Views on EV plays in fast paced MTT's



Sklansky (I believe it was Sklansky) said something like "In order to succeed and survive in tournaments, You need to give up small EV edges early in order to gain Bigger EV edges later". What he meant by this is you need pass on marginally profitable situations early in a tournament to gain a bigger edge in situations later in the event. This has been called the 'survival strategy' method of MTT play. Basically he was saying preservation of your stack is more important than pushing a small edge in order to gain a bigger stack. This has since been shown to be a marginally profitable style of play. It turns out that giving up on these small edges early, while increasing your chances of making into deeper into the field, reduces your chances of winning a large payout (see This Thread and Thread for a deeper discussion on the need to double up early in a MTT). This realization has lead to the formation of loose and/or ultra-aggressive styles of play for MTT's, like the style that Gus Hanson and other recently famous players have employed, and to a style I describe here [Limp-and-Go], which is a looser strategy used for large M's early.

These strategies are excellent for use in MTT's that have a structure suitable to playing a lot of hands. The structures found in large buy-in events have deep stacks with slow blinds. These huge M's combined with seeing many hands each level allows for a lot of poker to be played. Most Online tournaments are barely within this bubble. They usually have short levels, and while you start with a large M, the rapid escalation of the blinds quickly erodes that M. But these 'regular' events still allow for some strategic and tactical poker to be played. You can still make short term -EV plays to gain a bigger EV edge later (i.e., making an obviously bad call on the river for cheap just to see what the other player has, for information to be used against him later).



But some online events, and a lot of amateur live 'charity' tournaments, have ultra-fast structures relative to amount of hands played per level and sometimes (especially live) very small M's to start. These events require another approach different from those mentioned above. But here we can go back to what Sklansky said above, albeit a perversion of it. Sklansky was advocating avoiding situations where our EV was minimally positive in order to preserve your stack for later use. In turbo events, I believe you should give up some EV, meaning knowingly take a slightly –EV stance, in some situations in order to build your stack quickly. Turbo events move so fast that you don’t have time to wait for a good hand. If you wait for a premium hand, they soon become anything with paint on it. This is basically an extension of the Limp and Go style, where you try to see a lot of cheap flops with marginal hands early when you have a large M, but here you need to be taking risks to build a stack quickly. This means drawing to hands when you aren’t getting the correct odds, explicit or implied, when if you hit, there is a good chance you will greatly increase your stack. I am not advocating chasing down long shots, just marginally -EV plays.



The whole goal of this is to have a high placing finish. These events are so volatile that just making it ITM on occasion will not turn a regular profit, to really make a profit from these events you need to have a few final tables. To do this, you need to make a big score a couple of times, and to make big scores, you need to accumulate a big stack early. You cannot commit a decent portion of your stack on one hand, and then hope to win back those chips at a later time. The speed of the blinds will make any equal TC gain later a much smaller increase in M proportionally smaller. Given a normal distribution of hands, you will not get a second chance to earn chips with a similarly sized M. This means you should never have a “great laydown” in a turbo event. Unless you know a particular player cold, there is no reason to ever lay down a hand when you think you are marginally –EV. The affect those chips will have on your stack is greater than preserving it will. Basically, the cost in real money is greater by folding situations like this than the slightly negative TC EV you are taking.

This may seem like I’m advocating bad play, and in a way I sort of am. But you need to look at the math of the resulting situations. The cost, in terms of real money EV, is greater by folding marginally –EV hands, and therefore crippling your stack, than playing that hand. Survival is not a method that will earn any long-term profits in fast paced MTT’s. You need to build a stack quickly. This method will increase your variance some, and will require a slightly bigger bankroll to successfully play these.

Now this is just a new theory of mine, and needs revision and discussion. Results in play have leaned towards this being a good idea, but I have no data towards a conclusive result at all. Please feel free to discuss.

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you still have to play your stack.

on sites with a good starting structure like UB, you can still play limp and go for the first 3 rounds or so.

You definitely need to add a multiplier to the antes to figure out your M correctly.

If you stack starts approching 15bb, you definitely need to look for you best opportunity.


To maintain a stack after the first few rounds, you can take -ev gambles vs short stacked opponents.

Raymer has written about taking a -ev position now in order to avoid having to take a more -ev situation later.

Has anyone shown sklansky's pablum to be "mildly profitable" in large field tournaments?

If I'm understanding this correctly, this theory is trying to see cheap flops with drawing hands, even if it's -EV, so when you hit, you'll probably increase your stack greatly. Sounds good, but I just have a few questions before I look too much into this.

What about calling big overbets with a strong draw/draws. I know otherwise this is hardly, if ever, a good play, but I'd like to see how you would play it, in theory.

You are the BB, and it was unraised PF. You have KcQc. The flop comes Ac 9c Jd. You flop the nut flush draw, and the gutshot straight draw.

The pot is 90 and everyone has ~1500 chips still. Player 1 bets 150. Everyone folds to you. Hero-?

Your not getting odds to call here, but you have a good chance of hitting, and possibly stacking your opponent. The way I see it, these are the situations to play for according to this theory, right?

I don't play many turbos, but I may give this theory a shot, because I love the Limp-and-Go theory in MTTs.

Forgive me if this isn't clear, it was a long night.

I believe marm is saying you are actually looking to gamble in large pots early even if you have the worst of it.


In my opinion this should only be done with a shortish stack or vs short stacks you have well covered.

I think it partly relates to starting hand selection but also to situations where the "correct" move is to fold if you are looking purely at chip EV.

Say I have TT or JJ on the button and UTG raises 5xBB and MP calls. There is a very good likelihood that one or both of them have me beat already and there is an almost cetainty that it is at best a coinflip. Assuming the stack sizes make calling for the set a non-starter a case can be made here to push in order to either pick up the pot or win the showdown. Now this is aggressive and it's going to result in the end of the tourney a lot of times but when it comes off with a call from AK and AQ or 88 (this happens) then it's a triple up that enables "correct" and skilfull play to be employed.

I'm not advocating the above move as standard, merely saying that it has it's place in the right situation with the right stacks, right opponents and right structure.

Similarly as Marm says there is a time to be making the -ev calls to chase the nut flush or even two pair or trips despite the fact that even the most optimistic implied odds don't quite justify it.

I would make a slight refinement to say that I think the importance of being the aggressor in these situations in order to have fold equity it the key to building a big stack in aggressive blind situations. Nothing I dislike more than calling a bet that I think is -ev, but I'll happily make them as a variant of the semi-bluff.