The G-Spot: Chip Accumulation vs. Chip Preservation?

By Tony
Guerrera

Traditional poker theory describes two tournament-playing philosophies: chip
accumulation and chip preservation. To reach a coveted final table and eventually
win a tournament, you need to accumulate chips. However, you can’t win
a tournament if you don’t survive, and it’s sometimes best to preserve
chips in search of a better opportunity. Both these ideas are important, but
I firmly believe that the chip preservationists overestimate the impact that
their perceived skill edges have – especially late in tournaments when
the average stack size is on the order of 10-15 big blinds.

Learning From The Best

If you’re getting 1:1 on your chips, you should be willing risk your
tournament life any time your chances of winning are greater than about 60%.
And if you’re getting more than 1:1 on your chips, then your chances of
winning can be lower. I get this 60% from modeling tournaments as a series of
double-ups, using typical payout structures, and looking at the effective winning
percentage of the best online tournament players, whose ROIs tend to be on the
order of 100-200%.

In practice, top tournament players won’t risk their tournament lives
unless they have bigger edges early in tournaments (when blinds are small and
fields are weak) and smaller edges later in tournaments (when blinds are high
and the riff-raff has been weeded out).

Watch the best tournament players both live and online, and you’ll see
that they aren’t afraid of mixing it up and taking risks. From my own
experience, I can say that I use to focus almost exclusively on chip preservation.
Since adopting a less fearful stance, my results in multitable tournaments have
been much stronger poker hand.

Accumulation and Preservation Don’t Have to be Opposites

Focusing on chip accumulation means that you shouldn’t be scared of putting
your tournament life on the line. Today’s tournament poker’s top
players show no fear, but you’ll notice that they don’t seem to
face elimination very often.

This happens because of pot-size control. Sometimes, poker’s best tournament
players elect to call in situations where aggressive play would be the norm
in order to keep pots small in questionable situations.

The world’s best tournament players embrace the fact the hold’em
is a game that happens across four betting rounds; they aren’t afraid
of having to make tough decisions, and they don’t make large, questionable
overbets all-in simply to avoid having to make decisions. Instead of going all-in,
they make raises that leave them with some chips.



Have no qualms about juicing up poker
pots in which you have a big edge. But when you’re in marginal situations,
adopt measured lines of play, and you’ll find that you can accumulate
chips without constantly risking your tournament life.

Tony Guerrera
is the author of Killer
Poker By The Numbers and co-author of Killer Poker Shorthanded (with John
Vorhaus).