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Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 42 (M)
Posts: 401
In a cahs game you can chase profitable draws. In a MTT you can't afford to waste your chips because you can be busted out before having the chance to hit your draw. The author can be recommending you to save chips when you are behind.
But it is a bit questionable. If you have a big stack, good draw, possibility of busting out the villian and good odds, why not to play that draw?
"In a tournament never go broke chasing a 5th card."
Joined: Feb '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 36 (M)
Posts: 703
Agree more or less. It s easier to apply pot odds on cash games because it doesn t have the concept of surviving as MTT. U can always reload if u go broke
Of course pot odds are still important in MTT's, it only depends on more factors to see their relevance than in cash games. I think (my opinion only) that TWO additional factors come into play when taking pot odds into account (IF you want to do that, that is, but they can still give you an advantage) in MTT's : 1. in what stage of the tournament you are 2. NEVER let them influence you that far that you can go broke in a single hand.
The second one is obvious, first and foremost your aim is to stay in the tourney as long as you can. so you cannot go "blindly" with pott odds in MTT's.
The first however is less obvious, and most people tend to think that pott odds aren't important. I agree and disagree, to a certain point. They CAN offer you a valuable extra indication for the moves you make. But this doesn't go for all stages of a tournament.
Certainly, in the early stages of an MTT (and let's not include rebuy tournaments here, that would complicate things enormously), I don't think you MAY even rely on them. In the first stage of a tournament, your primary goal should be to get a chip count that's as high as possible, but without taking ANY chances to go bust.
In the second stage of a tournament, say between the first break and the bursting of the bubble, I think they CAN indeed be a valuable extra indication for your play, provided that you have reached you primary goal (I'm not going to elaborate about what I think is "enough" here, it would lead me too far). If and when you do have enough chips, you SHOULD have a bit of "chipspace" to play around with, and THEN your pot odds can help you define if your projected move is worth making. So YES, in that second stage, pot odds ARE indeed a factor that you can take into account and it will even give you a little extra against those who swear by NOT using them (of course taking into acount that the conditions I described are met).
It goes without saying that gradually, as the burst of the bubble comes nearer, you should grow more and more carefull, because your second objective, making the money (second in terms of chronological) becomes more important than chip count (at least for a while !).
One could argue that, depending on what your final or main objective is when playing an MTT, even in the last stage of an MTT you could keep using pot odds. Many players are satisfied when they have made it ITM, and they can easily keep on using pot odds. If on the other hand your main objective is to make it to the final table (which is not so for every player) then I would advise against using pot odds after the bubble has burst.
There you have it folks, my 2 (Euro)cents
While I was writing this, I was thinking this is indeed a very interesting subject or discussion. May well be I'll even write an article about it in the near future, so watch out for it
Thanks for the subject, was nice contemplating the question BTW : could you please give use the name of the book and that of the author ? Looks and interesting read. THX
U still need to Know what kind of odds are u getting to continue to play the hand post flop, and to be able to guesstimate the number of outs that villian may have. I usually try not to chase anything post flop unless I can assume at least 10 clean outs to improve my hand, and preferably more if there's a push otherwise folding is a go to any significant aggression.
Joined: Feb '09
Location: Belgium
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 686
Its not totally right. I think that, in MTT's you can go SOMETIME when you dont have the odd : for example, you have a nut flush draw, the guy bet big and give you only a odd of 2/1, you just have the turn and river left, what gives you ~33% so in fact, you need 3/1 odd, but here i think you can push all in or call since if you win, you can get a good place in the tournament and even if you are busted in two tournaments of three tournaments, the one you win, you can make some real good result that just offset the previous loss. But most of the time, ill care of odds, even on MTT's
some interesting replies here. just thought i'd post it as so far i haven't done very well in MTT, and i always pay attention to pot odds, and avoid making decisions that aren't profitable pot odds wise. But this book seems to make a lot of sense in what it says. Its "The poker tournament formula 2" by Arnold Snyder.
@ dozn01 - pot odds are the probability that my dealer will have something to sell me
Joined: May '08
Location: Sweden
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 1362
Posted by doomdy: Pot odds is so 2008
I was gonna write something like: Hope those 6 that have voted "WTF are potodds" are joking, since it is a must for playing good poker, but then I read your post, and, like... Yeah, it's totally 2008...
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
The question is 'are pot odds irrelevant?' and not 'are they less relevant?' in MTTs so the answer has to be no. There are other factors in MTTs that persuade you to call or fold but you still need to know what your chances of hitting outs are. You still need to know the odds even if you don't strictly have to listen to them.
Another important point, already touched on, is that if you play several tourneys and you get a heads up situation 60/40 in your favour you should be calling like you would in a cash game. The theory of pot odds is that if you have above the odds in the risk/reward ratio you should call, not because you are guaranteed to win but because if you play this hand a hundred times you will win more chips than you lose. Essentially (although this may be over-simplifying it) if you play tourneys regularly and always call when you have the odds you should win more than you lose.
Joined: Apr '08
Location: Argentina
Age: 45 (M)
Posts: 748
I am not really sure. I guess at the beginning they are, you can play the first phases of the MTT as a cash game, chasing when it is profitable and whatnot. However i think there are two points in question 1) when the blinds increase and the chips to blind ratio is making your chips more and more valuable, I guess pot odds go out the window, even if you have the biggest stack 2) even in the early stages, you cannot chase so much that you risk going broke or losing a lot of your stack , EVEN if it would be profitable to do so on a cash game. Maybe if it is a rebuy you could...I dunno, but the main point is that in a cash game you do profitable moves because you can reload. You cannot reload on a tourney
Joined: May '08
Location: Netherlands
Age: 53 (M)
Posts: 6197
Posted by Pjot:
Posted by doomdy: Pot odds is so 2008
I was gonna write something like: Hope those 6 that have voted "WTF are potodds" are joking, since it is a must for playing good poker, but then I read your post, and, like... Yeah, it's totally 2008...
2009 was all about Fold Equity but yet a new year to come.... 2010 will be all about Agressiv ICM
