Quirky Tournament Thought

Yes I would win every time (if no other player shared the knowledge).

I would murderalize everybody at the table no question. Seeing exactly whats coming you know if you'll hit or not... it takes the gamble out of gambling. Not knowing whats coming is the biggest risk in poker... trying to figure out what your opponent has is difficult but you can put them on a range of hands to work out if you're beat.

Falloooooon said:

For the record, I was not saying that you know the board cards but not your opponent's cards. I meant that you know everything. Therefore, how often are your cards just not good enough or lucky enough to be able to win the tournament. Your cards simply won't win enough pots or enough big ones to win the tournament, even if you know everything.

And I appreciate some of the more receptive responses.

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It's actually somewhat of an interesting thought. Yes, I guess there would be some amount of times that no matter what you knew, your played hands would always be second best (or worse).

What some aren't taking into account by saying they would always win is that while knowing the cards, if they consistently were not going your way, you might have to constantly fold and ultimately be blinded out. In MTT's there must be 'some' percentage of hands won strictly on luck rather than absolute skill.

I can see what you are saying Nick, but I don't exactly share the sentiment. If you've taken an appropriate ammount of cash to the table with respect to the blinds then you'll no doubt hit one hand that is the winner. I can't see it being possible to play a ring game, or even an MTT, and not hit at least ONE hand that's a winner (and you know when you're going to win or not it seems) and cash out on it.

Ozzington said:

I can see what you are saying Nick, but I don't exactly share the sentiment. If you've taken an appropriate ammount of cash to the table with respect to the blinds then you'll no doubt hit one hand that is the winner. I can't see it being possible to play a ring game, or even an MTT, and not hit at least ONE hand that's a winner (and you know when you're going to win or not it seems) and cash out on it.

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The OP clearly specified 'tournament', so taking the 'right amount' is irrelevant. You have one amount, the starting stack.

He didn't say to play 'one' winning hand either. He referred to WINNING a tournament, which takes a whole lot more than winning ONE hand. If a 'particular player' never gets dealt that sequence of required winning hands, there is no way s/he could win a tournament, regardless of what amount of pre-bet information is supplied to the player.

Realistically, knowing your opponents cards and the board cards in advance you will win effectively every tournament though.

I also believe that you could win every tournament if you had perfect information, no matter how bad your cards were, and never had a hand at all. The only prerequisite is for you to be intelligent, and use the information to analyze how your opponents act with a given set of cards, and how to bet against them.

I mean, if a decent player is able to have a general idea of your opponents style of play even when you only see them show maybe 5% of their hands, imagine if you could see their hole cards every time? My take is that you could basically be the perfect bluffer, taking down pots by bluffing even when you have absolutely nothing, just because you know that even if your opponents have a hand, you know if you can push them off of it by betting how much, as well as when your 'nothing' is better than their nothing, every step of the way! Unless you really are a superbly astonishing idiot, and don't even have the most pedestrian understanding of any poker concepts at all, you should win the tourney every time.

My two cents, T.