent plays like and therefore estimate a range. In a good % of cases given board texture and opponent tendancy felting TPTK is going to be +ev this deep. Im not going to sit there and go "zomg what about my rule, I fold".

If i could be bothered i and many others could give examples of felting TPTK for 100bb's being +EV given our opponent and board texture.

[MANTIS01]

Many players that are mentioned supplement their tourney play with cash game profits. If you only play tournaments and are not sponsored then the variance is so great that setting yourself up in business to make long-term pure tournament profit is a massive, if not unrealistic challenge. If there are 100 players successfully doing it on-line from the millions that play then this is a good statistic to represent the gravity of that challenge.

Back to the hand. When we are talking through tournament strategy on this forum, if we offer no consideration to alternative methods of play then that is "disgraceful". My thoughts on this hand are open. I made the point that a number of strategies will have their merits. This is not nailing my colours to any particular play...it is being open-minded to the possibilities. I have played this hand the way Tighty did on a number of occasions, particularly when short of chips, and it has delivered the desired result. So the strategy will work. I have also used the raising strategy to good effect. So the real debate is which method is most effective here and now. It shouldn't be a question of black and white as it often is on the forum. Why slow-play ANY hand if you consider it to be the best hand?

The concrete point I stand by is that you shouldn't play the hand aggressively if you don't plan to continue with that aggression. You don't have enough chips to lack commitment to your plan. So I would prefer to use the trap strategy than the raise pre-flop and see what happens theory. Your dwindling chips mean that the maths of the whole play must be considered ahead of the maths of just the raise.

To try and add some clarity....

Your ideas that Maths can be simply ignored in poker by simply being more creative

This is a statement that would make me look silly, agreed. I am looking a step further than just going over points that we know to be true. Maths is one of the fundamentals of the game...we know this, so why not stretch ourselves a bit and look at things from different angles.

In tournament play every action is connected to future events. So if you double up by taking on a gamble when you are a 45% underdog how does this connect to getting your chips in two hands later as an 80% favourite?? Well quite dramtically, because you have twice as many chips to put in as the 80% favourite. Is the 45% underdog gamble now -EV upon reflection. So when people look at one play in isolation solely because of the maths of that one isolated situation I am asking if you know the true relevance of the maths you are using with regard to each unique tournament situation you find yourself in.

In cash the benefit of the maths cannot be disputed. But tournaments are more elaborate. So while maths cannot be argued with it does prevent creativity because 2+2 always equals 4. What I'm talking about is the place for creativity in tournament poker and if you say only stick to the maths then you are saying there is no place for it. And I'm not sure I agree with that.

[Royal Flush]

Many players that are mentioned supplement their tourney play with cash game profits. If you only play tournaments and are not sponsored then the variance is so great that setting yourself up in business to make long-term pure tournament profit is a massive, if not unrealistic challenge. If there are 100 players successfully doing it on-line from the millions that play then this is a good statistic to represent the gravity of that challenge.

If they were to play like you then i would agree with this statement.

If they play good tournament poker then not so.


3 years and a few thousand mtt's into my unrealistic challenge and things are going pretty well....

[celtic]

I had one thought.

Technically I had more than one, but the others seem to have been covered,

...
He doesn't rate me, probably thinks I'll lay down most hands to a raise there
...

If he thinks you'll lay down most hands - would a check call slow him down on the turn, if he was just bluffing?

NO!!!!!

IMO Nav is the type of player comfortable trying to bluff one player but not so keen when its 2. His re-raise on the flop indicates he has the best hand therefore i would give it up rather than playing 3 handed with TPTK. But as Richard says Nav probably wouldnt fold pre flop. He got lucky on the flop and this is just one of the hands that happen now & again that detrmines your tounament life.

[MANTIS01]

The maths of tournament poker says that for most people success is unlikely. In a generous pay structure, 10% of the tournament field will make the money. That means that 90% of the players, no matter how well they played, are still losers.

So as such Flushy, you are challenging the maths of tournament poker....well done son sir!