Re: [ba-poker] Tourney poker popularity

["James Kittock" <james(deleted the rest)>]

Crunch:

> Exactly the question I am working on right now.

Cool!  Even if it takes a while, look forward to your results.

> This has significant implications since we are all to
> some degree working from a fixed bankroll. 

Amen to that! ;)

> If my analysis is correct then you should adjust your
> tournament strategy taking more risks early to either get
> a stack large enough to survive more bad beats, or bust
> out early and play Satellites and live games...

It sounds like you are trying to reduce variance by
sacrificing some EV in the tournament (assuming by
"taking more risks" you mean loosening up your game).

However, it seems to me that playing fast early will
actually increase your variance in the tournament.
Now, it may be that if such play sends you off to the
side game in many cases, it may decrease your overall
variance, but my guess is that if someone needs to
resort to such strategies, then they are playing above
their bankroll in the tournament.

Another effect of such play is that if you get lucky,
it may generate the illusion of success, even if in
the long term it is not a winning strategy (we've all
seen this with crazy gamb00lers, I'm sure).

--j

PS Un-helpful tip: you can have a variance of near
zero if you just fold every hand and let yourself
be blinded away. ;)