How Can Phil Hellmuth Play Early Rounds at a NL Tourney
MSA1213
should regularly be at the final table, playing with a "handicap" at NL
tourneys?
Assume that I am a poor player at the WSOP final and raise him greatly all-in
early for all, or nearly all, of his chips. Assume even that he can read me
perfectly. He knows that I have only a 40% chance of beating him on the hand.
What does he do?
a. If he surrenders when he has a 60% chance of winning, he can be bet all-in
or bluffed regularly, thus a "handicap".
b. If he calls, he has a 40% chance of getting knocked out early by me. If he
then does the same thing with another player, he has a 64% chance of not
surviving and only a 36% chance of still being in the tourney. He feels that
his chances are far better if he can play more slowly because of his superior
play.
Am I incorrect that Phil believes so much in his play and that he should make
the final table that he presumably tries to avoid all 60/40 advantages all-in
early in a big tourney. If he does, isn't he playing with a "handicap"? Not
only does he have to avoid calling these, he has to avoid getting into the
situations where someone goes all-in except when he has a huge advantage.
Otherwise he then surrenders chips in spite of an advantage.
1. Do some other players "pick on" top players early knowing that they can be
bet/bluffed out easily even if the odds are with them?
2. What odds do Phil or other top players require (if they knew the exact odds)
to be willing to go all-in in early rounds of the WSOP? (Even at 70/30 you are
an underdog to survive if you do it twice.)
No wonder final tables contain so many new names.
marc
guppy
"MSA1213" <msa...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030827153731...@mb-m24.aol.com...
anon...@yahoo.com
situations. They are generally not a good play for anyone.
BadMrFrosty
a major because won't amateurs be favored to win. At what point would the
number of pros to number "of dead money" players swing the odds in the favor
of the dead money players.
For simplicities sake lets say a pro has a 2 to 1 adv over an amateur.
And there are only two types of players a pro and an amateur.
This would lead to--as I calculate it
x = 2 / (100 + z)
x = % chance of any one pro to win tourney. (ie twice as big as any one in
field if
z = 1)
z = number of pros in field a field of 100 (or the percentage of pros in
field)
x*z = % chance of any pro winning tournament.
I know this can be expanded on but I have to get back to work. I was just
things how the number of amateurs is out pacing pros and at what point are
the pros at a disadvantage to win a tournament.
I hope this makes sense.
Let me know of any mistakes, please remember this is for discussion and not
meant to be a perfect model.
-BMF
"MSA1213" <msa...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030827153731...@mb-m24.aol.com...
O-PGManager
>
That's kind of ridiculous isn't it? If he wasn't going to play early on
wouldn't he have at least shown up to study players or catch one guy going
all in against his AA?
The thing is even the best players are going to have to flip the coin at
some point, not as often as poor players, but they will have to, and
they'll have to get the cards they need. Hence, so many new faces at the
final table.
I think your logic is a litte flawed though. When you raise all in you
don't know you are a 10% dog unless you've READ HIM perfectly. He can
lure guys into raising all in when they are smoked. So how could someone
take advantage of his unwillingness to go all in if they have no idea what
he has? You might be thinking "I'm 50-50 he's gonna fold because Phil
won't risk going out on 50/50" only to find you've been trapped.
Is folding on that 60-40 flip a bad play? It all depends on who you are.
If I was up against pros I'd take a 60-40 edge all day long and hope to
get lucky. But if Phil can consistenly get 80-20 edges, then yes he'd
pass up on that one.
Interesting post.
O-PG
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guppy
experience in online tournaments
is that there are flaky people playing in the first few hands.
I'm betting for value and a maniac goes all-in with junk. He get the miracle
and I'm out.
I try to wait at least a couple of rounds to get these nuts out of the way.
I've watched 2-3 guys blow out in the FIRST hand. This really pisses me off
since that can
double/triple a skillful player who can later outblind me.
"O-PGManager" <anon...@online-pokerguide.com> wrote in message
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Michael Joyce
explain why you should go all-in against a maniac early on if you have
the best of him (you don't want to go all-in if your a 55% fav, but if
you're a heavy favorite you do). This gives you the chance to double up
early and get an edge over other skillful players. I am assuming that
your goal is to win the tournament/place in the money, and not just to
make sure that you get to play for a certain minimum amount of time.
Of course, the maniac does add a lot of randomness to the game. You
will be cursing when it's your skillful opponent who gets to go all-in
with his aces or kings against the maniac, and not you. But if you
choose to not take advantage of the opportunity when it comes to you,
then you are giving the skillful player a huge edge. Sometimes he will
have a giant stack compared to you (when he gets cards to go all-in with
versus loose gamblers), sometimes he will have a similarly sized stack
as you (when you forego your chance to go all-in against the gambler),
and only rarely will you have the best of him (when the maniac catches
his miracle card(s)). Even in the latter case, you are in bad shape if
the maniac calms down and plays a loose (but not too loose) aggressive game.
Thus, in order to maximize your results in the tournament, you must be
willing to risk losing to a bad beat early on if you happen to catch a
big hand early on. Not taking the risk is going to leave you in
unfavorable chip position, and now you are assuming that you can outplay
your opponents to make up for the lack of chips you have -- that's an
assessment only you can make, but I suspect you are just giving up too
much by not taking advantage of players who are going all-in with weak
hands.
Best,
Mike
Code Monkee
more amateurs, just less likely, but that is true with any increase in
players.
Think of it this way: If all pros were equal, and there were 100 pros (and
only pros) in an event, then each would have a 1% probability of winning. If
there were 200 pros their probability would be .5%. This is not a
disadvantage, as the payout would be doubled also. If the mix were 100 pros
and 100 ameteurs the pros probability would be .667%. Although that makes it
harder to win than with 100 players, they are getting greater value for
their entry fee.
"BadMrFrosty" <BadMrFros...@arcticmail.com> wrote in message
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Jim Geary
"Michael Joyce" <moj...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3F4D1BC9...@hotmail.com...
> I'm certainly no expert at no limit poker, but your last two sentences
> explain why you should go all-in against a maniac early on if you have
> the best of him (you don't want to go all-in if your a 55% fav, but if
> you're a heavy favorite you do). This gives you the chance to double up
> early and get an edge over other skillful players. I am assuming that
> your goal is to win the tournament/place in the money, and not just to
> make sure that you get to play for a certain minimum amount of time.
Assuming your chance to double up is near 50%, what edge over the skilled
players do the additional chips confer in the early rounds of the WSOP?
Newgca
Where is he a top player? In your mind?
>who believe that they are among the very best and
>should regularly be at the final table, playing with a "handicap" at NL
>tourneys?
He is playing with a handicap, since there are hundreds of players better than
he is, they just like money, unlike Phil.
Russ Georgiev
BlackLabel
MSA1213, interesting post. I wonder if this is what was behind Robert
Varkonyi moving in against Phil Hellmuth with QTs. That he can get
Hellmuth to lay down rather than risk a coin flip for very close to all
his chips. Though Varkonyi comes across pretty goofy, he is an MIT
grad and there must have been some method to his madness. If nothing
else I am sure he knows that QTs is not the greatest hand to play 2
card showdown with in a full table game. My guess is Varkonyi had
thought through some rudimentary strategies for playing with a severe
skill disadvantage.
For whatever reason Hellmuth read him for Ax and called with his AK.
Perhaps Varkonyi had been pulling this move of coming over the top with
an all in raise several other times and Hellmuth had seen a pattern to
the hands Varkonyi had shown.
--
BlackLabel
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Terrell Owens
rankings and I think he's made 8 final tables this year(its either 6 or
8) his winnings are well over $200,000 for this year alone
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Bart9349FUspam
>than
>he is, they just like money, unlike Phil.
Russ, that is a little unfair. He certainly has his personal insecurity issues
and everyone knows he is a baby. But let's be honest: He is a solid and
successful player. Jaggoff, yes. But also a respectable player.
What do you know about him that we don't?
May you NEVER "seven-out,"
guy
apryllshowers
the best players* does not make sense. It is however circumstantial
evidence that he is not a good cash game player.
There are very few tournaments like the WSOP main event that start players
with 200x the big blind and 2 hour rounds. This is a deep money
situation, and these early rounds play more like a cash game than a
tournament because players can make pot sized bets and raises and have
plenty of chips left to bet on later streets. This is why you see a lot of
the higher stakes professional cash game players building large stacks in
the early stages or busting out. The high stakes cash game player is in
his element in the first 2-3 rounds of the WSOP main event, whereas most
recreational players are more comfortable playing crapshoot-like
structures favoring allin or fold moves (like online sit n gos, small
buyin tournaments, etc.). What happens is the recreatinal player either
sits on his hands for most of day 1 waiting for AA or KK (so he can push
his stack in), or he calls or makes a substantial reraise on the flop with
an overpair like QQ and gets busted by the cash game pro's flopped 2 pair
with 78.
Phil wants to avoid these situations because he cannot outplay the cash
gmae players on deep money and he fears the crapshoot players will force
him to commit his whole stack early. Phil wants to force his opponent to
make a decision for their whole stack. He cannot do this on deep money.
He would rather wait until the money is not as deep (maybe 50x BB) so he
can use his contrived tight image to make substantial (but less than
allin) raises and reraises whereby he is forcing the other player to
commit his entire stack to continue with the hand. If you think he all of
a sudden starts catching a string of AA and KK in the 4th and 5th levels
of tournaments you are mistaken. He simply has waited until the money is
shallow enough so he can exert some serious pressure without risking his
whole stack. Not a bad tournament strategy on the whole, but it shows
that he either is a weak deep money player or that he is afraid of deep
money situations. The best players are not afraid of deep money
situations. They relish them.
Case in point--Phil Ivey. Why does Ivey always seem to have a stack early
in the tournament? Is it luck? Or is it is his high stakes cash play
experience? Ivey has a complete tournament game. He is a tremendous deep
money player and often builds a dominating stack early. He then adjusts to
the midgame and knows when and when not to take the coinflip, and he is a
superior endgame player.
Hellmuth's skill level is similar to Ivey in the mid and endgame stages,
but he does not have the deep money skill that Ivey has. Hellmuth's style
gets him to the midstage with a mediocre stack, forcing him to hit a key
hand to build a stack with some *presence*. Ivey does not need to hit a
key hand in the midstage because he generally gets to the midstage with a
stack via his excellent deep money play.
When Hellmuth is lucky enough to find that pair over pair situation in the
midstage and it holds up, he will tell you that he is a genius, his reads
are dead on, etc. etc. When this happens, he is a threat to win, as the
money is shallow enough for his skills to come to the fore. In shallow
money situations Hellmuth plays the big stack and the small stack equally
well, and with a little luck can get deep into any poker tournament he
enters, with his shallow money skill giving him an opportunity to win.
A player like Ivey plays deep and shallow money situations equally well,
and by avoiding bad luck can make it deep into the tournament with a big
stack quite often, and use this dominating stack to dominate final table
play. The big stack enables you to either pass on certain coin flip
situations and/or take shots at smaller stacks in coin flip situations. A
player that gives up the opportunity to build such a stack in juicy deep
money situations is not a complete player imo.
Paul Phillips
apryllshowers <anon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Phil not wanting to play the first round of the WSOP because he is *one of
>the best players* does not make sense. It is however circumstantial
>evidence that he is not a good cash game player.
That's a super insightful post and it's dead-on.
Phil can't play with deep money because he's never willing to go broke
in the early stages. And if he's totally unwilling to go broke then he's
too exploitable to play; he'd be better off blinding off. Which he does.
I don't know if Phil even realizes this himself. Probably not. But like
many people who aren't that bright but have a knack for one thing, he has
made the correct adaptation for his skill set by showing up late.
--
Paul Phillips | Some cause happiness wherever they go;
Vivid | others whenever they go.
Empiricist | -- Oscar Wilde
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