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Remember that new guy who sat down at your table,
called three bets cold with the J2o and flopped top pair
with a flop of J.10.3.. Your friend stuck around
with the K.Q. and caught on the river to make
a flush and take down a huge pot. The new
player bemoaned the fact that he got
sucked out on, how unlucky he was and
how these bad players chasing are
going to be the death of his bankroll. You
smiled to yourself, knowing that your friend
was not wrong to call with what figured
to be 21 outs, but this neophyte player
simply didn’t understand the game
well enough to know that and so he placed the blame on bad
luck, bad play on his
opponents part and an overall sense
that the poker gods hate him. Don’t we
all feel a bit of superiority listening to him
rant? Go ahead, you can admit it. I know I do.
Though
I rarely play tournaments, I found
myself at the L.A. Poker Classic a few years ago
competing in the $1,000 Pot Limit Omaha event. I did
well, and found myself returning the next day to play the
final table. I had a smallish stack; I was in seventh chip
position of nine and while I wasn’t in any immediate danger, I
needed to catch a hand rather quickly. The first hand of the final
table consisted of a limper and the short-stack going all in, causing
the table to fold. On the second hand, he raised the maximum when the
action got to him and the table folded once again. The third hand, he
man- aged to get all his chips in before the flop against a single
opponent and
then turned over absolute garbage, got lucky and took down the pot.
The player who had lost the pot was talking about how bad his luck was,
how badly his opponent had played and how much the poker gods
hated him. Everyone at the final table seemed to agree.
There was something wrong with this picture for me. First of all, this
‘insane’ player was, and is, a top tournament professional with a long
history of success. Second, not only was he the tournament points
leader at the time, he went on to win. His play certainly looked bizarre
to me but rather than simply dismissing behavior I didn’t understand
as foolish, I explored a bit deeper in the days to come. This is what
I discovered:
On the first hand of the final table, with the blinds, the antes and the
limper’s chips, the short-stack had managed to double up. He was now
in eighth chip position. On the second hand, he passed me by and took
over seventh chip position. The third hand is crucial to understanding
what I came to believe his strategy was. In Omaha, unlike Hold’em, one
is rarely more than a 3:2 dog and this was the case here. He got lucky,
though not incredibly so, and vaulted into third chip position. At this
point, his game changed and he took a more patient posture.
First
place paid $72,000 as I recall, ninth paid $2,250. Third place
was $24,000. All things being equal, he most likely would have gone
out in ninth place had he played a more traditional game. This was a
particularly tough final table and he would have had no great edge
against any of the players remaining. However, let’s give him the
benefit
of the doubt and say that he is such a great player that he is going to
finish in seventh place for $3,225. Going all-in, or raising the
maximum
would likely cause the field to fold, at least the first couple of
times,
though eventually, as was the case in actual play, he would get played
back at. Since he was unlikely to be much more than a 3:2 dog when
that happened, and since doing so put him in third chip position,
worth,
if he could hold on to it, $24,000, I ran some numbers.
There were two optional re-buys of which he bought one, as well as
a $60 entry fee, so he was in the tournament for $2,060. If he came in
seventh place he would have profited $1,165. Playing ‘insanely’ he gave
himself a 40% chance to end up in third chip position. Now, all things
being equal, which we allowed ourselves to assume before, he figures
to end up in third place and profit $21,940. Of course, there are no
guarantees that he would win that crucial pot but let’s take a look at his
expectation on the play: 60% of the time he loses the pot and finishes
in ninth place, netting a $190 profit. 40% of the time he finishes in third
place and nets a $21,940 profit.
($190)(60%) + ($21,940)(40%) = $8,890
If he was such a superior player to have a decided advantage over the
field that as the short-stack he could somehow take down seventh place
by playing ‘smart’, he would only expect to profit $1165. His ‘insane’
play increased his expectation by over 750%!
So, the moral of the story is… the next time you know that the
donkey next to you has no clue and just got lucky - check yourself. You
may be right; he may have no clue, but don’t automatically assume that
he doesn’t, particularly if the player is a regular winner.
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