Who is a major reason for my recent woes at the tables. Some people may already know who he is, but out of respect for him; I will refrain from posting his name in a public place to not kill any action he may receive from someone else.

But this specific player really has me double guessing non-stop. At first, and on the surface he seemed liked the biggest donkey. But the more I play him, and the more I lose, there seems to be some method to his madness.

Yes, this player has run extremely good against me. And yes, I have gone on tilt on a number of occasions against this player (his play is really tilt-inducing). But this is not all, he is just flat out out-playing me right now.

I have never played a player that seemed to just absolutely own me as this one person. It has really just left me dumbfounded. I have started to dive into some of the numbers or possible reasons for some of the things this player does. If he is doing what I suspect, there actually is evidence that he could be gaining quite a bit of equity in certain situations. However, there are a number of other things that he does that just couldn’t show profit in the long run. That is assuming I am not missing something.

This person isn’t just beating me, but he seems to be up against the field of “regulars”. It is times like this that I learn the most though. I need to refine my approach and come back swinging. I am not going down without a fight!!

When I used to sit and wait for a game at the 15/30 limit 5 card draw table, I would often sit with the standard 20BB stack, $600.  Well I am starting to believe this might be the incorrect thing to do.

Many people will sit with anywhere from $200-$400.  Why am I putting up $600 to win $200, where as my opponent is getting a discount.

No longer, I am now going to start sitting with $400.  I am doing this for 2 major reasons…..

1.  To not lose that extra $200 when someone sits with few chips, allowing me to get out of a bad situation where I just can’t seem to win a hand.

2.  To maybe entice someone that might be intimidated by $600 on the table, but might feel a little more comfortable with $400.  I doubt this would be the case with most players, but you never know.

Now if someone does sit with the full $600, or the game becomes more of a full ring game.  I will likely put up $600.

I am going to test out this starting stack for the next week or two and see what, if anything, it changes.

The following article was orginally published by BlindStraddle online poker e-magazine in October ’08. Unfortunately, Blindstraddle.com has discontinued its publication.

When I am thinking about poker, I am often finding myself more consumed with game theory situations. One theory I have often heard and read in the past is that as one’s stack grows in a tournament, each individual chip is worth less.

Because of this thinking, it is said that one shouldn’t be taking big risks to gather chips since the chips won won’t be worth as much as the chips lost. So I decided to look into it for myself and hopefully I could figure out a proper strategy to take in a tournament.

Browsing through the lobbies on Pokerstars, I first stumbled across a $6.50 six person Sit-N-Go where the starting stack is 1500. So it is only obvious that the starting stack of 1500 is worth six dollars (minus the 50 cents fee). Each person paid for that stack. It is theirs and everyone is playing to not only keep that stack, but increase it. At the beginning of the tournament each chip is worth six dollars divided by 1500, or 0.004 cents.

To win, one would need to gather all the chips in play. With six players starting with 1500 chips, there are a total of 9000 chips in play. If someone is lucky enough to get all 9000 chips, they will be rewarded first place money. In this case, with the standard two person pay out schedule, first place rewards $23.40. This means that each chip in a 9000 stack is worth 0.0026 cents ($23.40 divided by 9000).

So to recap, the chips in a 1500 stack are worth 0.004 cents while the chips in a 9000 stack are worth 0.0026 cents. That is a 35 percent decrease in chip value!

Growing more intrigued I next looked at a $5.50 Heads-Up Sit-N-Go. The five dollars buys 1500 chips, and a 3000 stack wins you ten dollars. Five dollars divided by 1500 is equal to ten dollars divided by 3000. So plainly the value of chips didn’t change. So I guess it can’t always be true.

So what is the difference? How come the first example showed this theory to be true, but the second did not? The only thing I could think of is the number of spots being paid.

So I went back to the six person sit-n-go, but changed it to a winner-take-all format. In this case, the value of the chips didn’t change either because the same 9000 chips it takes to win it all would win the whole prize pool.

“When does this “change” actually take place then?” I asked myself.

Looking at the six person sit-n-go, if there are two players playing for the final two spots, one person will get paid first place money and the other will get second place money. It doesn’t matter how big their stacks are, each chip is still worth the same. So this change of each chip’s value doesn’t actually occur until there is money taken out of the prize pool.

So I decided to test this theory further by looking at a multi-table tournament, specifically a $4 180 man tournament where the top 18 places are paid and the average starting stack is again 1500. With 180 people putting up 4 dollars, there is 720 dollars in the prize pool. If we are down to 18 people the average stack will be 15000. If everyone has the same size stack, then everyone’s stack will be worth 1/18th of the prize pool. In this case that would be 40 dollars.

If I still have this same 15000 stack, how would changing the other chip stack sizes change the value of my chip stack? To go with extremes, as I often do to figure out problems, I looked at a situation where I have 15000, 16 players each have a one-chip stack, and the last player has the rest of the chips in play (254984).

Well it would be a pretty good estimate that my 15000 chip stack really shouldn’t be worth 40 dollars any more, instead it should be closer to second place money, since I should be able fold my way to second place. Second place in this instance is worth 144 dollars, making each chip in my stack worth more than otherwise noted. In this case, it would not be warranted to put my chip stack at risk against the chip leader.

To look at it deeper, with the same situation, if I have AA dealt to me. I would be inclined to fold to a shove from the chip leader. Crazy huh? Well what would doubling up really do at this point? It would give me a stack of 30000, which is still not even near the stack I would need to take down the whole tournament, 270000. Is it worth risking 144 dollars to fade a bad beat? First place money is only worth 72 dollars more ($216), in which I would still have plenty of work to do to take it all down.

After thinking about it, I felt that this was starting to sound similar to independent chip modeling, or ICM. ICM is an extremely powerful mathematical model that is essential for any sit-n-go player’s success. I guess I could just stop with this research I am doing and be content with looking over SNG Wizard or SNG Power Tools, both programs address ICM and I highly recommend them for any sit-n-go competitor.

ICM really takes into effect the other chip stacks at the table to determine the best course of action for a player in a sit-n-go. This is also what I would need to do in the aforementioned 180-man tournament. OK good, I determined that I need to pay more attention to the other stack sizes, move on.

“Ahh, but wait” I said to myself. “How can one possibly take into effect every player’s chip stack in a big tournament that still has over 100 tables left though? How can I use this information to help me?”

I did already see that a form of ICM is still relevant to multi-table tournaments with the experiment I did with the 180-man tournament. But realistically, when is that exact type of situation ever going to come up? I needed something that was more relevant to an everyday situation.

I have often wondered when approaching a bubble of a multi-table tournament if I should just sit back and try to cash, or still play for first. I always hear that in a multi-table tournament I have to play for first. After all that is where all the money is.

Still determined, I thought about three major situations that I am always plagued or fortunate with when approaching the bubble of a big tournament:

1. I have a tiny stack, at which point I am just hoping to cash.
2. I have a huge stack, where I feel I should keep the pressure on the shorter stacks.
3. I have a medium stack, where it’s not concrete on what strategy I should employ.

Let me address each situation so that I can be better prepared when it does come up in the future. I have a tiny stack, what should I do? This is when it starts to become pertinent to use a free resource that every player is blessed with, the tournament lobby.

Well, the critics will say I should still play for first. But what if I have just one chip? Again, looking at an extreme situation to try and get an answer. I can then make that 1 chip worth what last place pays compared to 1/1500 of my buy in or whatever the starting stack was. If I know folding what could be a winner will net me money because someone else will likely bust in this hand, then it would become the best play to fold in the long run.

The first situation was probably the easiest. When I have a huge stack though, it starts to get a little tougher. Should I continue to try and chip up or sit back and preserve my stack? Outside of the table dynamics, and what the table is letting me get away with, I should also be paying attention to the stacks at the other tables. Again looking at the tournament lobby, I need to determine a couple things.

Do I need to continue to apply pressure to keep up with the other chip leaders? In this case, I might want to continue to bully the table if it means I can separate myself from the middle of the pack and inch closer to the other chip leaders. Am I part of a group of players that is way ahead of the pack or personally just way ahead of everyone else? In which case I can sit back and not risk too many chips since there is still a ton of poker to be played. Both questions should be asked and can be answered fairly quickly just by glancing over the stacks in the tournament lobby. By finding out these answers, it will let me know of what degree of risks I should be taking at a given point in the tournament.

Where it really gets tricky is when I start to get closer to my third situation, I have a medium stack. There has to be a break-even point from the first situation and the last. What stack size correlates to what strategy? Should I try and cash first or continue to have the goal of playing for first? This is when the other chip stacks play the biggest part and become most important to look at it from both the big stack and tiny stack perspectives.

If there is a surplus of short stacks and I could conceivably move up quite a few pay scales I might be more inclined to pass on some risky plays to a certain degree. If there really are not that many short stacks, and I am stuck in the middle, I might be leaning to taking some risks to try and chip up. What about the chip leaders? Will a double-up get me that much closer to a stack that will allow me to move into the big stack’s frame of mind, or will it keep me in the middle pack? Depending on the answer, I can also make a determination on how much I should be willing gamble.

What if I might be multi-tabling online and don’t have the time to study every stack by looking over the tournament lobby? Well, I have read the Harrington on Hold’em series, which I highly recommend, where he introduces a couple of concepts to help determine what frame of mind one should have in a specific situation according to their chip stack. One is Magriel’s “M” which to quote from the book is “the ratio of your stack to the current total of blinds and antes.” The other is a ratio of one’s stack to the average stack, or Harrington’s “Q”.

Well, I would also like to introduce a new online-friendly concept. I guess I will call it NoMeNot’s “N”. This is basically just the median stack and how one’s stack compares to it. It should be a good gauge as to where one’s stack compares to the smaller stacks and the bigger stacks. Let me see how this can be applied.

If my stack is 1000 and the median stack is 3000, then my N is .33. With a stack like this I might be more inclined to try and cash first before the bubble and after the bubble, I would be inclined to try and double up unless there is a significant pay jump in the near future.

If my stack is 3000 and the median stack is 3000, then my N is 1. With a similar type stack, I would be caught right in the middle with my thought process just as before in my third situation where I had a middle stack.

Lastly, if my stack is at 9000 and the median stack is 3000, then my N will be 3. In this case, I will not feel too much pressure to gamble. But I will still keep the pressure on high as long as the table is letting me get away with it.

So now what have I learned from just inquiring about the true value of chips in a tournament?

1. ICM is not just for sit-n-go’s as it can be applied to multi-table tournaments as well.
2. It is important to know where my chip stack compares to the others chips stacks, and not just at my table.
3. A good way to gauge my chip stacks worth is by finding the median stack, if there are 100 people left, the median stack would be the       player in 50th place.

Whew, done with that theory. On to the next one I guess. That is the outlook I have when I am trying to learn about the game. I definitely suggest others try and do the same. If I can’t think of an answer right off the bat, I like to look at the extremes and see if I can’t find a middle ground. I did just that a couple of times here. It is a great way to come up with a new thought process while learning about what might be the best play to make in a certain situation.

Until next time, what’s your N?

One thing that I have learned as I have increased my knowledge about the game of poker is that I suffer from what could be detrimental to many players: fancy play syndrome. But not only do I suffer from that, I also seem to be struggling with reverse fancy play syndrome. I am not sure that is even a term or not, but I will explain.

I am constantly thinking about the game. I am a member of one of the best, if not the best, poker training sites around: PokerXFactor. I have not only read, but have studied and highlighted a ton of poker books and magazines. All have really helped a ton with my game. I know that I am a much better player today than what I was two years ago. Unfortunately, some of the results haven’t come like I had hoped.

Then when I was recently playing up in Atlantic City on a friend’s bachelor party, my eyes were opened to just how bad some of the play is and how little people know about poker. Is this how people play on the internet too? This can’t be. When I can put a face to the player and actually have a side conversation with some of these players I can better understand what they are thinking or maybe I should say not thinking.

For the last two years I feel I have surrounded myself with the better players out there. The ones that are already great players or are trying to become great like I am. It is the conversations that we have either directly or indirectly through forum posts that I base my overall poker-related thoughts on.

Sounds like a good thing right? Well what if I said it could potentially be a bad thing, especially when playing at the bankroll levels that I am currently. It is through these resources that I learn how it can be profitable to make certain plays and it might overall be better to play a certain way over another.

These same people that are offering the advice aren’t playing the same game of poker that I am right now though. They are playing the game at its purest form, when their opponents are thinking to at least at a similar level.

But when I am firing up a $10 mtt on Pokerstars, I can’t expect the play to be the same as I just saw when watching a video with a tournament more than 10 times the buy-in that I am in. The plays that work at that level will not work at the same frequency in the tournament I am in, thus making a play frowned upon.

Yet, I am always seeing great opportunities to make plays. Many times I am following through with these plays. Often times they work, but that is being results oriented as I have come to realize that not all of these plays work often enough to show profit in the long term. This is the basis of fancy play syndrome.

To quote from a Betfair article written by Marcus Bateman:

The idea of ‘fancy play syndrome’ was first pointed out by the ‘mad genius’ of poker – Mike Caro. What he is referring to is when players start making overly complex plays that are simply not profitable over the long term.

That is exactly what I find myself doing on a consistent basis over the last year or so. It just took a session or two of live poker for me to uncover it. But it didn’t stop there. I feel like I am also suffering from reverse fancy play syndrome.

I have searched the internet to see if such a thing even exists, at which point I either was searching the wrong term, or it doesn’t exist.

If I had to define reverse fancy play syndrome, it would be similar to the following:

When trying to factor in what one’s opponent might be doing in a specific poker hand, he or she might give too much credit to the idea that the opponent is making an overly complex play.

The building blocks for playing this way is by giving my opponent the extra lessons to their repertoire that I have worked hard to learn. I essentially am thinking multiple levels over the level that my opponent is on, thus hurting the chances that I will make the correct move in the hand.

So as I have broadened my poker thinking abilities, I have at the same time left behind the way I use to think. The way that was overall unprofitable, but might have been profitable against the player that I am today. It is not that I forgot how I used to think about the game, it is just that I don’t necessarily think anything like that today, and assume others have done the same.

So recently, instead of just listening to the advice from the well-respected players out there. I like to listen to what some of the less well known players out there have to say, many of whom might be overall losers in this game. But by me taking the time to listen to these players, I am staying in touch with the fact that not everyone thinks about a hand the same way.

Also I have been playing an extremely simple way in my sessions as of recent. It has really shown to do wonders for my game too. I feel that I am just that much closer to regularly killing the games that my bankroll currently allows me to play.

So next time you are browsing through the forums do not just jump to read the advice of pro ranked in the top ten by PocketFives. Instead, take the time to read all the posts. Try to understand what level they are thinking on. If you want, you can even look their stats up and see if you are stereotypically correct. But at the same time know, that even though their results are really good or really bad in terms to your original conclusion, sometimes it is your job to decipher the message and decide what arrow to throw into the ole’ quiver of poker wisdom.