The Monte Carlo Elevator [AUDIO BONUS]
What Magnus Carlsen and elevators can teach you about poker hand selection
Listen to an expanded version of this audio here or on GRID podcast channels.
At the European Poker Tour in Monte Carlo, I ran to the elevator, running late for a turbo poker tournament. There was only one other person on it, wearing huge headphones, with a shaggy hair cut.
I turned my head: It was Magnus Carlsen.
In chess, he’s known as the highest rated player of all time, a five time World Champ, and the GOAT for his skill at all time controls, from classical to rapid to blitz. And in Monte Carlo, he was playing slow chess: The 2023 European Poker Tour’s Main Event, one of the most prestigious competitions on the tour. Carlsen placed 63rd out of 775 for a 16K+ payday.
If I go on a lift in Monte Carlo, what are my chances of being the highest rated chess player?
Pretty high, but not if I run into Magnus Carlsen.
Elevators are my favorite device for teaching new players the concept of relative hand strength in poker. 1
Imagine a man who is 5’10 (or 1.8 meters). In the USA, that’s an inch and change above average. What are the odds he’d be the tallest man in the elevator? If there are two dudes on the elevator, pretty high, right—or around 64%2. But what if there are six guys in the elevator? Those odds start plummeting.
And just as you can play lowball in poker, you can easily flip this example to bet on being the shortest man on the elevator. 3
It’s the same thing when you bet on whether to enter a poker hand. If it’s just you and me, the hand required to be the tallest on the elevator is not that high. But when you’re betting against five or six people, the bar is raised. This is why a hand like Queen-Nine offsuit is a slam dunk open from the small blind or the button, but a trivial fold from Early Position.
The most important question in poker hand selection is not “What do I have?” but “Who am I competing with?”
And what if the same was true in life too? It’s not just about how strong your starting hand is when you compete for a new job, or a scholarship, or a house purchase. So much of success is about finding smaller pools to compete in, so that you can increase your odds of winning. In poker, we call that “a good spot.”
King Ten offsuit is on the upper border of Elevator Hands. So beautiful in late position, and so middling when we are in one of the early, or “under the gun” positions.
That’s what I had, in the first hand of a Super Knockout Tournament in Monte Carlo.
I was in the small blind, so once folded to me, my king ten offsuit was looking very beautiful, or tall, or high rated, whatever you want to call it. Bottom line: there were just two of us and I was going to have the best hand a large amount of the time. A good spot indeed.
I raised. My opponent made an even bigger re-raise than normal, which I called.
The flop:
K♠J♠7❤️
I checked and my opponent again bet very big, around 3000 into a pot of about 3500 chips. The sizing was unusually large. It could be a mistake, but more likely it was a strategic ploy4 to get all the money in as fast as possible. I called. I had a king (of clubs) after all.
The turn brought the 8 hearts for a second flush draw.
When I checked, my opponent went “all-in” for more chips that were in the pot. This was a really big bet.
I asked one innocent question.
“Did you realize, that if I call, and you win, you don’t win my bounty?”
Gulp. That sounded like a no.
Why the confusion? Well, everyone starts a poker tournament with the exact same number of chips. Whoever wins a hand that we’re both “all-in” on, should knock the other person out, and win the bounty, right?
Not so fast.
We were playing using a relatively new type of poker structure, which became standard in 2019. It’s called “Big Blind Ante.” This means that one player, the big blind, antes for the entire table. And that ante goes into the pot before the hand starts. So he had 200 chips fewer than me.
Even if he won the hand, he would not receive my big extra special bounty bonus. I’d be down to dust, one chip, and the rest of the table would all be salivating over it the subsequent hand.
I sensed something else too. He was relaxed. He didn’t care that much.
Knowing he knew all this, and still wasn’t super disappointed told me a lot. It meant he likely had a very good hand, and that his all in play was smart regardless of whether I called or not.
It would be better if he had that extra 200 chips, but he hadn’t made any mistakes. I’d have reacted the same exact way. Disappointed, but without regrets.
The most piercing pain of poker is when a mistake intersects with misfortune.
His reaction made me fold, despite holding top pair and a gutter. He gracefully showed me Ace-King after I folded.
The value of a poker hand is not absolute, it’s about how good it is compared to the other hands that enter the pot. And the more that come along, the more your own hand shrinks up.
When a lot of money gets shoveled in, even if there are just two of you, it could be aces. 5
And yes, you might just find yourself in an elevator with Magnus Carlsen.
The podcast version of the post has bonus content. Listen here on substack. The audio file will also be available on the GRID channels on Apple and Spotify.
I summarized this in my recent stint on PokerGo, to commentate the WSOP Ladies Event.
The standard deviation for height in men is about 3 inches, meaning that 68% of the population fall within 66 and 72 inches.
While this example can easily be reversed to bet on the shortest man on the elevator, it’s more difficult to use this example for mixed gender due to the average height discrepancies in men and women, showing how heightism and sexism can intersect.
In a knockout tournament, it’s often strategically wise to try and get all in with opponents you cover or match, so that you have a chance to win their bounty. Conversely, when you have fewer chips than your opponent, their incentive to get your bounty is also high. Big bets that would ordinarily get folds, may be called. It’s very rare to have the exact same number of chips as another player, except on the very first hand of a tournament.
It’s Main Event time at the World Series of Poker, and plenty of players have been learning this lesson the hard way, and as early as hand 1.
Really nice lay down! Soul read for sure. Probably a bit easier due to how polarized he was. It's funny that this is exactly how I used to play in like 2005-6 when I was playing online. I won a few MTTs by playing it like this. Old School vs. New School thinking.