Chip Accumulation and Chip Preservation Aren't Mutually Exclusive

Poker Helper, Nov 2007

In my Poker Helper article, When to Risk All Your Chips Early in a Tournament, I showed that very good tournament players effectively traverse tournaments via a series of double-ups in which their probability of winning each double up is generally around 60% (the precise probability of doubling up is a function of a tournament’s payout structure). This suggests that chip accumulation is much more important than has been preached by conventional poker literature; players sitting around and waiting for the absolute nuts in tournaments will be crushed.

Think about the typical edges you expect to have when playing no-limit hold’em. For preflop all-in match-ups, situations exist in which you’ll be 75% or greater to win, but most often, you’ll be in situations where your edge is on the order of 55%-65%…especially when considering that you’ll be making decisions based on your opponents’ distributions rather than their precise hole cards. On the flop, if you were to go all-in against an opponent with 6 outs (say you have a pair versus two overcards), you would win about 76% of the time. Against 8 outs (like a pair versus an outside straight draw), you’ll win about 68% of the time. Against 9 outs (the dreaded flush draw), you win 65% of the time. Very rarely will you be in situations where you’re a lock.

And let’s suppose you do land in a situation where you’re something like 85%-90% to win the hand (something like top pair versus an opponent with top pair and a worse kicker). How often will all the chips go in? Perhaps a few years ago, playing conditions were such that you could wait around for very good cards and have your opponents put in huge quantities of chips with the worst of it. Unfortunately for us rounders, playing conditions are quite different today. You can’t expect to double up simply because you have a good hand...

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