Snow white and the seven dwarfs

[knaplek]

The seven dwarfs love playing poker tournaments. But the cottage in the forest doesn't have broadband, so they have no choice but to play repeatedly play against each other. The seven dwarfs are very clever. They are excellent at remembering their opponents' previous actions and use their brilliant memories to form accurate ranges against people they have played against many times before.

One day, Sneezy was ill and stayed at home while the other 6 dwarfs went mining. While alone he worked out about ICM and told his friends all about it when they got back. They were very excited about this and quickly learned to use it in their games against each other. The only problem was that they were all equally clever and so in the long run they all broke even.

But then Snow White came along. The seven dwarfs were delighted to have some dead money in their home games, so they invited her to come and live with them. Their game of choice was DON tournaments. To their surprise, Snow White was actually quite a competent poker player, but she had a big leak. She tended to call shoves far too lightly, particularly from late position players and close to the bubble.

Despite being keen to win, the dwarfs are always very honest and would never cheat or collude (and nor would the lovely Snow White).

After a few thousand games, what has happened?

Edit: Hint - This is about meta-game

[BennyLaRue]

[ ] Snow White loses heavily and ends up having to repay the dwarfs in sexual favours
[ ] All of them lose because gambling is evil and wrong
[ ] The Dwarfs lose at first until they learn to adjust to her game, then they win.
[ ] Snow White loses at first but eventually ends up winning so much that she takes the house and mines and keeps the dwarfs as slaves
[X] Snow White leaves with The Prince, who happens to play the dwarves in a STT before he leaves and luckboxes his way to awesomeness. Heads-up, Dopey called AI with AA pre-flop and lost to 98s.
[X] The Dwarves go insane playing so many DONs. Respectively, they move on to cash games, regular SNGs, heroin, HORSE, a job at Starbucks, PLO and sex for meth/2+2.

[flomo]

how do i vote for the 2 that benny voted for in teh poll?

[jyms]

[X] Snow White leaves with The Prince, who happens to play the dwarves in a STT before he leaves and luckboxes his way to awesomeness. Heads-up, Dopey called AI with AA pre-flop and lost to 98s.
[X] The Dwarves go insane playing so many DONs. Respectively, they move on to cash games, regular SNGs, heroin, HORSE, a job at Starbucks, PLO and sex for meth/2+2.

like that

[TLR]

If you assume that the dwarves are capable of adjusting and snowwhite is not capable of doing that I assume the following will happen:
Since she is calling lightly the dwarves will open up their ranges, since they open up their shoving ranges they will open up their calling ranges as well, there will be a short period of adjustment during which snowwhite will lose a little, then they will adjust and she will lose a lot

[taipan168]

My prediction is that the variance for the dwarves increases because Snow White is calling loose, however that over the long run Snow White loses a lot of money because she is making -EV calls and (assuming no rake) the dwarves will therefore share Snow White's losses.

Oh and BTW, the dwarf who told his friends about ICM rather than keeping it to himself was clearly Dopey rather than Sneezy

[BennyLaRue]

how do i vote for the 2 that benny voted for in teh poll?

Seriously. Being on the bubble for a few thousand hours is enough to turn anyone on to meth/2+2.

[knaplek]

If you assume that the dwarves are capable of adjusting and snowwhite is not capable of doing that I assume the following will happen:
Since she is calling lightly the dwarves will open up their ranges, since they open up their shoving ranges they will open up their calling ranges as well, there will be a short period of adjustment during which snowwhite will lose a little, then they will adjust and she will lose a lot

Wrong

Oh and BTW, the dwarf who told his friends about ICM rather than keeping it to himself was clearly Dopey rather than Sneezy

Good point

You've all kind of missed the point though. Try thinking about it a bit more. When do you make money out of players who are too loose on the bubble?

[Nakamura]

When do you make money out of players who are too loose on the bubble?

By folding and stop bashing your head against a brick wall (or Show White in this case). By calling too much she is stopping the dwarves from pushing as much. Net result is everyone loses, or Snow white actually makes a small profit since the dwarves aren't pushing as wide into her as she is into them. Thinking about it, perversely I think the dwarves will share the loss and Snow White makes the profit. Well that just sucks for a fairytale.

[knaplek]

When do you make money out of players who are too loose on the bubble?

By folding and stop bashing your head against a brick wall (or Show White in this case). By calling too much she is stopping the dwarves from pushing as much. Net result is everyone loses?

I think we have a winner. And if all the dwarfs lose and there's no rake then...

Snow white gets rich. I'm glad you worked this out since this thread was kind of an oblique response to your thread about making -EV calls to be less exploitable by a reg. ICM is not the be all and end all of sng play.

[Rage2100]

When do you make money out of players who are too loose on the bubble?

By folding and stop bashing your head against a brick wall (or Show White in this case). By calling too much she is stopping the dwarves from pushing as much. Net result is everyone loses?

I think we have a winner. And if all the dwarfs lose and there's no rake then...

Snow white gets rich. I'm glad you worked this out since this thread was kind of an oblique response to your thread about making -EV calls to be less exploitable by a reg. ICM is not the be all and end all of sng play.

Surely one dwarf must end up happy?

[Nakamura]

Surely one dwarf must end up happy?

No, because I wrote a soon-to-be posted DON guide, which will make Snow White into a better player, which will destroy Snow White's profits, which will completely obliterate any chance of one of the dwarves becoming a sex slave.

This is kind of like a 'Tragedy of the Commons' problem. If only one dwarf adjusts and folds more, he will pwn the table. Once they all start doing it, they all lose money instead of making money. You need the other 'good' dwarves to clash with Snow White instead of you.

[taipan168]

When do you make money out of players who are too loose on the bubble?

By folding and stop bashing your head against a brick wall (or Show White in this case). By calling too much she is stopping the dwarves from pushing as much. Net result is everyone loses?

I think we have a winner. And if all the dwarfs lose and there's no rake then...

Snow white gets rich. I'm glad you worked this out since this thread was kind of an oblique response to your thread about making -EV calls to be less exploitable by a reg. ICM is not the be all and end all of sng play.

I don't get why Snow White is the winner from making -EV calls, can somebody explain? Maybe I'm having a slow brain day today.

[knaplek]

When Snow White calls really widely, she is -ev, but so is the dwarf pushing into her. The equity lost by the two all-in players is shared by the rest of the dwarfs so they all gain. But the dwarf that actually pushed loses. So they all adjust by pushing less. This means Snow White gets folded to loads when in the blinds/button, which is obviously very good for her. So she doesn't make money from the -ev calls, she makes money from not having to even make that decision, because it doesn't come up. They almost never push into her.

The thing that this highlights is that unlike in cash play, in sngs not all mistakes are directly exploitable. If someone is playing too loosely on the bubble you can't do anything about it. But if there were two snow whites then they would keep getting money in against each other, which would give up equity to the dwarfs. This is how you profit on bubbles and especially in DONs. You make money by other people making mistakes against each other, not against you.

Conversely, if the dwarfs were not particularly good at poker and Snow White was a top pro then the dwarfs could beat her by working together. If each of them agreed to make -ev calls vs her then they would all benefit.

The tantalising thing about all this is wondering whether you could parachute into the highest stakes sngs and quickly develop a table image amongst the regs like Snow White has. As long as there was no other fish or "Snow White" at the tables with you and the regs didn't work together you could make a killing, in theory. Of course you would lose a ton developing that image. Nice idea, but lets just say I'm not about to take out a second mortgage and try this.

More realistically, I think this shows that meta-game should be considered more in decision making. If you're playing with a lot of mass multi-tabling guys then do little things to get your HUD numbers up (loose passive is good). Perhaps completing a bit or limping marginal hands when the blinds are small and it doesn't matter too much. If you're playing against a reg who pays attention then maybe make some slightly -ev calls in the late stages. And make no such adjustments if you're never going to see your opponents again; there's no point. Those things are just suggestions by the way, I have no idea how often the meta-game advantage would make up for the immediate equity loss. And of course since the benefits wouldn't be immediate (like Snow White you'd lose initially) you would have to give it quite a bit of time to see if it worked. I suppose you could also try chatboxing your way into a Snow White image.

Whether any of this is of practical use to you guys I don't know, but I think it's kind of fun anyway.

[TLR]

It is a nice point, but I am not sure it is correct
On the theoretical level: If Snowwhite has a leak and the dwarves are aware of it there has to be a way for them to exploit it and thus gain.

On a more practical level, treating all the dwarves as one group is misleading, because in a game they are all different players, and for some of them it must be beneficial to push wider vs her (for example for the short stack dwarf who has the least equity in the pot)

[knaplek]

It is a nice point, but I am not sure it is correct
On the theoretical level: If Snowwhite has a leak and the dwarves are aware of it there has to be a way for them to exploit it and thus gain.

No, not without working together, that's the point. In cash games mistakes are directly exploitable because if your opponent in a pot makes a mistake that costs him equity it all goes to you. In a sit'n'go this is not the case. As an eg, imagine you're sitting in the small blind with AK on the bubble. Snow white is in the big blind. You and her are the two big stacks. Normally you'd push here obviously, but if you know you're going to be called 100% then it would be correct to fold, just like you'd fold AK in this spot if she pushed from the sb and you were bb. I've used the example where the two of you are the big stacks just to emphasise the point, but the effect remains the same regardless of stack size; in a DON you almost never want a call and will be forced to fold in so many situations if you know you're going to get one.

On a meta-game level, I tend to think of cash games as like a game of rock paper scissors. It doesn't matter what your opponent does, or what he thinks of you, as long as you can work out what he's thinking you can beat him.

SNGs on the other hand, DONs especially are more like a game of chicken. It can only be beneficial to makes someone think you're not going to give in, never to make them think you'll give up. But it's still better to dodge than have a crash and you end up winning when all the maniacs and fish career headlong into each other.

[drmcboy]

Hey my vote won! Once again, quit SNGs.

[GatorJH]

so nobody gets to boink Snow White? Man what a stupid poll then. (nice idea and conversation, but stupid poll)

[tugger]

You're forgetting that all the dwarfs want to nail Snow White to high heaven. They start off by trying to take her money off her, but after a few months of watching her shower and undress, they didn't have it in them to be so cruel, so they started with the dominant male thing against each other, and they soft play her. Snow White, being a cruel, heartless bitch, picked up on the male weakness and took advantage of them, batting her eyelids and showing thigh in all-in situations. Snow White was crap at cards, but wonderful at manipulation. So Snow White took them to the fucking cleaners, true woman style, and now gets head and breakfast every morning before she's even had a piss.

[Roller]

Snow White loses at first but eventually ends up winning so much that she takes the house and mines and keeps the dwarfs as slaves.

Go for the money Snow.
Watch out for them dwarfs.

[KoRnholio]

I think the analysis is reasonably correct. The radically different payout structure in DONs changes things so much.

That being said, I don't consider DONs real poker. It encourages weak-tight/passive play, and severely limits your earnings even if you would have a large edge in a regular payout game.

[Jack Sawyer]

wtfisthishsit

in any case, DONs are not poker. They will fuck you up, slowly and imperceptibly.