10 Comments

Responding to Footnote 5: I've done a bit of work on short stack tournament play, but it predates the big blind ante format (introduced to WSOP in 2018). It used to be the case that a substantial portion of your equity derived from the 'bottom' of your stack, motivating surprisingly tight play when not in the blinds. The big blind ante reduces and possibly eliminates that effect. When I get a chance I'll run some new simulations.

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Jun 23, 2023Liked by Nate Silver

I know exactly what you mean about opportunity cost when you're very short-stacked...I guess you need to count how many orbits you have left (if any), considering the blinds, and what your odds are of drawing a better starting hand in your remaining hands. (Is this also a scenario where the Fundamental Theorem breaks down?). Probably any pocket pair or two face cards is a fist-pump shove. Probably suited connectors too. But face card and trash?

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I think Harrington on Hold'em deals with these situations when your M is super low and you're in the "Ghost" zone I think it was. Ah, the good old days.

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What does a poker coach have to teach you at this point? Just another set of eyes to observe and critique your play?

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Great read, and thank for sharing this!

What was your mechanism for recording every hand though? Paper notepad? A dedicated phone app? I've wanted to do that myself, but felt like it would take up too much time, distract me from observing the other action, and draw an uncomfortable amount of attention.

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Agree on the large weekend tournaments. Finishing in the top 1% for $3,000 and having to rearrange flights to Europe to play Day 2 likely made that my last event of that type! This chart is super interesting, thank you for this.

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Have you heard of ICM (incremental chip model)?It’s what you’re talking about in footnote 5 wrt pay-out implications. It’s an entire field of study for professional poker players and very strongly influences all decisions. It’s kind of a necessity to know to play optimally when there are large payout imications.

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John Hughes ref FTW

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Nate, I don't know what I would do without you.

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Fun! (Btw, the term is “highlight REEL”)

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