Reciprocal links

BlogRoll

Poker Strategy

Tournament Poker: To Flip or Not to Flip

Coin flips are mostly avoided by players in poker tournaments. Most of the live pros understand the eventual inevitability and avoid coin flips. Here we will take a simple example of why top pros avoid coin flips. On day 2 of WSOP stimulus special, in the 20 minute break I ran into Steve Sung. Steve Sung's customary appearance was replaced by a wide eyed expression of incredulousness. When I raised the bet, he re-raised, and in the next round I was all in with pocket queens. Generally I hate flipping. When I saw his face, I assumed Steve got eliminated, but finally when I analyzed myself I came to know that I was busted from the tournament.

Well once I lost my bet, I was watching Steve. He has won the unavoidable classic race, but in those thirty people playing the tournament, Steve found himself in a coin flip situation. During my analysis and my efficient investigation, I came to know that nearly there are eleven million race situations. From 10-6 versus 3-3 from A-Q versus J-J. I have seen them all. Even though these race situations are inevitable and unavoidable, why do poker gods still use them? Well the answer would not be so easy to define, but the fact is that these race situations are taken into consideration as “edges”. Top poker players like Steve Sung, feel that flipping depreciates their edge by increasing their variance.

These top players play poker by a position and pot control. Before the 2008 WSOP main event, famous player Bill Edler shared some advice, which I would have considered before the $1500 preliminary event. We were discussing about the chip value as it is the valuable element of the poker tournament. Bill was telling me about an idea, which was written in the poker tournament book. It states that “The chips I loose have more value than the chips I win”. Bill said to me that winning 50,000 stacks would not really change the dynamics at your table, but loosing 50,000 stacks changes the whole situation at the table. For example: at a table of 50,000 stacks there is not much difference between 150,000 and 100,000, but there is a huge difference between 50,000 and 100,000. This difference can move you out of the game. In the beginning, I had no idea of this strategy, but later on I learned importance of this strategy when I lost a few tournaments. Coin flipping alludes to the idea that every hand has its own implicit odds, which gives luck a place in poker.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Casinos online