I've played a few of the 40-round WillHill/GA games that were announced. They use the same $1000 BR, $100 min bet as the 10-round game. With only 10 bullets available to fire there's every possibility that, simply flat-betting the minimum, you can go broke before you ever get the chance to think about strategic bet sizing. Actually I played one today in which, at about midway, my opponent was down to his last $100, while I was at around $1000. He played about three rounds like that before an outrageous sequence of swings led to him beating me. My question is, does it make sense to be extra risk-averse under these conditions, and avoid almost all DDs and splits until the final sprint finish? I've seen one or two people taking that approach, and I can see the attraction, but I'm not wholly convinced it's the right tactic.
Risk Adverse My best rough guesstimate for any form of tbj/ebj is that losing chips hurts you twice as much as winning chips helps you - so for playing strategy - you should always use a fairly risk adverse strategy, and reduce your double downs and splits to only the most advantageous ones - and if surrender is available - use it more frequently than basic strategy calls for - an advantage of playing such a risk adverse strategy is that you can increase your bet size some, as your play9ng strategy reduces your risk of ruin-
Indeed It's a question of degree. My point here is that this is such an extreme case that it might warrant extreme measures (or the best approach may be not to play at all! ) Just ten minimum bets - It's equivalent to starting a UBT game with 5K, or a GPC game with $100! The most extreme approach would be to min bet and avoid all splitting and doubling until such time as you are either way behind or have enough chips to feel secure that they should last you for the remaining rounds under a more normal strategy. Alternatively, you could just play your 'normal' game and accept the fact that sometimes this will lead to an early exit. (If your opponents are being extra cautious then this will occasionally give you a healthy lead to defend.)
Possible Approach? I think I would approach this game by betting minimum and playing very conservatively - hoping that others will bet higher, take more risks, and bankrupt out - I would think the risk of a player bankrupting would be very high - any losing streak or a couple of hands where the cards fall badly would do you in quickly - betting 10% of your bankroll seems like a 'moderate' bet to me - not a 'minimum' bet - even if the dealer started out cold and dumping chips - you could make a move later - I would rather risk it all on one hand than try to compete in a race for the lead under these circumstances - in other words, trust to the bad play of your opponents
Unfortunately, not many people are being foolish enough to bet big early on. I think perhaps the small ratio of BR to min. bet makes the folly of this approach more apparent to inexperienced players. There is some bad play in terms of Basic Strategy though. I think the bottom line is that luck plays an uncomfortably large role in this format. You can lose it all in the early 'auto-pilot' stage, before the tournament proper has even got started.
