Saturday, June 20, 2009

Balancing Risk and Reward In Poker

By Philip Steinman

Balance is very significant in playing poker. You should know if a reward is worth it if the risk involve is so high. Sometimes an excellent reward came with a very high and dangerous risk, so you need to think twice before making a decision. Take this two examples in mind:

Example 1 - A very affluent man approach you and ask you to play a round of Russian roulette for him. He is offering you $1,000,000 just to play it.

In this situation you have 5 out 6 chances of defeating the game and winning the offered million. The catch would be there is 1 out of 6 chances that you are going to be dead. Good rewards but a great risk. I myself don't want to end up dead just to get a million dollars.

Example 2 - You won the lottery and you took five million dollars. The same man propose that he's going to give you $10,000,000, if its head in flip the coin game. If its tails then you'll give him $5,000,000.

Ten million dollars is a big rewards but the risk that comes with it is so high. If the coin is flip and end up being tail then you lose the $5,000,000 that you should enjoy for the rest of your life. Think about it.

It has a very limited chance to you'll encounter the same odds in poker as the two examples above but there will be a time that you will give up a positive expected value bet because of the risk involve.

Here's one good example:

If you got a free roll in a world tournament and end up being short in chips and a person away from the bubble, then its time for you to make a decision that will be advantageous for you. You can make the money and get a considerable $50,000. You have been also informed that someone have beeb eliminated. And if you lose this certain hand, you'll end up with no money because you have lesser chips than the other players.

At that time you have pocket Aces as your hole card. With this hand if you decide to fold you'll get $50,000. But if you play and lose the hand you'll get nothing. But if you play and win, you're going to double or triple your chips.

The dilemma here is that even there is a reward triple or double your chips, its not enough if you lose $50,000 dollars if you lose the hand. Another thing to consider is that even if you win, you still don't have the chance of increasing your stat into the tourney ladder.

Your knowledge of EV is not enough to justify risking everything you have in order to gain the reward. Before making any decision think about it twice before finalizing it.

Remember that in a tournament especially if you are deep stacked, there is always a better time to win a pot. So that's where you have to place the money. - 16887

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