Joined: Feb '08
Location: Brazil
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 4
Before anything else I want to leave very clear that the authorship of this analogy is not mine, but Arnold Snyder, author of several books of Blackjak and poker, among them The Poker Tournament Formulates, where the such a comparison is presented. Good, but then we are going to the that interests...
All should know the game stone, paper and scissors, but for who doesn't know is the following: this is the game of more elementary RPG than it exists, it is enough to choose a weapon and to challenge the opponent, the best weapon in the duel it expires. The hierarchy is in the following way: the stone breaks (it expires) the scissors; the scissors cuts (it expires) the paper; and for your time the paper wraps up (it expires) the stone. Simple, it is not? Known that the game it is played as a pair or odd, but instead of numbers the symbols are used with the hands, where the stone is the closed fist, the paper it is the open hand and the scissors is it V of victory (the indicator and the middle finger just lifted).
Good, should you be now if asking, but and the one what that has to do with the poker? happens that in tournaments of multiple tables (MTT), especially in the tournaments considered fast (where the blinds grow quickly and á final table is arrived with most of the players shorts stack) you have an arsenal composed by three armaments: your cards, your position and your pile of chips. And as well as in the elementary game, in the poker, that doesn't have anything of elementary, a hierarchy also exists among the weapons.
The first impression can be that the cards always win, but it is not well like this. Good cards can win, but they are rarities. How many times in a tournament you flopa the nuts? If you were convinced of that it will be easier to agree with the analogy. Then in the poker the chips represent the stone; the scissors is your position in the table and the cards are the paper. This even the cards win the chips, the chips win the position and the position wins the cards!!!
The simplest part of accepting is: The cards win the chips (the paper wraps up the stone). That means nothing else that with good cards you don't need to fear the chip leader of your table, well on the contrary you want definitively him, because it can bend your stack! Simple and obvious.
A little subtler it is: Do chips win position (does the stone break the scissors). do You feel comfortable when paying an increase or even to simply re-raise the chip leader of the table for knowing that will speak after him after the flop? Me not, unless I have cards!! THE ONE that Snyder wants saying is that the chips impose respect and you can play freer with a considerable pile of chips in front of you, benefitting of the pressure that you can exercise on your opponents with the power of the chips. In the same way that you should respect an opponent well as you are tighter or even in an intermediate situation in what concerns the volume of your stack.
Now the delicate and more sensational point: Position wins cards (the scissors cuts the paper)!!! That is really difficult of swallowing, but we go there. Like me already said, when I speak in cards I don't refer to great games, because these are exception. I refer the distributed cards in an aleatory way, where we know that most of the time have reasonable games. Dictates this, the subject is the following: learn how to play your position to accumulate chips in a continuous way in a fast tournament. The good cards come once in a while in an aleatory way, a consistent stack (to play the chips) it depends on your success during the tournament, but the position alters in an orderly way among all the participants of the tournament and it fits to you to use in an appropriate way and to remove advantage of her to each opportunity.
The suggestion of Snyder to practice the position game is to play without looking your cards in agreement with the following outline:
Of any some of the final positions (Button, Cut off or hijak seat) gives a standard raise (3 to 4 times the value of the big blind) whenever nobody has entered in the game before you. If it goes I pay for one of the blinds and the opponent gives check in the flop it bets half of the pot. If that situation repeats in the turn makes the same (while the opponent just to pay and he/she gives check you bet half of the pot). it Goes until the river!!! In case he bets before you or give reraise non exite in running.
If it is in Button and an opponent has made a standard increase he pays and follow the same strategy for the flop, turn and river mentioned in the previous paragraph. The same thing if an or more opponents have entered of limp, pay and bet in the following rounds if they demonstrate weakness.
Does madness seem? Actually the one that you are doing is to play the opponent's cards. And as most of the time the cards are not really strong you will win!! of course you can be I catch once in a while, when he/she finds a calling station for instance, that he/she will pay until the end without betting once at least, but there it is also going your reading. Nor everything is so simple, but in any way it is worth the test. I guarantee that you will surprise as well as me I surprised myself with the result.
To end it would like to reinforce that this strategy type has value in fast tournaments. In agreement with Snyder these are tournaments where the player more tight of the world (that that only plays with pair of aces!!!) it will be swallowed by the blinds in in the maximum two and a half hours (in tournaments live). In the book the author explains a lot as well as to adapt the game strategy to the rhythm of the tournament and for that it is necessary to take in bill the initial amount of chips, the structure of the blinds and the interval of each level. It is a very interesting and differentiated approach of most of the books that I already saw. It is worthwhile!!!
Good, then now they sharpen your scissors and take advantage of this powerful weapon!
