That Satellite Debate In Full
Don't bother going to the gutshot forum to wade through it all again. Here is an executive summary :
Egg : "My dream is to play in the WSOP. I want that so much"
Me & DY : "Enough to work hard at earning the buy-in over several months ?"
Egg : "Er, no, not that much".
The end.
Egg : "My dream is to play in the WSOP. I want that so much"
Me & DY : "Enough to work hard at earning the buy-in over several months ?"
Egg : "Er, no, not that much".
The end.
9 Comments:
First of all I always have been in agreement on you and DY on this. I have even offered on forum before now to hold their winnings until it gets to $12k and then send them a nice email saying you have won a seat and free flights and hotel...
But one reason that doesn't seem to have been amplified (you touched on it saying the missus should prefer you to win it slowly rather than taking £50 pops)is this:
"darling I've been doing well recently I'm going to pull out $12k and play a -EV tourny" just doesn't wash whereas "I've won a seat, there's no cash alternative" does.
For the single out there, there still is the psychological hurdle to get over of actually weighing in $10k entry. Come July, either you have had call for it "in an emergency" or else it has been double accounted for several times over...
So, the one beauty of paying far too much juice and taking money out of the circuit for 9 months is that for some, it is the ONLY way they are ever going to get to play it. It may not make mathematical sense, but there you are.
Personally, if I had any ambition to play WSOP main event (and I don't unless Pizza Hut want to put me in??) I would open an online account and treat it as a WSOP account, playing small-ish there as an extra table in the background and never touching the funds. If there's 10k in there next summer, you are in. I still feel for most though, because they CAN access the funds and do other things with it, they will.
This "'er indoors" argument has always annoyed me and it's only now I'm fully realising why.
It's a total cop-out. The thinking is that no one will notice £50 a time and if I win I can say [as you suggest] "I 've got no choice, see you in two weeks, bye !"
But you made the choice when you entered the satellite. Trying to compare £50 for a satellite and $10K for a direct entry is very misleading. When you take the satellite route, you don't get to make the $10K decision. You should be comparing right at the start. £50 for a satellite, WSOP if I win ? Or £50 for a tournament, let's see how it goes and make a decision ?
People say it's their "dream", but actually working to achieve it is considered a "grind" and not worthwhile unless it's "fun". IMO there are parallels with the choice between saving up for something vs. whacking it on the credit card and worrying about it later.
I can't share your sympathy. It's sheer laziness. Lazy thinking, and a lazy attitude towards actually earning something that you want, instead of trying to get lucky and being given it.
There, that's off my chest, mostly :-)
Andy.
But that's exactly why they made the choice to enter the satellite and pay a premium to do so! So there doesn't seem a choice at the other end - most "non-gambling minded" other halves won't understand the EV of it all, it doesn't even cross their mind in the same way that would be immediately obvious to you. It's as if they think it dropped through the letterbox as some sort of Reader's Digest winner or something.
Perhaps you have to be married to have sympathy with it.
I agree it certainly doesn't make a lot of sense for the soloists out there. But then in my mind, it doesn't make any sense why many of the soloists are spending the winter here either when they could go to some of the Carribean tournys, The Crown tourny or an extended stay in Vegas climbing on top of as many obliging cocktail waitresses as possible.
There's a very old very average joke that, condensed, goes along the lines of a man having his dick chopped off in an industrial accident and being awarded £20k. The plastic surgeon explains the options and tells the man to talk it through with his wife. The man then phones the surgeon up and says "you can keep my dick, we are having a new kitchen."
Told you it was average, but it may help understand the mentality that many have - if there is any decision to be made with the $10k it won't be a WSOP decision. Therefore the best solution is to win a seat with no apparent alternative.
In the old days, people who contributed to poker fora were people who thought about poker, often quite deeply.
In a sense we have "carried over" this concept to Gutshot and THM and 2+2, expecting contributions from thinking poker players. In so doing, we make a mistake.
Let's face it, we have nothing in common with 95% of the posters on Gutshot. Talk of positive EV and "spin it up in a separate account" is just stuff from another planet as far as they are concerned. Just look at the way it is being talked about. Johnny I, erstwhile "the rock", actually used the phrase "IT COULD BE YOU!!!!"
Well, need I say more. Johnny Iannou and Derek and Barry have got it right. This is what these people want. You no more gain from telling them that it is a silly way to look at it than you gain from telling the bloke buying his twenty quid's worth of lottery tickets that, if he had put twenty quid to one side every week since the lottery started, instead of buying tickets,he would have about seven grand more in the bank than he currently has (actually, enough for a WSOP entry).
Where DY and, to a lesser extent yourself, go wrong, is in trying to talk sense. Think of it as some kind of uber poker table. When the guy makes a negative EV play then just bemoan the fact that this time it is someone else gaining rather than you. This happens at the poker table all the time.
Just don't expect economic common sense from them any more than you expect them to lay down TPTK. It ain't gonna happen.
PJ
The state of the forum nation is worth a post on its own, at some point, although I might not bother at all. Even the trolls are incredibly sensitive to any criticism of Team Gutshot.
But Pete's right. It is what people want, and I have to concede that for a losing player, his best chance of getting there is strking it lucky in one go.
I'm going to have to get the rest of it off my chest :-), I think it's irresponsible of Gutshot to run the satellites so early and to push them so hard. They want as many people out there as possible, but who's paying ? How much came in from the satellites last year, $100K = about £55 grand ? You can't tell me that was £100 from 550 different people. A lot of people sunk a lot of money and it disturbs me that they're being encouraged to do it when a lot of them have no idea how high the mountain they are trying to climb actually is.
Andy.
PS I'm going to the Caribbean myself next month. Lock up your cocktail waitresses ...
Gosh there's a dilemma here. I reckon only an idiot would turn up in October for a super-sat to the following year's WSOP.
But I want to play against idiots!
Help,
confused of Fulham.
I'll spare you the platitudes since we've done this debate months ago here(http://secretsoftheamateurs.blogspot.com/2005/06/dont-blame-sleeping-satellite.html)
Except I'll say it is easy to justify undertaking a satellite over a direct buy-in for many reasons, if you dare to consider value, or decision-making beyond EV. Mental accounting, regret, emotional buy-in, utility, choice etc. Oops I didn't spare them.
chaos
It's a bit harsh to accuse someone of being lazy coz they're not prepared to give up 2 or 3 years of their beer/fun money to have a shot at the WSOP, but are prepared to give up a month's worth.
OK I'd like to draw a line under this. In many ways it's good for me that a lot of people want to play these things. But that's neither here nor there. I'm calling it as I see it without any vested interest. It has all been said so we might as well move on.
Andy.
Oh but I've just casught DY's article on Gutshot. There's a quote I just can't ignore - onto pastures new.
chaos
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