Take or do not take the battery-or-face

Analysis of situation of battery-or-face early in the tournament.

matt-matros C is the first day d a Hold Em tournament without limit, with a price of entry "in the five figures. You had a good night's sleep. You feel alert.

Analysis of situation of battery-or-face early in the tournament.

C is the first day d a Hold Em tournament without limit, with a price of entry "in the five figures. You had a good night's sleep. You feel alert.

You have been able to navigate between the curious and the media, and have finally found your seat. At the same time, the Tournament Director announced the start of the tournament with his famous "Shuffle up and deal! You're the big blind and put your two green chips in front of you. Everyone folds until the small blind, which pushes its $ 10,000. You n even not released your card from your pocket protector, but you very well doubt that n in n you have for this hand unless d have the ACE. But there is a problem. The player on the small blind n not have map protector and again looking at his cards, he accidentally exposes his hand. Il a Ac_diamond.gif Kc_diamond.gif . You look at your hand and find two ladies. You know in probability, and you are you favorite to 53.8% If you call its. But should you?

This is a classic hypothetical question, and creates many hot tub each time it is discussed. I think qu there is a good answer for this question. a response that is not the level of ability of the player or his goal in the tournament. And j hope qu in reading this article, I will have convinced you.
First, here are the arguments that l means that argue for the fact of bedroom his two ladies:

  1. If you are a good player, you want to use your skills in order to find a better situation to put your chips.
  2. You don't want to risk your whole tournament on one hand, especially in a situation of battery-or-face.
  3. You do not play d also big tournament so often, so you want to acquire a bit of experience playing longer qu one-handed.

If ever you n had not guessed, I strongly believe that these arguments are misleading. This is a small quick experiment: suppose that you play in a tournament with 1024 people. How do you win this tournament? In putting all your chips, of course! This means that if you calculate your chances double 10 times, you will calculate your chances of winning the event. Now, let's say you have 53.8% chance to double whenever you update all your carpet. This means that your chances of winning the tournament are.538 in the 10th, or d power about 0.203%. An average player will be 1 1024, or about 0.098% chance of winning. Thus, by constantly putting your chips in a race with you are favourite to 53.8%, you will have twice the chance to win the tournament as an average player. But there are better!

Let's say you decide to sleep your ladies, believing that you have more than 53.8% chance to double in this tournament. If you refuse to take this battery-or-face, you stay with original carpets, hoping to double later in the tournament. If you agree to take this race and win, you double down immediately.

You must estimate l expected value (EV) of your carpet $ 20,000 at this point in the tournament, subtracting the hypothetical moment that you will double after you have refused this battery-or-face. Let's reasonably (in conservative way, actually) that when you double now, your carpet will worth about $ 22,000 at the hypothetical time where you will find a better situation than this stack-or-face.
C is the time to do a little math. If take this battery-or-face gives you 53.8% chance d having a carpet $ 22,000 later in the tournament, until how must you be favorite to double later in the tournament? You can answer this question by this small simple d algebra calculation: x(20 000) = (.538)(22 000).

Do the math and you will find that x =. 5918, or 59.18%. So, do you believe to be good enough to be able to constantly have this 59.18% of chance to double up? If you answer Yes, and well you wrong! Return to our small base experimentation. If you have 59.18% chance of doubling, you will earn five times more often in a tournament to 1024 players than the average player. Believe me, you n are not so good! I'm not so good. And in fact, I do not believe that c is possible to be so good.

Look at that d another angle: Let's say you're a great player. You win a tournament Hold'em No limit twice more often as an average player which is awesome. You so win a tournament of 1024 players once to 512. Now, let's do the math to l upside down and find our chances to double. Just solve equation 1 512 = (chance double) to the 10th power.

Thus, such a player will be. 536, or 53.6%, double (note that this number is smaller than the chances that your two Queens can beat the A - K with.)

Using the same equation that if top, it comes to show it takes such a player an advantage greater than 48.63%. Yes, you have well seen. I come just to say that a very good player should really take risks that have a slightly negative expectation early in the tournament because, s he wins the hand, he can use his skills with his new carpet. And more importantly much more important in fact that d wait for a slightly better opportunity. You've likely seen several winning players use the approaching "collect tokens or lose them all!" early in the tournament. This statement is partly the reason.

Some say that d call the bet with the ladies would be to say that a good player would leave his abilities aside. But c is forgotten l essence of poker: skills, c is to find advantageous situations. And these situations are precious. Think about it a little: the majority of the time, we lie our hand before even the flop. C is very hard to find a way of putting our chips in a profitable way. Yet, here we have a known benefit. We know what long term, let's raise $ 810 by calling the bet with QQ. It is not only a small advantage. Lie here would mean l we throw an hour of game at the drain. Call the bet does not denies our skills against players in the tournament; call the bet is our ability compared to the other.
You don't want to risk your entire tournament on one hand? Then, you shouldn't be in the tournament. The only question you should ask yourself is "what is this will make me earn tokens in the long term if j referred to? And even if you play in this tournament «for l experience», l experience d a final table would not be not more important that playing one day and (d) be eliminated near the bubble?

If you do not believe in any of this mathematical gibberish, I suggest you take note of your own experimentation. For every tournament you play, write every time you double your carpet before be removed by report whenever you lose all your carpet before. I l did for awhile, and j have doubled 67 times in 127 tournaments, which represents 52.8% of the time. I think that c is good enough! If, after 1000 tournaments, you see that you manage to double more than 60% of the time, congratulations: you are perhaps good enough to profitably bedroom ladies in our hypothetical situation. Meanwhile, keep in mind you have to put your chips in the center when you have an advantage. C is like that to win tournaments!

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