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A small fable...

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  1. Dunce Dunce is offline

    Posts: 1,153
    Joined: Mar 05

    Oct 30th, 2006 (10/30/2006 12:11pm)

    When we first enter the poker arena, we are given many good pieces of advice:

    Don't sweat the luck, it all evens out in the end.
    Make good decisions, let the results take care of themselves.

    As a practical matter, those are good axioms to follow, especially if you play cash games. When it comes to tournaments, things seem to skew a bit.

    Here's my tale of woe... feel free to ridicule.

    First hand of an MTT. UTG with 10 7. Decide not to play.

    When the Board rolls 10, 10, 7, 10, x. It occurs to my tiny little brain that I may have just passed up an opportunity to do myself some good.

    Next hand in the BB I get 6 3. The Pot is unopened, so I get to see a Flop before Folding.

    SB is more garbage and I don't even see the Flop.

    Now, I'm on the Button with A K, and Raise it up. The first hand winner, who should have been gone, or at least on life support, is one of the Callers.

    When the Flop comes 3 7 10, he Bets enough to force me All-In if I wish to continue. I Fold. Player in EP Calls. Turn is A. River is a brick. The Raiser eliminates another player when his 10, 6 holds up.

    Now, I'm in the Cutoff with QQ. Because of the vacancies at the table, my nemesis is now UTG. He dithers and dithers, using up almost all of his time before making a standard opening Raise.

    It smells. It stinks to high heaven. I tell myself, "This bozo just picked up AA and isn't sure whether the Raise or a Slowplay will win him the most." Player in the 4 seat min Raises. I decide to bet the Pot to see how bozo reacts. He pushes.

    Now, comes the part that proves I am indeed a dunce. I Call. He of course has the Aces and things go their customary course in such an event.

    Had this been a cash game, missing the Quad 10's wouldn't have bothered me. Passing that hand was the right thing to do, given my position. Getting bet off the AK wouldn't have bothered me. I'd just make up for that later. But, this wasn't a ring game. It was a tourney. I'd already passed up two chances to chip-up BIG. Making up for that in a case where everybody winds up short v Blinds if they last long enough is a awfully tough thing to do. I didn't see how I could live with myself if I Folded those Queens just because I had a feeling he had Aces. Again, in a cash game, I would have probably been justified in making that Call.

    In all three instances, I did the right thing IF I'd been in a ring game. In all three cases it was the wrong thing to do in a tournament.

    So, my question is: Where is the crossover? What cash game decisions are still the right decisions in a tourney?
  2. TheMayor TheMayor is offline

    Boston, MA
    United States

    Posts: 4,699
    Joined: Jul 06

    Oct 30th, 2006 (10/30/2006 12:18pm) in reply to Dunce

    In all three instances, I did the right thing IF I'd been in a ring game. In all three cases it was the wrong thing to do in a tournament.

    The problem with this question is that you assume that your decision was wrong because the results didn't go your way. In all three cases (you can argue about the QQ hand, you could have folded there actually given your read and the other players minraise) your decisions were not the wrong thing to do. Folding 72 offsuit from UTG isn't a mistake just because the flop comes 777. Folding AA pre flop isn't correct just because the flop comes KKx and another player has a king.
  3. Dunce Dunce is offline

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    Oct 30th, 2006 (10/30/2006 12:56pm) in reply to TheMayor

    Ordinarily, I'd agree with you. Especially about the Aces.

    But, when you get right down to brass tacks, Tournaments aren't really about making good decisions - they're about making good reads and gambling at the right time.

    Live, with much slower Blind structures, you've got time on your side. Online, you don't. An hour from now the Blinds are going to be something like 10x as high as they are now. If your stack isn't at least 10x as big as it is now, you're losing ground. That forces you to compromise your ordinary standards in a number of ways, and gamble a whole lot more than is healthy.

    There isn't the time available online to rely on "right decisions". Tried and true cash game guidance isn't geared to cope with the online environment. Some days, it'll get you reasonably deep, but it won't get you to being the one with all of the chips.
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  4. ChuckSty ChuckSty is offline

    Durham, NC
    United States

    Posts: 2,358
    Joined: Oct 05

    Oct 30th, 2006 (10/30/2006 1:09pm) in reply to Dunce

    gambling preflop with 107h from utg isn't ever a good decision unless you have a good reason to do it, not because you think the dealer is going to flop you quads. i like the utg steal from time to time with some marginal hands and if your table is super tight or maybe you are trying to set someone up but the first hand of the tourney you are just gonna look like a donkey probalby, wchihc intself i guess can be taken advantage of if thta's the image you create.
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  5. supermoves supermoves is offline invented poker

    Posts: 6,840
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    Oct 30th, 2006 (10/30/2006 1:18pm) in reply to Dunce

    IMO, in a tourney, the chips in front of you are MUCH more important than in a cash game, simply because you cannot buy more (except in a rebuy of course). The chips you dont lose are much more important than the chips you could win, IMO.

    Niether in a cash game, nor a tournament am I going to play T-7 suited UTG. Thats just bad poker. The hand with AK, is just fine as well. Why are you going to put all your chips in with no hand? If he is going to move in there with AQ, let him make that mistake until you pick up a hand and bust him. As for the hand with QQ...that gets a little tougher. IMO, making big laydowns is much more important than making a big call. Would you have felt differently about the hand if your opponant flipped over AK and spiked an A? How about if he flipped over AK and your QQ held? How about if he DID have AA and you caught a Q? I have learned to listen to my gut, very rarely does it steer you wrong. Am I saying to fold QQ everytime someone moves in on you? Of course not. In fact, I probably call on the order of 85-95% of the time with QQ. But in this specific case, you felt he had a strong hand...its ok to fold. Better to be wrong and not lose any chips, than to be wrong and lose all your chips.

    As for what decisions are the same in tourneys and cash games...Ill say not many. Its really a totally, totally deifferent game. Ill sit down at a cash game table and IMMEDIATLY play speculative hands. But in a tourney, I generally play tighter at the beginning, specifically out of position.
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  6. Dunce Dunce is offline

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    Oct 30th, 2006 (10/30/2006 1:45pm) in reply to supermoves

    The bets you save are vital... anytime, anywhere.

    The thing about tournaments is that you aren't really betting chips - you're betting percentages. Anytime you're in a position where 100% of your chips represents less than 100% of your opponent's chips, you're in a world of hurt.

    In my particular scenario here, because I had failed to play both the 10, 7 and A, K hands, my opponent had over 4x my stack. He would have been justified trying to Push me out of the Pot with almost any hand. And, the longer I let him do that, the greater the percentage disparity becomes and the wider the range of hands he's justified in Pushing against me. Right then, 100% of my stack only represented about 20-25% of his stack. I was giving him 3:1+ odds to make that move.

    Conversely, the longer I wait, the narrower my range of playable hands becomes. Because he is justified in Calling me down with nearly anything, there becomes no hand I can play that is relatively safe. Even AA loses 20% of the time, so I both have to catch a monster and then have it hold up before I can begin to get back to an even footing.

    That is the tournament paradox. The more chips you have the weaker the hands you can play, and the more hands you'll win. The smaller your stack the stronger the hand must be to be playable and the more often you'll get rundown by a bigstack.

    But you can't go nuts and start Pushing every decent hand you see, either. I was, unfortunately, part of a 6 way AI, yesterday with a suited AK AND, first-in vig besides. Four other people with weaker Aces and Broadways thought their hands were good enough to Call. One canny player reasoned that so many players thinking they had great hands probably meant his 97 was VERY live. Not only was he right, but when I ran the hand later on Poker Stove - he was actually the favorite because the rest of us had each other counterfeited in various ways.

    Bax would have been proud of him.
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  7. aligator_al aligator_al is offline

    Maple Ridge
    Canada

    Posts: 328
    Joined: Feb 06

    Oct 30th, 2006 (10/30/2006 2:48pm) in reply to Dunce

    If you had taken care of that dude on the first hand, he wouldn't have come back to bite you in the ass later.

    See also: Peter Parker and Uncle Ben.

    "With great power comes great responsibility"

    That is all.
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