Slow Down nutball - The "slow gear"

The fun thing about poker tournaments is you can look at it basically like an equity chart and consider bankroll management skills. EXCEPT you will be forced to be much more aggressive. You need a strategy that will get all the chips to win. OR you need a strategy that can maintain pace ahead of the blinds without violating money management principals... (or as little as possible).

Basically if you have done any work on money management strategy, whether that be for stocks, sports betting, options or anything else, you know that getting "too aggressive" can be a major flaw in one's "game"

The red and blue lines are both examples of what it might look like if you go "beyond" the maximally aggressive strategy. In fact, the red and blue line within a limited sample size could technically still look like that even if they were under betting the "optimal maximally aggressive" strategy since the assumption within money management calculations like the "kelly criterion" is that you maximize it over an "unlimited amount of bets".

Note:

If you bet half the amount you still get 3/4 of the long term return with HALF the volatility.


Theoretically if you could ALWAYS bet a fractional amount you would never go broke, but in poker tournaments the object is forced. BEYOND twice the kelly and the LONG term expectation is negative. HOWEVER, in tournaments there are people who are still successful doing this.

What you might see is a wide potential set of possible strategies. Some either get a lot of chips REALLY fast OR fizzle out. OR one where you cautiously accumulate chips and then either keep the same strategy and just try to squeak in the money and from there perhaps get aggressive... OR survive until the bubble and then get aggressive. The reality of the situation is it is NOT unlimited, but VERY fixed in both TIME (because of inevitable rising of the blinds) AND in number of chips (so a strategy should not be looked at as maximizing the RETURN BUT instead MAXIMIZING the probability of getting the best result in cash based upon finish. In some cases, you just can maximize the probability of getting first.

What that means is, at some point, you should probably slow down. There are plenty of people at the table who will want table respect as well as taking your reign as the table bully, especially once you are already in the money. Rather than fight them on it, give it up willfully before you lose a bunch of chips in the process. Remember, your goal is to get all the chips while maximizing payout, not get them as fast as possible.

The dark green strategy gets in trouble and the light green gains at it's expense. This is not necessarily because the strategy isn't more profitable, but because it is a higher risk, more volatile strategy that is unnecessary. The blue line is example of a smoother more cautious strategy that makes it and has a point where he takes more caution around the same time as well. The black strategy is a bit volatile but not crazy, yet he does not slow down and is forced as a short stack to make some more desperate decision. The green, the blue and black make the final table even though the green may have a more profitable strategy in terms of chips, he does not neccessarily in terms of tournaments. Actually the blue strategy is probably the best because somehow it manages to avoid major confrontation. I believe this is the reason Daniel Negreanu is one of the best because he will take lots of pots down, and lots of pots to the river and avoid any major decision. He has an "equity curve" that has a "low standard deviation" but high enough expectation and possibility to gain to stay ahead of the blinds. the dark red and gray strategy strugle to keep up with it, and the red strategy has a "boom or bust" strategy. The green does as well except he is slightly more cautious until the blinds start to go up and he manages even after a big loss to play patient and smart enough to hang on as long as he can until he gets desperate. He finally makes a move on one of the most aggressive players who fails to slow down (dark green) and uses his chips to vault his way to a win.

I hope this illustrates that "time" and "chips" both eventually dictate how far you get, how much you get paid, and who wins. If I extended this line 3 times as long, the green and black strategies would probably go broke more often, however, perhaps the blinds would also catch up to the blue strategy if not for a shift in style. Another factor is the speed of play and rate that blinds go up as well as the blind structure. Sometimes the blinds will go up 20%, other times they will go up 33%. Even some tournaments when antes kick in it increases the cost per rotation by as much as 50%. Sometimes the ante are always equal to 1/5th of the small blind, other times they are 1/3rd or 1/4th. All these minor distinctions will or should impact decision making slightly. In terms of this tournament the green strategy or black may still be best depending upon final table play.

Another determiner of which strategy is best is the payout. If you are in a large super satellite where the top 50 places score an entry into the next tournament, there is no distinction between 1st and 50th. As a result it actually is extremely costly to take on all the risks of going bust when a more cautious approach may work.
Bankroll management is hugely important for similar reasons and I would never advoate extending your bankroll and looking like any of these EXCEPT blue but in tournaments I would. However the at the table strategy may end up similar at times.

In MOST tournaments however, there will get to be a situation in which you already have double the second highest stack or a large chip lead, and/or a very comfortable amount of big blinds such as 50 late in the tournament. That is when you stop trying to steal blinds, and you wait and start building up a tight image. The "slow gear" at this stage and at the final table is a bit different than the one before it, but that's for the next post.