Show Me The Money....

[Valiant23]

This post is inspired by the "AA on the Bubble" thread; http://www.punterslounge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32368 The established thinking when playing MTT's is that it is better to go for first and bust out because the payout setup is so heavily weighted in favour of that first spot. Now thats fair enough and I understand that. I think this is wrong! You are on a betting forum. This forum talks about yield and ROI (Return On Investment). It preaches that the real money to be made in gambling is not with the 100 to 1 shots, or the 15,000 to 1 accumulators that make the newspapers but with simple single winning bets. When I joined PL I was a typical mug punter who tried on a weekly basis to hit a 100 to 1 shot with my football accumulators, and failed. I still am a mug punter, but a mug punter who appreciates that a weekly winning single turns over more profit than the once in a blue moon accy. The point of all this is to explain why PL is responsible for my 'making the money' approach. You see, when I buy-in to a tourney, I look at it as a bet placed. I see making the money in the same way as a winning single bet, and I see first place (in an MTT) as the winning accumulator. Now because I see ROI as the be-all and end-all my primary aim is to get ITM. I want a return on my investment first and foremost. Anything more is icing on the cake. STT's are my bread and butter game, but even so I still am more interested in my ROI than winning first. Say I pay for a $5+50 10 seat STT. In effect I am betting that I am better than 7 other players on that table. If I am correct I will recieve just under evens (1.81) on my stake. If I am better than 8 then I'll recieve nearly 2 to 1 (2.72) on my stake, and if I am the best on that table I'll receive just over 9 to 2 (4.54). So, if I try and go for first and fail every time, I'm a losing player and my bankroll will eventually dwindle to nothing, as would the person who only bets on 15,000 to 1 accy's. But if I go for the sure thing (certainly the case in STT's) and try to finish the event with more than I started with, then this has to be the same as the person who bets on the heavy favourite and wins little and often. That is why I go against the poker players mantra of only playing to win, at any cost. What does anyone else think? For what its worth, I'm not advocating limping to the money once you know (or think) you have enough of a stack to survive the bubble. If I have AA then I'm calling, even if its against the chip leader and I'm 2nd.

[jeffers]

Re: Show Me The Money.... Right - I see what you're saying Mr V, but...imo there's a fundamental life thing involved in this - it's about "settling" for the cash or going for the big one. If the odds are in your favour, and the options are - Go out with nothing, or, be chip leader (or right up there) - you have to take it. If I have a decent hand on the bubble and I'm put all in, I'll do it. That's because I'm slightly mental (insert Mr V comment here ;) ) and would rather go deep into the money than limp into it...but if your poer is about pure ROI (as it should be really) then limp limp limp into the money. But maybe by taking the risks near the bubble your RIO might be higher? Good thread btw :ok

[jeffers]

Re: Show Me The Money.... I'll add this...people are scared of the bubble - take advantage. If you're aggressive on the bubble, you'll make some ground up :ok

[Dave Mardell]

Re: Show Me The Money.... Your right to a point. And you should definetly be playing for 3rd and then the win in a STT, however there is a minor flaw in your logic. Consider that a STT is not a single bet, but a serious of odds related situations that will allow you to gain the chips needed to win or bust out. Ok so if your sitting in a $10 with 5 players left. You have 5000, another guy has 5001, and the remaining players each have say 1666 each. YOu could probably limp through to the money here more often than not, although one quick double up by the shorty against you and its even in chips... Lets say that you run this situation 5 times. Lets say you wake up with up with AA one away from the bubble and the guy that has you covered moves in before you. You fold and get 3rd all 5 times. Your return is $100 You call all in a 4/1 favourite or MORE. You will bust out once. But 4 times your hand will hold, you will have two thirds of the chips in play with 4 people left. You should expect to win at least 2 in 4 of these situations for the same return as limping around - $100 - but realistically you should get cash in all 4 the VAST majority of the time for substantially higher profits. Say 2 wins and 1 second and 1 third = $150. 50% improvment on ROI!

[Cloud]

Re: Show Me The Money.... This is the great thing about poker - there is no set strategy that works for everyone. Personally I play a very attacking late game in STT's and am happy to bow out in 4th, as I know that in doing so it will bring me more 1st places - but the simple fact that I am happy to go out in 4th means that it doesn't happen too often, as players do fold a lot around me - especially when I attack around the bubble. I think my strategy works best against players of a similar ability to myself. However, if I was playing at a table where I feel that the standard was below that of mine (doesn't happen too often :tongue2 ), then yes, your strategy of getting in the money first is probably best - and then you can go about earning that 1st place anyway by out playing your opponents.

[PokerBarney]

Re: Show Me The Money.... The reason for trying to win in MTTs is that the payout structure is much steeper than in STTs. Because of this strategie must differ. If you scraped the money in an MTT, you may get your money back, or half as much again: 1-1.5 buyins, for a profit of 0-0.5 buyins. If you hit the big money (top 3 to 5 places) you'll win 30+ buy ins. While I realise that you are only likely to actually win very rarely, and you can probably scrape into the money more often - your average finishing position drastically affects your ROI. If you scrape in, it will be low:5-10%, if you win the thing, it'll be nice and high: 80-100%. In the long run, over hundreds of games, your ROI will be higher if you hit that occasional high placing, instead of mooching around at the bottom of the payout ladder. As a quick example, Masterplan plays STTs and has an ROI of about 35%, I play 5 table MTTs and have an ROI of nearer to 60%. My ITM is lower than his (30% to his 50%), but I have a greater ROI because of the payout structures. Scraping into the money in regular MTTs is a terrible strategy, and will see you as either a losing player, or one with a miniscule ROI. Of course, it's a whole different game for STTs.. since the payout is so much flatter. Here, the optimal strategy is to make the money, then go for broke, like you said.

[slapdash]

Re: Show Me The Money....

You are on a betting forum. This forum talks about yield and ROI (Return On Investment). It preaches that the real money to be made in gambling is not with the 100 to 1 shots, or the 15,000 to 1 accumulators that make the newspapers but with simple single winning bets. When I joined PL I was a typical mug punter who tried on a weekly basis to hit a 100 to 1 shot with my football accumulators, and failed. I still am a mug punter, but a mug punter who appreciates that a weekly winning single turns over more profit than the once in a blue moon accy.

Actually, the reason for not doing the accumulators is not to do with the yield/ROI. If every Saturday you found 10 bets at odds of 2.20 that were actually 50% chances, then betting in singles, your yield in the long run would be +10%. If you put them all in an accumulator every week, your yield in the long run would be about +159%. You would actually have a much higher yield in the long run. The reason for doing singles rather than an accumulator is the "in the long run". Doing the accumulators, you'd win less than one in a thousand times, so you could easily be waiting 20 years or more before you actually got any money back. That means that unless you had a very large amount of money that you were prepared to lose while you were waiting for the big win, you could only afford to bet small amounts. But if you bet in singles, it wouldn't take long before your edge from making good value bets virtually guaranteed you were in profit. So you could safely put much larger bets on without a significant risk of losing all your money. And if you do the maths, it turns out that the "safe" amount to bet on singles is so much higher than the "safe" amount to bet on accumulators that you'd make more profit, even in the long run, even though your long-term yield/ROI would be much smaller.

[chelskired]

Re: Show Me The Money.... Can I play Devil's advocate here and say.............................. If you bet Heads on a coin flip...in the long run you will come out quits because it is a 50/50............FACT! The only problem is, that if Tails falls for 126 years and THEN heads falls for the next 126 years to even it up, the odds are (unfortunately) you will be dead before you can collect. My point is......While I can SEE the Validity of the points raised here....there is NO GUARANTEE you will be around when the run (Good or bad) begins/ends. C.R.(Miserable sod)

[robilaruk]

Re: Show Me The Money.... MTTs - go for chips, limping into the cash is pointless IMHO from a return of not your money investment but time investment - essentially your hourly rate is pointless unless you win top 6 or or so in the payout. STTs are a diffferent kettle of fish and a very interesting point you make comparing it to betting, it really made me stop and think about it, I had never thought about it like that before - thank you! :clap :clap :clap :clap At face value I would say that it doesn't sound a good way to play, because unless you hit cards at some point you are going to be (relatively) short stacked by bubble time 8-10 BB and even shorter by ITM prolly 4BB, so either way you are gambling in less than +ev situations. However, as everyone else tends to be fairly aggressive and goes for first, swimming against the tide of perceived wisdom is actually the best thing you can do - play opposite to what everyone else is doing will win you the most cash as Danny H says. Many betting experts espouse this tactic of betting against the 'percieved correct field' to make a profit. VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY INTERESTING POST I have been thinking about this since you first posted it yesterday and have been taking my time to try to think this through, and I still can't fix my focus on it. I am really unsure as to what is correct! as it conflicts with what I think is right and it looks wrong, but yet is simple common sense that is actually right (i think!). I think this is the POST OF THE YEAR for me:ok :ok :ok :ok :ok and deserves to be stickied as a permanant post for people to look at AWESOME, Just AWESOME:ok I wish I could do it justice by putting together a coherent and well reasoned answer to your coherent and well reasoned post Damo :cheers ps just an awesome post:clap :clap :clap :clap :clap pps MANY MANY MANY thanks for posting this, I really need to go and have a long think about this - I can guarentee that this will improve my mental approach to the game and increase my ROI - I know it will, i just need to resolve how I am going to incorporate this into my playing style or how I need to adjust my playing style to benefit from it.

This post is inspired by the "AA on the Bubble" thread; http://www.punterslounge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32368 The established thinking when playing MTT's is that it is better to go for first and bust out because the payout setup is so heavily weighted in favour of that first spot. Now thats fair enough and I understand that. I think this is wrong! You are on a betting forum. This forum talks about yield and ROI (Return On Investment). It preaches that the real money to be made in gambling is not with the 100 to 1 shots, or the 15,000 to 1 accumulators that make the newspapers but with simple single winning bets. When I joined PL I was a typical mug punter who tried on a weekly basis to hit a 100 to 1 shot with my football accumulators, and failed. I still am a mug punter, but a mug punter who appreciates that a weekly winning single turns over more profit than the once in a blue moon accy. The point of all this is to explain why PL is responsible for my 'making the money' approach. You see, when I buy-in to a tourney, I look at it as a bet placed. I see making the money in the same way as a winning single bet, and I see first place (in an MTT) as the winning accumulator. Now because I see ROI as the be-all and end-all my primary aim is to get ITM. I want a return on my investment first and foremost. Anything more is icing on the cake. STT's are my bread and butter game, but even so I still am more interested in my ROI than winning first. Say I pay for a $5+50 10 seat STT. In effect I am betting that I am better than 7 other players on that table. If I am correct I will recieve just under evens (1.81) on my stake. If I am better than 8 then I'll recieve nearly 2 to 1 (2.72) on my stake, and if I am the best on that table I'll receive just over 9 to 2 (4.54). So, if I try and go for first and fail every time, I'm a losing player and my bankroll will eventually dwindle to nothing, as would the person who only bets on 15,000 to 1 accy's. But if I go for the sure thing (certainly the case in STT's) and try to finish the event with more than I started with, then this has to be the same as the person who bets on the heavy favourite and wins little and often. That is why I go against the poker players mantra of only playing to win, at any cost. What does anyone else think? For what its worth, I'm not advocating limping to the money once you know (or think) you have enough of a stack to survive the bubble. If I have AA then I'm calling, even if its against the chip leader and I'm 2nd.

[hayward2k]

Re: Show Me The Money.... :unsure