compuease;237382 wroteI understand (sort of) the math to this but isn't this (needing certain % to call to make this profitable) more of a cash game perspective? I always understood and played as if chips saved are more valuable in a tournament than a cash game... I still feel like it is spew to simply use math to determine whether I should call or not. In other words I want a little more of an advantage than you guys are proposing. Now pushing is totally different and I get that but calling with weak hands is just that.. weak, imo anyways...
I really don't like disagreeing with some of the more seasoned tournament players on here but what the heck, it makes for good discussion....
Needing a certain % to call is def just a fundamental poker perspective. In cash games you want to take every profitable edge you can that will make you money beyond the rake. In MTTs it's a bit more arguable. I think you're alluding to the value of tournament life, and your last chip >>>>> your 100th chip. This is definitely true. In single table tournaments you have to live and die by this since if you play purely cEV you're gonna be losing a lot of money. In MTTs it's a lot more abstract since cEV and $EV are much closer until the final table for the most part. You should always be using math to choose whether you should call or not, but since tourney life does have some value (even though it's hard to quantify), you might want to use some margin of error, such as I suggested above by assuming they're slightly tighter, or by only taking spots with a certain % edge, not ones that are basically breakeven.
But, you have to be careful to not over compensate for your tourney life, since that's where we as MTT regs are making our money, from players who aren't willing to take a stand to us and will let us exploit them to no end. For instance, using your calling range for shoves unadjusted, if we played heads up with probably up to 20-25BB stacks and I shoved every single hand, I'd win in the long run since it's so exploitably tight. Though, your range could definitely be closer to optimal vs. the average player at lower stakes since they're not shoving near as much as they can/should.