Posted Wed Apr 19, 2006 2:04 pm GMT by suitedaces84
“The fundamental difference between a cash game and an SNG is that you can rebuy in a cash game and cannot rebuy in an SNG.”
“A player’s goal in an SNG should be to survive.”
“A player’s goal in an SNG should be to optimize his chances at winning.”
These are a few of the biggest SNG misconceptions I keep hearing. There is a lot of terrible advice that is derived from each of them. This article will explain the real difference between cash games and SNGs and what is wrong with each of the above quotes. There are a bunch of theoretical examples and conceptual questions that demonstrate the true difference between cash games and SNGs. For anyone who has thought about these things in depth already everything in here will be pretty obvious. But that’s not who this is for; it’s for everyone who hasn’t (and my guess is that’s a lot of you).
This isn’t a strategy article. It isn’t designed to tell anyone how to play. Its purpose is to help you think about the game in a way that will allow you to form your own strategy based on the things that strategy should be based on. If you want someone to tell you exactly how to play pocket Queens from UTG + 2 on the third hand of a $20 + 2 this isn’t for you.
First, consider what a player’s goal is in a cash game. Assuming the player likes money and has a sufficient bankroll the answer is maximize his EV. In a cash game the value of chips is directly proportional to money. That is, $100 in chips is worth $100. A player’s goal in a cash game is pretty simple. It’s to maximize the number of chips he’ll win on average.
Think about how the player’s goal would change if he was playing a cash game where rebuys were not allowed. (If you bust out you must go find a new table; but you’ll be able to find a new table within 10 minutes). Hopefully you realized that the player’s goal and strategy should not change. Losing the option to rebuy does not do anything other than create a minor inconvince.
Think about what a player’s goal should be in a SNG. Should it be to maximize his chances at winning; or to maximize his chances at cashing; or to maximize the number of chips he expects to have at a given time? None of these are correct. The answer is to maximize his EV in that SNG. However this is not as simple as maximizing the number of chips he’ll win on average or doing any of the other things listed above. This is because the number of tournament chips a player has is not directly proportional to the value of chips (even if you heard Mike Sexton talk about a $2M pot on the WPT). This is the major point of this article.
This brings us to the fundamental difference between tournament play and cash game play. The difference is not that in you can rebuy in a cash game but you cannot rebuy in a tournament. The difference between a tournament and a cash game is that in a cash game the number of chips a player has is directly proportional to their monetary value; in a tournament the number of chips a player has is not directly proportional their monetary value.
The next step is to create a model that will allow us to determine the monetary value of tournament chips. This will allow us to determine the EV of a certain play in an SNG. Hopefully this will help you in develop a strategy and will allow you to handle situations you’ve had trouble with better. Determining EV is as simple as summing all EVs times the probability associated with each EV (this is also known as a weighed average and it’s no where near as tough as it sounds). This method of determining the value of chips is known as the ICM (independent chip model). I’ll provide an example or two.
A simple example of this would be devising a fair chop when playing heads up in a $10+1 SNG. You have 3000 chips and your opponent has 7000. First place wins $50 and second wins $30. Based on chip counts you’ll win 30% of the time and he’ll win 70% of the time. So you should get 30% of first prize and 70% of second prize. Your opponent should get 70% of first prize and 30% of second prize.
You (3000tc) Your opponent (7000tc)
1st (%, EV) 30%, $50*0.3 = $15 70%, $50*0.3 = $35
2nd (%, EV) 70%, $30*0.7 = $21 30%, $30*0.7 = $9
Total 100%, $15 + $21 = $36 100%, $35 + $9 = $44
The point of this was not to demonstrate how to create a fair chop. It was to demonstrate how to determine the value of your chips. Note that the sum of probabilities in both rows and columns = 1 (a probability of 1 corresponds to a % of 100).
This example is a little tougher. There is an additional player but the same logic was used to create the table. In this example player 1 has 2000tc, player 2 has 4000tc and player 3 has 4000tc.
Place Player 1 Player 2 Player 3
1 20%, $10 40%, $20 40%, $20
2 26.6%, $7.98 36.7%, $11.01 36.7%, $11.01
3 53.4%, $10.68 23.3%, $4.66 23.3%, $4.66
Total 100%, $28.66 100%, $35.67 100%, $35.67
Now the good news is you don’t have to do the math every time you want to know what your chips are worth. There is an easy to use program that will do this for you link. Being able to determine exactly what each one of your tournament chips is worth is not important. Having a good understanding of about how much each one is worth and how those values change throughout the tournament is very important. This is the crucial skill that will allow you to determine if a risk is worth taking.
Hopefully at this point you understand the difference between a cash game and a SNG which was the point of part 1 of this article. I was originally going to put the entire article up at once but decided it was a little too long for one reading. The second half is more practical but I wanted someone to actually read the entire thing so decided to not put it all up at once. In part 2 we’ll look at a few more examples that should help you in applying this to actual game play
*If anyone knows how to make a chart on here please let me know and I'll fix this so the chart portion of it is readable.
Did you know that participating in a poker forum can help you improve your own game? Be it by sharing experiences or simply asking for help, participation in a forum helps you focus and keep 'on topic' which will help you improve your game. You can learn from other players feedback and from their experiences. Why the THP poker forums? We offer one of the best managed texas holdem poker forums available, and the community within is far more friendly than those typicaly found on other sites. We've made a 'lurkers edition' of the poker forum available here on Holdem Poker Online, but we encourage all visitors to register and join in on the conversations on TexasHoldem-Poker.com
|
|
