Kill Phil Experiment (this is long - sorry)

[bdawg31]

I need to carve out a half hour of my time and type in the strategy of when to push and when to fold. Here is a few quick notes though.

The way the basic strategy is set up - you have four 'levels' of stacks - Huge ( greater than 30X cost per round), Big (greater than 10X cost per round), Medium (greater than 4x cost per round) and Small.

When you are 'huge' - then the hands you are pushing with are very limited - this is due to the fact that your risk/reward in terms of the blinds is not favorable. As your stack gets smaller, the number of hands you will play with increase. It also takes position into account.

Also keep in mind that the book describes four 'levels' of Kill Phil. The first level is super-basic - basically what Skalansky did with his "The System" in his tournament book. The second level - the one i am messing around with - take chip stacks and position into play. But, it is all mechanical. It is set up to give any shmuck a chance to win. The later levels in theory then incorporate mixing things up poker-wise. They give you flexibility in the system - i.e. being wary of a good player limping in early position (that might be trying to trap you). Calling with a hand like pocket 5s if your stack is 'huge' in late position (the system would say to fold). Things like that.

In theory, if i were to ever use this - i would just play my normal game early on. My problem in tournaments have not been in the early stages. Most of the time, i am able to accumulate chips in the first 3-4 rounds. And if i lose them, i am usually not in any worse shape than if i would do Kill Phil anyway (you are almost always going to get blinded off in the first few rounds of Kill Phil). Its the middle game that i think i suck at. And while one could say "be more aggressive" or "Be this or be that" - i can not get myself to do it properly.