Daniel Negreanu's Power holdem strategy | Daniel hold em Negreanus power strategy

I recently made a post on the twoplustwo forums about taking a coinflip later rather than sooner.

Hi guys, I've read these forums before, but I finally decided to sign up and make a post. I've heard many people talk about the debate over whether it's correct or not to take a coinflip early in order to get a stack that you can use towards accumulating chips. My thoughts on it are that a double up early isn't very useful at all, and is a very poor risk/reward to take.
Doyle Brunson was asked about this topic and he said he doesn't believe in it (doubling up early) because he says "really what difference does it make" . I have to say he's right here. You know Phil Helmuth wouldn't take it early. Daniel Negreanu wouldn't early either. Well there's many reasons on why this is... You could argue "well your chips compound, one double up leads to another, etc." But if you're playing a style that requires multiple double ups, and that's how you move up in money, you're not playing optimal anyways. Look if you get it all in with aces, and are still short stack everytime, you are expected to be knocked out half the time with 4-5 all ins. While this "double up early" bit might work out ok in smaller fields, in the big fields you simply can't expect to survive if you are risking it all, especially early. What about Scotty Nguyen, who's always consistant, who finished 11th in the main event... he NEVER likes to get it all in.

How do these players do it? They start out playing a tight game, but when they get involved, they play small pots. Throw in Ivey in that list of names for small pot players. But THEN they get to the bubble and that's where a lot of pros if they can just survive to, they can go from a short stack to a big stack very quickly and have a chance at going deep. A coinflip on the bubble isn't bad at all. What's the difference? Well first of all taking it all in early and then "coasting" into the money is simply NOT worth your effort, you all know how top heavy they pay out these tournaments. You might get an extra 2000 from doubling up early, but by then the blinds are like 250/500... and with the ante that's less than 4 rotations of chips. On the otherhand, a double up on the bubble not only means a lot more chips (assuming you can accumulate chips) from the double up as you'll have a bigger stack and the blinds will be bigger... But a double up on the bubble also means knocking out or crippling someone who is your only competition at the moment to steal the blinds. You knock down or out someone who's raising every pot near the bubble, and now you have control of the table. I might even take a risk with a small -EV in order to gain the opportunity to steal the blinds, figuring out the table is so much more ++EV if I can take that guy down before he amasses too much chips. Also, after the bubble chip position and your Q becomes so much more important. Usually after the bubble, all the short stacks and even others go all in a lot more after they make the money... Some people after making the money THEN decide to go all out and try to get a chance to go after the money that's all up in the top 3-5 places.

Well you're either going to need to have enough chips to call these players off to take your small edges without risking a large amount of your stack, or you're going to need enough chips to sit back and wait for a hand, or at least until everyone that's in all in mode knocks each other out so you can start stealing again. Blinds get big and it becomes easier to get back in it if you blind down a little bit, I like to gear down just a little bit, try to pick it up, and then I'll be much more cautious, and I'll do more trapping. When the blinds are this big, you aren't risking that much by letting your opponent see a cheap flop if you just say flat call a raise with aces. Trapping becomes Key.

Now don't get me wrong you can't just sit back and blind down to half your stack and double back to where you were either, but if you are a good enough player to survive the "donkfest" early, then gradually increase your stack after that by just chipping away at small pots, your double ups will mean SOOOoooo much more later on.
If you are good enough to accumulate pots risk free, by putting yourself in a situation where you're getting knocked out 50 or even 40% of the time early, you're missing on 40% of the future EV that you'll get from accumulating those risk free pots. The early that is, the more future EV you're giving up.

Additionally, lets compare.... just say for example that in tourney 1 you take a coinflip early, you end up getting it all in and doubling up 4 other times. So that extra 2000 you got became 16000 and you end up making the final table.
Now in tourney 2 you take the same exact course of action, except you FOLD the coinflip situation early, so you have 3 all ins. Now if all other actions are the same, lets just say for tourney 2 you have 160,000 at the final table for tourney 1 you have 176,000. But the blinds are 5000 and 10000 now. So which do you take? You pay a buy in and go to the final table with 160,000, or flip a weighted coin for the price of the buy in, heads you lose the buy in, tails you're at the final table with 176,000. If that's not clear enough, you can take a coinflip NOW with your 160,000, and you'll have 335,000(after blinds, not including the ante) with the SAME EXACT chances of survival as you did in tourney 1... AND even if you LOSE the coinflip now, you still cashed, and the blinds probably.
You may notice a patten with a lot of the players that do well in tournaments. They catch their rushes, and win big hands late. Even Chris Moneymaker had a talk about how he "played scared" the first couple days and he thought the pros had aces every hand. Steve Danneman(sp) and Joe Hachem were pretty low in chips towards the end. I think if I remember right Raymer won quite a few coinflips late. You'll see Helmuth play tighter than anyone LATE in the tourney.. (However doesn't seem to kick it into high gear when it gets 5 handed and less as you'll see against Matusow and Corkins at the TOC he wasn't able to adapt from his tight ways)

You'll even see Matusow slow down and although he's known to blow up, if he makes it deep he has a REAL shot at winning because he knows when to switch gears and slow down, and kick it into high gear short handed.
I think I heard that B Micon says the same thing about how late you'll be shoving all in with KQ and hands like these... It's one of the paradoxes in poker, it's only when you're to the point in a tourney where you're playing for the MOST money, that you have to put all your chips at risk, when you have to rely on luck when you have to take the most risks and play the least poker and really just find the range of hands that your opponent will call with, determine averaged distributions of hands, how much M you have and how much your opponent has... It really becomes an all in or fold math problem.

The bottom line is, don't risk it all on a coinflip early, while it's true you might want to widen your hand range and
And while it's true that if it allows you to play cash games that you're going to have a bigger edge, you may have an argument on "opportunity costs" and why it's better to go big or go out so you can play in the cash game, or not waste your time on an unknown...
There may be a certain point where you notice that you're being outplayed, and at that point you may want to wait for cards and shove in to minimize the edge the other players have on you, but if you really want to MAXIMIZE the edge you have over the donkeys early, see some flops, chop away with small bets, maybe hit your dream flop and get your opponents chips. Control the pot size, build up the pot big when you have it, keep it as small as you an when you don't.

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My post about taking coinflips

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