NY Article On Tournament Poker
The article:
The New York Times
November 26, 2005
To Survive or to Gather Chips, That Is the Question
By JAMES MCMANUS
A no-limit hold 'em tournament, which continues until one player has all the chips, is the form of poker that most lavishly rewards an aggressive approach. Not surprisingly, the most successful demographic group, including 7 of the top 10 in the Card Player rankings, are men in their 20's or early 30's. Nick Schulman, a lanky Manhattanite who won $2,167,500 last week at the World Poker finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino, vaulting from nowhere to No. 50, turned 21 only two months ago.
Few players represent the new breed of tournament artist better than Erick Lindgren, the 27-year-old Californian ranked No. 8. And happily for those of us who would like to emulate this high-test, creative approach, Lindgren has just published "Making the Final Table" (Collins), which describes with insight and clarity the modus operandi of his assertive young brethren.
Before breaking down their attack mode, Lindgren encapsulates it in a maxim: "Tournament poker is not about survival; tournament poker is about accumulating chips."
He admits the first phrase may be counterintuitive, given that the last person sitting at the table wins by far the most money. Yet Lindgren makes clear that while taking few risks may reduce the chance of early elimination, it also reduces the chance of gathering enough chips to actually win the event; and that the only sensible goal is first place. Why is that? Because nearly all the prize money sits atop a steep, narrow pyramid - think Transamerica, not Pepi II - with about two-thirds of it going to the first three places.
Lindgren convincingly estimates that "the Chip Gatherer will win the tournament between 1.6 and 2 times as often as the Survivor, but the Survivor will cash 2.5 times as often as the Chip Gatherer." Survivors who take heart from these odds should remember that cashing near the bottom of the prize pool involves getting your $10,000 buy-in back (this for outlasting 90 percent of the entrants), while the winner's share of a major event runs from $1 million to $7.5 million.
Once you understand that finishing first is the goal, the correct strategy clearly becomes to "press every edge." You worry less about protecting your stack and start looking harder for positive expected value. (E.V. is what a poker situation is worth in the long run.) You don't even need the best hand to have a positive E.V. If you're getting pot odds to 3.5 to 1 to call with your flush draw, for example, you only need to hit your flush 22 percent of the time. And very few hands are ever that much of an underdog.
Survivors like to muck risky hands. They believe they are good enough to get their chips in the pot as a heavy favorite - a made three-of-a-kind, for example, against a straight or a flush draw. They believe they can wait for the weak players to bust, get into the money themselves, then try to make the final table. In the meantime, their watchword is patience. This approach has certainly won a few tournaments.
Lindgren makes several points in response. The first is that most players, including him, just aren't as good as they think they are. And even the best players won't find themselves in enough positive-E.V. situations. More specifically, he notes that Survivors often overvalue big pocket pairs, especially A-A. "When an early position player raises," he writes, "and I call on the button with two sixes, I'm hoping he has aces. I'm praying he has aces. My implied odds when I hit my set are just so much greater when he does." Implied odds are how large a pot might become if both players have a strong hand; a set is a pair in your hand matched by a card on the board. With a set of sixes against a pair of aces, the pot is likely to become very large indeed.
Survivors not only tend to overbet the pot, risking too many chips to win too few, they also underbet many pots. (Limit players new to no-limit are especially prone to this.) They predictably bet with weak or medium-strength hands and predictably check their monsters. They also tend to give up too early. After raising with A-K, for example, they automatically check when no ace or king appears on the flop, then fold to a bet.
Chip Gatherers have learned to read these patterns and take full advantage with well-timed bets and raises. They often make (or call) pre-flop raises with small pairs and suited connectors. "I love to play pots in position," writes Lindgren, "and I'm trying to find reasons to do it with a lot of different hands." Small pre-flop raises gives him a stake in more than his fair share of pots, but without committing too many chips until he sees the flop. They also increase his chances of flopping a huge but well-disguised hand. The key is to remain unpredictable.
So far I've covered the first third of his book. Later chapters focus on post-flop tactics, playing large and small stacks and strategy shifts at various stages of a tournament. Each will repay a close reading.
Lindgren had prose and math help from Matt Matros, a rising young pro who also earned a math degree from Yale and an M.F.A. in writing from Sarah Lawrence. His own smart first book, "The Making of a Poker Player," continues the tradition of Herbert O. Yardley's "Education of a Poker Player" (1957) by braiding memoir with poker advice. Yardley's approach was almost morbidly tight - to put money in the pot only when he was virtually certain to have the best hand. Half a century later, Matros and Lindgren, along with most no-limit artists, take very much the opposite tack.
The New York Times
November 26, 2005
To Survive or to Gather Chips, That Is the Question
By JAMES MCMANUS
A no-limit hold 'em tournament, which continues until one player has all the chips, is the form of poker that most lavishly rewards an aggressive approach. Not surprisingly, the most successful demographic group, including 7 of the top 10 in the Card Player rankings, are men in their 20's or early 30's. Nick Schulman, a lanky Manhattanite who won $2,167,500 last week at the World Poker finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino, vaulting from nowhere to No. 50, turned 21 only two months ago.
Few players represent the new breed of tournament artist better than Erick Lindgren, the 27-year-old Californian ranked No. 8. And happily for those of us who would like to emulate this high-test, creative approach, Lindgren has just published "Making the Final Table" (Collins), which describes with insight and clarity the modus operandi of his assertive young brethren.
Before breaking down their attack mode, Lindgren encapsulates it in a maxim: "Tournament poker is not about survival; tournament poker is about accumulating chips."
He admits the first phrase may be counterintuitive, given that the last person sitting at the table wins by far the most money. Yet Lindgren makes clear that while taking few risks may reduce the chance of early elimination, it also reduces the chance of gathering enough chips to actually win the event; and that the only sensible goal is first place. Why is that? Because nearly all the prize money sits atop a steep, narrow pyramid - think Transamerica, not Pepi II - with about two-thirds of it going to the first three places.
Lindgren convincingly estimates that "the Chip Gatherer will win the tournament between 1.6 and 2 times as often as the Survivor, but the Survivor will cash 2.5 times as often as the Chip Gatherer." Survivors who take heart from these odds should remember that cashing near the bottom of the prize pool involves getting your $10,000 buy-in back (this for outlasting 90 percent of the entrants), while the winner's share of a major event runs from $1 million to $7.5 million.
Once you understand that finishing first is the goal, the correct strategy clearly becomes to "press every edge." You worry less about protecting your stack and start looking harder for positive expected value. (E.V. is what a poker situation is worth in the long run.) You don't even need the best hand to have a positive E.V. If you're getting pot odds to 3.5 to 1 to call with your flush draw, for example, you only need to hit your flush 22 percent of the time. And very few hands are ever that much of an underdog.
Survivors like to muck risky hands. They believe they are good enough to get their chips in the pot as a heavy favorite - a made three-of-a-kind, for example, against a straight or a flush draw. They believe they can wait for the weak players to bust, get into the money themselves, then try to make the final table. In the meantime, their watchword is patience. This approach has certainly won a few tournaments.
Lindgren makes several points in response. The first is that most players, including him, just aren't as good as they think they are. And even the best players won't find themselves in enough positive-E.V. situations. More specifically, he notes that Survivors often overvalue big pocket pairs, especially A-A. "When an early position player raises," he writes, "and I call on the button with two sixes, I'm hoping he has aces. I'm praying he has aces. My implied odds when I hit my set are just so much greater when he does." Implied odds are how large a pot might become if both players have a strong hand; a set is a pair in your hand matched by a card on the board. With a set of sixes against a pair of aces, the pot is likely to become very large indeed.
Survivors not only tend to overbet the pot, risking too many chips to win too few, they also underbet many pots. (Limit players new to no-limit are especially prone to this.) They predictably bet with weak or medium-strength hands and predictably check their monsters. They also tend to give up too early. After raising with A-K, for example, they automatically check when no ace or king appears on the flop, then fold to a bet.
Chip Gatherers have learned to read these patterns and take full advantage with well-timed bets and raises. They often make (or call) pre-flop raises with small pairs and suited connectors. "I love to play pots in position," writes Lindgren, "and I'm trying to find reasons to do it with a lot of different hands." Small pre-flop raises gives him a stake in more than his fair share of pots, but without committing too many chips until he sees the flop. They also increase his chances of flopping a huge but well-disguised hand. The key is to remain unpredictable.
So far I've covered the first third of his book. Later chapters focus on post-flop tactics, playing large and small stacks and strategy shifts at various stages of a tournament. Each will repay a close reading.
Lindgren had prose and math help from Matt Matros, a rising young pro who also earned a math degree from Yale and an M.F.A. in writing from Sarah Lawrence. His own smart first book, "The Making of a Poker Player," continues the tradition of Herbert O. Yardley's "Education of a Poker Player" (1957) by braiding memoir with poker advice. Yardley's approach was almost morbidly tight - to put money in the pot only when he was virtually certain to have the best hand. Half a century later, Matros and Lindgren, along with most no-limit artists, take very much the opposite tack.
posted by Rog at 7:26 PM
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