If it's not one thing, it's another

I've been scrambling to scrape up the $29 to renew my poetic license, which expires at the end of the month.

The lure of the big catch

I have all but abandoned MTT's, both live and online. A brand new copy of Harrington on Hold'em Vol II has been lying unread in my shopping cart for over a year. I got through Vol I fairly briskly, but that's because of its relevance to cash games. Nevertheless, the blogosphere is a supprepository of valuable information for those wishing to hone their MTT skills.

Hoy, a successful though somewhat laconic tournament player, wrote a fine post on MTT resteals. Blinders then countered with an equally fine rejoinder. As a non-interested party, I found the whole thing fascinating. Any more exposure and I may be tempted to brush the dust off HOH Vol II.

I do, however, have a minor philosophical nit to pick with one of Blinders' assumptions:

I assume that the stealer's range is ahead of the restealer's range. You don't resteal with a big hand, that would be a reraise value bet, and not a "resteal". So we can eliminate all of the big hands from the restealer, but none of the big hands from the stealer, as he could legitimately have a big hand. The stealer here has at least a top 50% of hands range.

If we can "eliminate all of the big hands from the restealer" (value bet argument), then by the same logic we should be able to eliminate all the big hands from the stealer, as this wouldn't be a steal. I therefore fail to see why "the stealer's range is ahead of the restealer's range", given that they are both really "stealing".

WSOP coverage

I'm about 10 miles away from all the action at the Rio and it's 1:30am. The final table of the WSOP Main Event is now down to 3 players.

The great team at pokernews.com is keeping me abreast of the situation. I can't thank them enough.

The Diagnosis?

Existential musings

I enjoy reading the existential musings of Short-Stacked Shamus, replete with interesting material and quality writing which I highly recommend. In a recent post, Shamus discusses the new blind structure for the 2007 Main Event:

However, once WSOP officials released the structure sheets for the events, everyone learned that along with doubling the starting stacks, the blinds would start out doubled as well, rendering the change less meaningful. I don't say "meaningless" because having twice the chips does make a difference, even if the blinds have been doubled, because we are talking about a no limit tournament. For the limit tournaments, doubling the starting stacks and blinds/betting limits makes no difference whatsoever. But when we're talking NL, having twice the stack there in Level 1 will most certainly influence how (some) players will approach the start of the tournament.

What puzzles me is why Shamus differentiates between limit and no-limit. I can't see why this new structure would influence the approach of some players at the start of the tournament.