Kill Phil Experiment (this is long - sorry)

[eejit101]

surely maximizing profits early by playing hands strategically, then moving to the all in stealing mode at the end is more profitable. I mean if the blinds are 250/500 and i have 4k im not bothering raising, but for a 200 pot with AA??

I dont like that idea, but i will concede its interesting.

Edit - youve also said youve got "lucky" in all the games. Surely this is more to do with the outcome than the strategy? 56 vs KK? 56 vs JQ, not a big dog, but still lucky. Interesting

[Kurn]

The problem with SNGs in general is that any sort of loose strategic play early that does not result in chip accumulation places you in push/fold mode earlier than you'd like. The short levels force you to play ultra-tight except in LP early. If you can keep the discipline to do that and properly employ push/fold later you probably end up being just as effective a SNG player as you will by reading Kill Phil.

SNGs are variance nightmares - more streaky than any other kind of poker. OP is trying to judge the strategy by playing 5. I'd suggest that that's at least an order of magnitude too few to make a reasonable assessment.

[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.

[bdawg31]

Part of the theory is that your hands have value for their fold equity, the fact that sometimes you will get called by a lessor hand and sometimes you will get called by a better hand but you can still get lucky.

Think about big tournament hits you have had. I bet there was at least one or more hands where you got a break. Not because you made a blunder - but sort of worked out that way. I.e. your AK ran into KK - you semi-bluffed and got caught, but made your draw, etc. Same thing with this - you will probalby need to catch a break or two along with way.

[Kurn]

Long before there was Kill Phil, there was SNG push/fold theory that is the basis for the numbers in SNGPT. I can't for the life of me remember what the theory was called, but it was developed from a study done at USC.

The basis is late in a SNG the value of your hand is a combination of fold equity + showdown equity (duh), but when pushing for all (or almost all) of your opponents' stacks, fold equity is huge. So if you can accurately assess calling ranges, you can choose the correct push range that will aways be +EV.

[MAYHEM45]

I think what you are looking for is called ICM. It stands for Independent Chip Modeling.

[Kurn]

That's it. Thanks.

[Zybomb]

So this Kill Phil theory, is very similiar to the tournament strategy in David Sklansky's Tournament Poker, that he gave to the player who didn't know much about how to play right??

[Talking Poker]

I haven't read ity yet, but I think it's the same idea, only much more comples, taking into account obviously important issues like stack size and position. As I recall, Sklansky's system was "Push with these hands. Fold the rest."

[bdawg31]

Yes, they took his strategy and expanded upon it - they credit him in the book. They create their Kill Phil Beginner - which is basically Skalansky's simple system - and i think they added KK early on (with the AA) due to looser players since the boom of poker (skalansky wrote his system before the poker boom i believe).

Then they take it steps further. They take position into account, your stack size (relaive to the cost per round). That is still mechanical. Then they talk about ways to tweak it so you are playing some poker.

Its a fairly easy read. If anything - for a good player to read this book might be helpful to just understand the power of aggression.

I was just curious to see how it worked. And i wanted to incorporate super-aggression into my middle game. I just tried it in a MTT. I played normal early on - built my usual small gain. Then mid-way i went into the system. I got 10s on the BB. There was a raise from late position so system says push - and i did. The guy raising was playing like a maniac - so i felt good. He called with A10 and caught the Ace naturally. I would have been curious to see how things progressed if that held up. I will try some more.