The Flat Part of the Learning Curve
When Studying Doesn't (?) Pay
Last weekend, I got to Day Two of the SCOOP Main Event on PokerStars as one of the chip leaders with 93 players remaining.
Professional that I am, I tried to use at least some of the 19 hours off to prepare. It was either that or watch a movie, read a book, spend time with my kid—what choice did I really have!
We’d reached the money shortly before the end of Day One, which meant we were in that fun period of the tournament when the short stacks who’d clawed their way to a min-cash would go bananas to try to get back to a reasonable chip stack.
It seemed like a good idea to look at some calling ranges against those shoves, and so I got to work. Using the ICMizer software, I set up the tournament situation I’d be entering into later that evening. This included inputting not only the entire prize structure, but all 93 remaining stack sizes (I admit, this might have been going a bit overboard).
I wanted to know what I should call with if the 12-BB stack on my left shoved UTG when I was the big blind. (Hilariously, they redrew seats right before we started, so I didn’t even end up having a 12-BB stack on my left.) In an ordinary scenario, with no ICM considerations, the optimal calling range for the BB against a 12-BB UTG shove is 55+, AT-AK, A9s, KQ, KJs.
When the bubble bursts, proper tournament strategy reverts back to being nearly all about maximizing your stack size, with little thought to the pay jumps. I knew this much before I started my research. What I wanted to know specifically was, exactly how close to chip-EV strategy did I need to be? Surely, after 42 players had been eliminated late the night before, the pay jumps would start becoming meaningful again, right?
I plugged away, getting all the numbers, positions, and payouts correct before I finally inputted the action I was interested in. UTG shoves for 12 BB. Everyone else folds. What do I call with?
The answer? 55+, AT-AK, A9s, KQs.
KQo and KJs got dropped from the chip-EV answer, but otherwise it was exactly the same. What did I learn from the extremely detailed, computationally advanced simulation I had just run? That I should call very slightly tighter than I normally would. Which is exactly how I would’ve played anyway.
This was all a bit frustrating, but not really surprising. After you achieve a certain level of competence, the payoffs from studying accrue much more slowly. This is true of anything, but especially of poker. The key is not to let it bother you! I may not have learned much from the hours I put in prepping for the SCOOP Day Two, but the exact calling range versus a 12-BB UTG shove is now burned into my memory. That’s a very minor gain, to be sure, but it is something.
I ended up finishing 27th in the event for 4 buy-ins profit. Back to study time, and then on to the next one!