The Other Stuff in Poker
The World Series of Poker has been over for a few months now, but during it, we were reminded of all of the different variations of poker that are out there. I’m not only talking about the different games, but also the different nuances that are now a part of tournament poker. Everyone knows that No Limit Hold em is still considered the Cadillac of Poker, but Pot Limit Omaha has made a big surge primarily due (in my opinion) to the additional action that it creates. Many players that switched from NLH to PLO don’t go back to NLH because PLO in general has so much more action and let’s face it, many poker players are action junkies. Some other games have gained a little momentum as well, but that is not the topic I am here to write about today.
What I am here to write about today is how we have to take into account other factors in making decisions in a tournament. For instance, there used to be more freezeout tournaments which means that you get only 1 buy in and if you bust, you are done. Then rebuy tournaments gained a lot of popularity. They allow both live and online poker tournaments to guarantee bigger prize pools because even though they may have the same number of players enter the tournament, they allow for players to reenter for a specific time during the tournament if they should bust. Initially, most players used the re entry time frame to reenter after a bad beat or not so great run of cards early on. Many players, however, started looking at it from a different strategic angle. They viewed it as a chance to take a shot at running up their chip stack early in order to pressure others. They figured that, if they get knocked out, they can just pony up another buy in and jump back in. In tournaments with unlimited buy ins, many felt that this favored the players with deeper pockets and of course it did. The person who was only willing to fire 1 or 2 entries into a tournament is at a disadvantage to a guy willing to fire 8-10 bullets. Whether or not that person is making a positive expected value (+EV) decision with those multiple entries is a different point, but it still gives him an advantage over the other players that won’t.
With the inception of the bounty/knockout tournaments, players got a chance to collect additional money for knocking out a player. Play in these tournaments is definitely different and you have to recognize how some players adjust in a hand when a bounty is at stake. I’ve seen some players totally risk their chances of winning or even cashing in a tournament just to get a bounty. The bounties of course do have a value so you should adjust your play, but many players over estimate that value and unnecessarily put a substantial amount of chips at risk for a minor gain. The newest craze is the mystery bounty tournaments. In these tournaments, when you knock someone out, you win a bounty, but don’t know the actual amount. In the original bounty tournaments, you know up front how much you will win when you knock out an opponent. In the Mystery Bounties, random size bounties are awarded so your bounty could be worth the minimum amount or you can get lucky and win one of the bigger amounts. Since most poker players are inherent gamblers, some players go to an even greater extreme to try to win a mystery bounty at all costs because they could potentially hit a home run by pulling the top bounty prize. Obviously, if play is adjusted because of this variable, you need to adjust to that adjusted play.
Whatever tournament you decide to play, make sure that you understand any deviations to it so that you can adequately adjust your strategy to accommodate for those differences. Doing that will without a doubt give you an edge over the players that are not making that adjustment.
Good luck on the felt!
---Frank DiRe
@FLD15 (Twitter)
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