So I got this new book, "Kill Everyone", about "advanced" tournament strategy. Got it because it had some pretty descent reviews, because, you know, the title is pretty lame, and the first impression when you see the title is "oh, another content-less poker book".
But it had some pretty good stuff in it. Like WHY you should resteal wider with certain stack sizes compared to others. BigRed and Twisted and others had made some posts in the Tournament forum saying about the same, but it was too brief for me at least: it's really cool though when guys like that share wisdom.
There is also very interesting stuff about the bubble, where they calculate "how badly" you need the chips you are risking. It is:
(-tournament EV if I lose)/(+EV if I win).
Clearly, in cash games it is always 1, and in tournaments it is always >1. Near the bubble it becomes higher because ICM effects become stronger. The highest bubble factors occur in big stack vs big stack and medium stack vs big stack confrontations, when especially when there are a lot of shorties.
So this somehow drives us to the point that if you are a medium stack before the bubble, you kind of have very limited options.
Do you adjust according to this, i.e. do you gamble more pre-bubble trying to double up your medium stack so that you have "abuse potential" on the bubble? Because if this potential is sufficiently large, you can take certain -EV flips! This is just theorizing though, so share your thoughts!
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