i discuss this in much more detail in my tournament strategy book, but basically the need to use progressions in a tourney increases relative to the skill level of the players you are facing. against amateurs you will very rarely find yourself relying on this tool, but against a field full of pros you better be intimately familiar with this type of bet.
monkeysystem you are right, progressions cannot be a function of bankroll but rather of the max bet. before all big tournaments i figure out optimal 3- 4- and 5- step progression ramps along with the relative Risk of Ruin for each; while it is true that making many smaller progressions accepts slightly more RoR than one larger calculated one (as Wong and to some extent Ken Smith assert), i have always found that progressions (again, only when needed against other pros who typically don't make the mistakes other players make that can best be exploited in other ways) offer an incredible way of not only drifting upward in chip count in the most controlled manner, but allow you to have the best chance of having more money in play when blackjacks and the most desirable double down opportunities occur. Care must certainly be taken when on the 4th or 5th step of a progression to not accept too much variance with sub-optimal doubling, but many key plays depend on having the most money out. This is why i love losing several hands in a row when playing other pros; it only gives me more of an excuse to push more money out for that next blackjack or eleven vs a dealer 5/6. it may look like luck to your opponents but you know better...
i don't think wong was entirely accurate in his RoR calculations he included in CTS; he only takes into account the hard and fast rules of hand win rates, but does not consider how one's total bankroll is affected by winning these key DD and BJ hands with larger, controlled bets out. Obviously deviating from a progression to DD brings with it varying levels of increasing variance, and a whole different set of tournament math goes into evaluating what level of variance one should be prepared to accept at any given moment of a tourney.
During the UBT as many of us discovered, including many of the Grinders as well as certain other pros, progressions were very necessary. Higher levels of variance (like 3- and 4- step progressions, instead of 5- step ones; as well as more liberally deviating from a progression in its later stages for less than optimal DD opportunities) had to be exploited commesurate with how early one's position would be in relation to an upcoming elimination hand, one's position relative to the best players on the table, and of course one's BR/LB placement in the whole grand scheme of things.
bottom line is, my vote is Yes for progressions within a tournament setting, within certain controlled parameters and with the right criteria in place. the point is, at no time should one ever make a 'random' bet while playing -- there should always be a well thought out gameplan behind every bet, move, and decision made. Many times there are overriding factors that justify broad correlative, contrarian, and catch-up bets, as well as the ever-present standby the flat bet/minimum bet. But in many cases and in many instances against many pros, progressions offer a world of benefits & have just begun to be fully explored in this modern age of tournament science --
-hollywood dave.
www.WestCoastGrinders.com
*the rise of the New Guard*
) but he doesn't discuss any of the strategy that I'm becoming familiar with from reading this forum and others, as well as all the strategy articles I'm getting from the web. For example I can't find any reference to "taking the high/low" in CTS. Am I being too picky?
