Tournament Pot Odds Redux

Man I have so much to write about in the world of poker these days, my biggest struggle is narrowing it down to just one or a few topics to write about every day. That reminds me FWIW, I've seen Jordan, TripJax, DNasty and a few others comment several times on their own blogs over the past few months about the "pressure" to post every day. I have got to say, for me personally, I don't feel any pressure to write about poker every day. Instead, I have a desire to write every day, almost a need to write every day. So for the time being, nobody needs to worry about me disappearing into the weeds and this blog going stale. I've got so many effing ideas stored up for poker posts in my head that Bill Frist could order full tilt and pokerstars to shut down effective immediately, and I'd probably still have enough content to post for another 6 months or so as if I've been playing every night. So that's a great thing for me about this blog. I know I haven't been doing it for nearly as long as some of those other guys I mentioned above, and I may eventually face the same fate as they as far as feeling pressure to write when I don't really have any particular ideas to write about, but for now I am still going stronger than ever in that department.

So, last night was a banner night of sorts for me (not really). For the first time ever, I managed to win a seat into the nightly 30k guaranteed tournament in the 8:15pm ET satellite:



and the 8:45pm ET satellite:



Of course I've won that 8:45 satellite seat many, many times, as that is the $14 flavor of satellite, and with an average crowd steady at around 100 players or so since Neteller effed us, it typically ends up paying out somewhere around 13 seats or so. As I've mentioned here several times in the recent past, these multi-table, multi-seat satellites are far and away my best, most profitable tournament structure these days, something which I credit a large part of to Smokkee since he really is the guy who turned me on to these things in the first place a long time ago. It was probably last spring or so, when I was already an avid reader of Smokkee's blog, when he started playing more and more satellite tournaments on line, mostly on full tilt for the WSOP and on pokerstars for the WCOOP.

I remember realizing after reading about a particular satellite tournament win on Smokkee's blog that those tournaments really are where it's at, and also that the bigger the buyin, and thus the larger the ratio of winning seats to number of players in the satellites to begin with, the better the satellite is. That's why the 8:45 30k sat is so juicy, because you basically only have to finish in the top seventh of total entrants to win your seat. But the 8:15 satellite, which sports just a $6 buyin, is much, much more difficult to win one's seat with, since it also typically has around 100 players, but only awards seats to an average of 5 of those entrants. And let me tell you, finishing in the top 5 out of 100 in the fonkeyfest that is this $6 turbo 6-max nlh satellite is no small feat. I've only managed to win that satellite a small handful of times, and never on the same night as I've won the later $14 sat as well, so yesterday was a special night in that regard for me.

In case you're wondering, I doubled up early on a great play in the 30k itself, and then got recockusucked by duping a guy with Q5s into getting allin on the flop with me with just his flush draw against my overpair pocket Jacks. Well, he didn't hit his draw, but the river cruelly brought the 3-outer queen, and I never managed to recover from this blow. I made it to the first break still slightly below the 3000 chip starting stack, shortly after online "retiree" Chad joined my table, but then the next thing I knew, I woke up an hour later, just 2 minutes before the second break. Not sure what happened there as I wasn't even tired at the time (that I thought). Needless to say, when I awoke I was in 87th place of 87 remaining players (only top 36 paid out), and I quickly busted on the next hand when my KJ failed to hold up against a smaller pocket pair and IGH. But hey, I did find an effective way to outlast Chad, who had just gone out in I think 91st place overall. Dam I'm good like that.

OK so on to what I really wanted to talk about today. Yesterday's post about tournament pot odds in all-in situations made my general point, but there were two issues with it that make me want to redux this topic again today as well. #1 as many of you pointed out, the example I gave was not a good one for a number of reasons, and #2 in the end my post focused on all-in calling situations, which is not really where I wanted that discussion to go when I started it. Today I plan to rectify both of these problems with a further discussion and a new example on tournament pot odds. I will credit Iakaris with unwittingly providing me the basis of the example I will use today, as it is closely (but not exactly) derived from a question he asked on his blog a week or two ago about a run he had in the 18k guaranteed tournament on full tilt.

So, say youre playing in a large mtt. Youre down to 25 players left from a field that originally started at 500. You are currently in 3rd place out of 25 remaining players, with a stack of 30,000 chips. Blinds are 500-1000. The action folds to you on the button, and you raise it up as a pure steal to 3000 with 63o. Small blind folds, and the big blind pushes his last 6500 more chips into the middle.

This puts 11,000 chips in the pot, and you have to call 3500 to see the big blind's allin bet and take a flop. Pot odds are 11,000 / 3500 or 3.14 to 1. Thus, you need just a 32% (1 / 3.14) chance of winning this pot in order to take the action here on a purely pot odds basis. You figure, you've got 63o, and assuming the big blind must have two cards above a 6, you estimate your chances of winning the pot to be right around 35%. Do you make this call?

I do not. Even though I am giving up a 1/3 chance of winning a pot with 11,000 chips in it, my cards dictate that I will lose this showdown around 2 out of 3 times I play it when my opponent has two overs, as he is fairly sure to have. And what's more, on the times when my opponent flips up any pocket pair above 5s, I am going to lose here more like 4 out of 5 times I play the hand. Why donate another 3500 chips out of my stack (which has already lost 10% of it into this pot as it is)? Why put 20% of my chips at risk from my 3rd place stack with a hand like 63o? Given the choice of losing 10% of my stack that I've already put into the pot here on my steal attempt, or a 2/3 chance of losing 20% of my stack with this cripehand, for me this is the easiest decision in the world. No go, take the pot, have at it thank you very little.

And this gets me to my overall point about tournament pot odds, even in a non-allin context. I think people sometimes "trick" themselves into thinking they have the right odds to make a call, but I say "trick" because the only reason they have the right odds is that they've already made a poorly-timed decision to put chips into the pot with a bad hand to begin with. For example, in the situation above, would you, as the player with the 3rd place stack and 30,000 chips, ever call from the BB if, say, the button had open-pushed his last 6500 chips into the pot before the action got to you? Of course not. Why take a hand with a likely 1/3 chance of winning, and put up 6500 chips into a pot already containing 8000 chips with it? You'd have to win far more often than 63o is going to win in order to justify this play. So, since you happened to act before the big blind in this case, and happened to decide to kick it up to 3000 on a 4x steal before seeing the big blind push in his last 6500 chips, now in a sense you are allowing yourself to be "tricked" into calling another 3500 chips based on the 3-to-1 pot odds you're now receiving on the hand because of your earlier steal attempt with truly terrible cards. But, the only reason you're getting those 3-to-1 odds instead of the 1.23-to-1 odds with your crappy 63o is that you acted before the big blind and you made an ill-timed decision to dump a lot of chips in with a horrible hand.

Now, I've never been one to fight the math, and I'm not trying to do that here either. I understand that, from a purely mathematical perspective, once you've bet those 3000 chips into the pot, the strict math of the situation dictates that you have the pot odds to call an additional 3500 chips into the 11,000-chip pot because you can expect to win roughly 1 in 3 times with your 63o. But, just because you are getting close to the "right" pot odds, does that mean that you have to make this call? Again I come back to the point I made in yesterday's post. In a cash game, I think you should be basically fine making a call where you are getting 3 to 1 from the pot on a 1 in 3 shot to win. I believe that is true more or less by definition. But, in a tournament setting, where not going bust is itself of some value, I don't like to just automatically make calls for any significant part of my stack, where I'm getting no fold equity at all, and where I know I have low odds of winning the pot (even if the pot is laying me good odds to chase that low-odds hand). Maybe it's just me.

To me, I liken this situation to carrying a credit card balance in a way. In the past I have often thought that it's ok to carry a small credit card balance, if doing so means I can have the money I need to live my life (within reason) more or less without worrying about money. No I can't go buying midieval castles and 100-foot yachts on the Mediterranean. But, in the past I have found that by carrying a small credit card balance I can have a "better" life overall. Most of the people I know think this is insane, because it is a fact that I am paying interest on that balance while I carry it. They explain that it is actually costing me money to hold that balance, and that if I can find any way to pay that balance down instead, I should. This is fact which I, of course, cannot and do not argue with. My point, however, is that, to me, it is actually worth the small money loss (interest) in order to have the financial freedom that that credit card balance buys me. Again, I am not arguing that there is no financial cost to holding a small credit card balance -- I pay x dollars in interest every year by keeping such a balance and I acknowledge that and in fact openly embrace it. What I am arguing, though, is that there is a benefit to me (financial freedom) that actually outweighs that cost (interest), and so in the past I have lived this way at certain times of my life.

In my perspective, I view tournament pot odds in situations like the example above in very much the same way. I understand that by folding my 63o for just another 3500 chips into an 11,000-chip pot, thereby sacrificing a roughly 1/3 chance to win the 11,000 chips, I may be incurring a certain cost to do so (I am giving up the pot odds expectation and the 1/3 chance of winning those 11,000 chips). But, not having to lose 20% of my 30,000-chip stack in a pot that I am quite likely to lose is itself a benefit that, to me, is worth me paying that cost of losing my 1/3 chance of winning those 11,000 chips by folding. So, even though I acknowledge that by folding in this spot I am costing myself a 1/3 shot at 11,000 chips, I also know that the benefit I get from being able to retain those last 3500 chips rather than call them off into a pot I am likely to lose has a real value to me. In a tournament, having chips is itself a real value, in a way that is just not present in a cash game when you can always go back to your pocket for more chips.

Now, make no mistake, this theory I have of being willing to give up some pot odds in order to save some chips in a tournament when I have a good-sized stack is not something I take too far. In other words, if I am being laid 5 to 1 odds by the pot in order to draw to a 50-50 shot, of course I'm going to make that call without hesitation. But, my theory in tournaments is, if I'm dealing with a close situation where the pot is basically offering me roughly the same odds as my chances of winning the hand, and it is a longshot for me to win the hand, I am far more apt to fold it in a tournament and preserve my precious chips rather than to make that call. This is only exacerbated by the possibility that I will have to call another bet after the next card in order to stay in the hand to see the river. That is yet another reason why I hesitate to draw on or before the flop when I think I've got a longshot, even at decent odds -- because in all likelihood I am going to face another bet on the flop which I will not be able to call with the proper odds.

Please understand that I'm not even trying to suggest that my way is the only right way to play these sorts of situations. Just like with my credit card example above, I fully respect and understand that everyone gets to place their own value on the benefit of "having chips" in a tournament, just like everyone gets to decide for himself or herself how important being debt-free is, or how much it's worth to them to have a little bit of extra cash laying around, even at the cost of x dollars of interest paid over a year. I will simply say that I have had quite a lot of success in poker tournaments over my career by approaching decisions with longshots where I think I'm getting close to the "right" odds to draw in this way.

That concludes my post today on tournament pot odds. Again let me apologize for using what really was not a great example yesterday, though I still think it got across the point I was trying to make. Hopefully today's illustrates a little better where I'm coming from in these decisions, and why in the example I give above, I would happily release the pot, save those extra 3500 chips and retain 90% of my stack before that hand, rather than have a 2/3 chance of only being left with 80% of that stack after the hand. In tournaments, chips are king, and having them, or having a lot of them relative to my peers, is itself a desirable end, and something that really has intrinsic value in the way I approach poker tournaments.

Now before I go, everybody should not forget tonight is the latest Riverchasers event, hosted by Big Al himself:

Tournament: 13185806
Name: Riverchasers.com Tour Event #4
When: Thursday, February 22nd 9pm ET
Game: NLHE
Buyin: $10+1
password: riverchasers4

Note the password change for this event please! As with the other Riverchasers tournaments this one will take place on full tilt tonight, and I will just say that Al's tournament has quickly become one of my favorite private events of the week, as it has a large field, replete with many of my favorite bloggers, and it also has a bunch of cool guys to chat with week in and week out. And, many of them don't seem to have the focus on or understanding of the nuances of poker like many of our blogging brethren do, so that always makes it fun as well. Flop top two against one of these guys early in the tournament, and you're probably going to get TPTK or even TP2nd or 3rd K to call you for all their chips early. Yummy. I will definitely be there tonight, and I plan to do what I can to personally dethrone Gary from his perch atop the Riverchasers standings so far through I think 3 events this year, in which Gary has dominated all of them. Not tonight my friend, not tonight.