The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Seriously? Have you read this? I'm still laughing at some of the things said in this book.

I'm not going to trash this book (any more), but SO many things in it are so far from conventional 2+2 wisdom that I was just wondering if anyone read it, and had opinions.

Rock, paper, scissors anyone?

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Is this book even out yet? Amaazon has a paperback version comingo ut on Aug. 1st. Has there been a hardback version released? Doesn't look too interersting given that it's geared towards small buy-in tournaments.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Yeah, I read quite a bit yesterday at Barnes & Nobles.

Any book for low limits I would be interested in as I don't play 215.00 tournaments, and above.

Still, the advice is just so different than norm. I was hoping someone caught some of it. He's really big on feeling that Hold 'Em is a complex version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Rock = chips. Paper = Cards. Scissors = Position.

So, he's saying:
Chips beat Position
Cards beat Chips
Position beats Cards

My thought is...oftentimes you have two of those three against your opponents, or they have two of those three against you. If I'm the CL on the button, it's folded around to me, and you're a less than average stack in the BB, and I have AA, then I suppose I have all 3. Still, you CAN fold to my raise. And, when he's talking about position beating cards, he's also talking about being able to minimize your loses better in position as opposed to OOP I suppose.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I read quite a bit yesterday at Barnes & Nobles.

Any book for low limits I would be interested in as I don't play 215.00 tournaments, and above.

Still, the advice is just so different than norm. I was hoping someone caught some of it. He's really big on feeling that Hold 'Em is a complex version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Rock = chips. Paper = Cards. Scissors = Position.

So, he's saying:
Chips beat Position
Cards beat Chips
Position beats Cards

My thought is...oftentimes you have two of those three against your opponents, or they have two of those three against you. If I'm the CL on the button, it's folded around to me, and you're a less than average stack in the BB, and I have AA, then I suppose I have all 3. Still, you CAN fold to my raise. And, when he's talking about position beating cards, he's also talking about being able to minimize your loses better in position as opposed to OOP I suppose.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's his explanation for chips beating position? Is this for preflop or postflop play? It seems like this would apply in limited situations where you are considering bluffs after the flop.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

At this point, I'm unsure why. As I said, I was reading through it at B&N, and although some points held my interest, the Rock Paper Scissors part pretty much made me put the book back on the shelf.

I might try to give the book a second chance late this week. I try not to totally discount anyone's point of view when it comes to poker discussion (key words: try not to).

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Hi Jack:

I've been reading the book. In fact, Anold, who I consider a friend, gave me a copy.

I agree that it is a very confused work. Much of the problem has to do with the idea that fast tournaments require a different strategy from slow tournaments. (Fast and slow here refers to how quickly the blinds and antes go up.) This is the same mistake that Tom McEvoy made in his original tournament book over twenty years ago. Tournament speed has virtually nothing to do with correct tournament strategy.

As Harrington and Robertie show in Harrington II: The Endgame it's not speed that counts, but your overall chip position relative to the cost of playing each round. This is what they call "M" and when your M gets low, you have to begin making very aggressive plays. But when your M is fairly large, you have the option to play fairly normally.

What's happening in the Poker Tournament Formula is that some of the recommended plays turn out to be right not because of tournament speed, but because you'll be playing with a small M. So very weak players who read this, should improve their tournament games, but they'll do so for the wrong reasons.

There are also many other questionable plays such as automatically calling a raise with any two cards if you're on the button so that you can steal later (and by making this play you lose what Harrington and Robertie refer to as "First in Vigorish"). With a large M this play is more likely correct, especially against a weak player, but with a small M, which again will frequently be the case in the type of tournament the book is aimed for, it can't be right.

For those who don't know, Snyder is one of the foremost authorities in blackjack/gambling, and I have told him on many occasions that we would be more than glad to publish any book that he writes. But this text at the very least certainly needs a lot of work. (Also, I've only read about one-third of it.)

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Hi Jack:

[ QUOTE ]
Chips beat Position


[/ QUOTE ]

It's more like lack of chips beat position. This is easy to see. When you're all-in and get called, position doesn't matter anymore.

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Jack:

I've been reading the book. In fact, Anold, who I consider a friend, gave me a copy.

I agree that it is a very confused work. Much of the problem has to do with the idea that fast tournaments require a different strategy from slow tournaments. (Fast and slow here refers to how quickly the blinds and antes go up.) This is the same mistake that Tom McEvoy made in his original tournament book over twenty years ago. Tournament speed has virtually nothing to do with correct tournament strategy.

As Harrington and Robertie show in Harrington II: The Endgame it's not speed that counts, but your overall chip position relative to the cost of playing each round. This is what they call "M" and when your M gets low, you have to begin making very aggressive plays. But when your M is fairly large, you have the option to play fairly normally.

What's happening in the Poker Tournament Formula is that some of the recommended plays turn out to be right not because of tournament speed, but because you'll be playing with a small M. So very weak players who read this, should improve their tournament games, but they'll do so for the wrong reasons.

There are also many other questionable plays such as automatically calling a raise with any two cards if you're on the button so that you can steal later (and by making this play you lose what Harrington and Robertie refer to as "First in Vigorish"). With a large M this play is more likely correct, especially against a weak player, but with a small M, which again will frequently be the case in the type of tournament the book is aimed for, it can't be right.

For those who don't know, Snyder is one of the foremost authorities in blackjack/gambling, and I have told him on many occasions that we would be more than glad to publish any book that he writes. But this text at the very least certainly needs a lot of work. (Also, I've only read about one-third of it.)

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

Will there be a review of this book? It would seem this review would take a great deal of your time with the size of the book, and the need to address certain problems 2+2 would have with some of the concepts.

One thing I do like is that someone is trying to write a tournament book for low limit players (the lot that seems to comprise most of the online scene, and of course, includes me).

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Tournament speed has virtually nothing to do with correct tournament strategy.
Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this statement sums it up pretty well.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
It's more like lack of chips beat position. This is easy to see. When you're all-in and get called, position doesn't matter anymore.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Mason,

In the example that you give, you are totally correct, but it's also a 2 edged sword. Even with lack of chips, you still have to pay attention to your position when pushing. It seems like an odd way to formulate the question in general.

I liked Arnold's book Blackbelt in blackjack a lot, and I found his book on internet bonus whoring to be very worthwhile also.

Best regards,
Jordan

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Much of the problem has to do with the idea that fast tournaments require a different strategy from slow tournaments. (Fast and slow here refers to how quickly the blinds and antes go up.) This is the same mistake that Tom McEvoy made in his original tournament book over twenty years ago. Tournament speed has virtually nothing to do with correct tournament strategy.

As Harrington and Robertie show in Harrington II: The Endgame it's not speed that counts, but your overall chip position relative to the cost of playing each round. This is what they call "M" and when your M gets low, you have to begin making very aggressive plays. But when your M is fairly large, you have the option to play fairly normally.

What's happening in the Poker Tournament Formula is that some of the recommended plays turn out to be right not because of tournament speed, but because you'll be playing with a small M. So very weak players who read this, should improve their tournament games, but they'll do so for the wrong reasons.


[/ QUOTE ]

I can't help but wonder if this is not mere symantics.

Snyder acknowldeges HOH II and points out that these quick paced tournaments are esssentially games with constant inflection points (I think that's the way he puts it). I read that part briefly today as I was trapped in a Books-A-Million as tornado warnings and 50 mph winds were prevelent and we were 'ordered' to go to a certain area...not a very condusive atmosphere for remembering.

I don't want to try and defend the point as there was considerable confusion in the store (and I think in terms of 'M' anyway) but I could not really discern a difference between decreasing M's and the 'pace of a tournament' when it comes to these tourneys where the blinds increase so quickly...but from what I read I certainly could not dismiss the idea as you have. I mean, even those with a relatively large M have to play a bit differently because the blinds are increasing at an increasing rate or the blinds will eat into them while others grow their stacks having adjusted their play because of the accelerated blinds...perhaps that is all that is meant by a 'different strategy' or different approach than would be the case in a slower tournament?

---Leavenfish

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Hi Fish:

I've only read about 130 pages and haven't come to anything like you have described.

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Harrington II, to vastly oversimplify, is a discussion of optimal tournament strategies in which periods of solid, aggressive poker play are interspersed with heightened opportunities for theft, which exist primarily due to tournament structure.

My book shows that poker tournament structure factors can radically dislocate both these opportunities for theft, and the necessity of theft (as opposed to good poker play) in your overall results. As Leavenfish pointed out above, the blind structure is one aspect of tournament structure that impacts optimal tournament strategy. But there are other important aspects of tournament structures that also impact optimal strategies, including rebuy structures and, especially, field size.

Harrington’s M (and Sklansky’s “System” in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players), both address the need to change speed of play when the costs of a round reach a certain relation to your stack and the average stack in the tournament. My book expands on Harrington’s and Sklansky’s insights to consider tournaments with structures where the M is moving so fast that it is distorted almost beyond recognition.

Also, my book provides a simple method for quantifying any tournament’s speed based on its blind structure. Many fast tournaments are so fast they have little if any value for skillful players, regardless of the players’ understanding of poker or tournament strategies. Good players should choose tournaments based on their profit potential, and the buy-in cost and prize pool are not good indicators of value. The blind structure is the key.

A number of perceptive players in this thread realized during a quick look at the Formula in a bookstore that the Rock/Paper/Scissors strategy presented in it is very different from the solid, aggressive poker tournament strategies they have learned at 2+2. That’s quite right, and the reason for that is important. In fast tournaments, you are faced with a gambling problem that is impossible to solve with good poker play. The Rock/Paper/Scissors model simply identifies the power relationships that are conducive to solving a non-poker gambling problem. Essentially, The Poker Tournament Formula is an advanced course in theft.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Hi Arnold:

Reading has been slow for me due to some other publishing distractions. But I am now about ready to start "The Chip Strategy."

But I have quickly thumbed through it and perhaps I have this wrong, but it seems to me that this material actually displaces what you have written early in the book.

Again, tournament speed has virtually nothing to do with your strategy. The reason it seems to be right is that in the tournaments you address your M and other player's M will frequently be low. Thus the aggressive plays that you recommend are frequently right.

Also, some of the plays you recommend, such as the example on page 68, seem like suicide to me and advice like this is what we refer to as being results oriented.

Specifically auto-calling a raiser on the button regardless of your hand can only be right against someone who is extremely weak tight. It also becomes more correct if your M is very large. For example, if you have let's say an M of 7, you're on the button with a hand like queen-five offsuit, and someone raises from a position and chip position which probably means a pretty good hand, this call is just plain foolish.

To be fair, I have a lot more to read, and I suspect that my opinion of the text will improve as I read more.

I also want to address this:

[ QUOTE ]
Many fast tournaments are so fast they have little if any value for skillful players, regardless of the players’ understanding of poker or tournament strategies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this statement, but again it's not for the reason you give. It's because everyone will always be playing with a small M and be forced to quickly put it all in. If the levels were moving up quickly, but you got to start with a very large amount of chips meaning that your M was very large, you wouldn't play as you advise and this statement would no longer be true.

One of the complaints about the World Poker Tour Tournaments is that because of the very large blinds it becomes a crap shoot towards the end and especially at the final table. That's because player's M's become small and much of the skill goes away. But there is certainly a lot of skill in these tournaments again because the Ms start very large and stay that way for most players for a fairly long time.

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
My book expands on Harrington’s and Sklansky’s insights to consider tournaments with structures where the M is moving so fast that it is distorted almost beyond recognition.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had decided to actually get a sign-on and make my first post to the forums on this thread after several months of lurking. Turns out the author has already summed things up himself. Harrington talks about the situation where you know the blinds are going to be raised within a short time by using the new blind level to compute your M. Snyder's book suggests additional tools to use in extreme cases. I wish I had read the book before one tournament I played in recently. I started in the cutoff seat and the 10 minute blinds had hit the 2nd level before I had even gone thru the blinds the first time. In the MTT forum they talk about accumulating chips early. In tournaments with fast structures you don't have the luxury of waiting for premium starting hands to do that.

My only quibble with the book is that in the chapter on negotiating prize money chops at the final table Snyder seems to be advocating giving up more value than seems optimal, especially for the chipleader.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Arnold:

Reading has been slow for me due to some other publishing distractions. But I am now about ready to start "The Chip Strategy."

But I have quickly thumbed through it and perhaps I have this wrong, but it seems to me that this material actually displaces what you have written early in the book.

Again, tournament speed has virtually nothing to do with your strategy. The reason it seems to be right is that in the tournaments you address your M and other player's M will frequently be low. Thus the aggressive plays that you recommend are frequently right.

Also, some of the plays you recommend, such as the example on page 68, seem like suicide to me and advice like this is what we refer to as being results oriented.

Specifically auto-calling a raiser on the button regardless of your hand can only be right against someone who is extremely weak tight. It also becomes more correct if your M is very large. For example, if you have let's say an M of 7, you're on the button with a hand like queen-five offsuit, and someone raises from a position and chip position which probably means a pretty good hand, this call is just plain foolish.

To be fair, I have a lot more to read, and I suspect that my opinion of the text will improve as I read more.

I also want to address this:

[ QUOTE ]
Many fast tournaments are so fast they have little if any value for skillful players, regardless of the players’ understanding of poker or tournament strategies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this statement, but again it's not for the reason you give. It's because everyone will always be playing with a small M and be forced to quickly put it all in. If the levels were moving up quickly, but you got to start with a very large amount of chips meaning that your M was very large, you wouldn't play as you advise and this statement would no longer be true.

One of the complaints about the World Poker Tour Tournaments is that because of the very large blinds it becomes a crap shoot towards the end and especially at the final table. That's because player's M's become small and much of the skill goes away. But there is certainly a lot of skill in these tournaments again because the Ms start very large and stay that way for most players for a fairly long time.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason:

To say that Tournament speed has virtually nothing to do with Tournament strategy is nonsense. If you don't adjust for the structure of a particular tournament you will be behind the players that understand the changes that need to be made. Having played thousands of "fast tournaments" in my career, I can verify that Arnold's understanding of these fundamentals are dead on.

As far as M goes: M measures your current chip status in relation to the current pot. M dicates how you play a particular hand in a specific zone. In fast tournaments, players usually start out with enough chips that M isn't a factor right away. What Arnold is suggesting, is a strategy that will allow a player to stay ahead of the blinds & not be forced into these low M situations. I think that is the point that you are missing.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

It seems that Mason and Snyder are saying the same thing in different ways.

Is it possible that Mason is thinking in terms of live, larger buy in tournaments where players actually feel that they have a stake in the tournament, and Snyder is talking about smaller buy in tournaments online! with $200.00 or less buy ins? There's no denying how fast the tournaments are online, especially compared to live play. The speed of the tournament does actually cause you to play differently. For example, I realize that if I don't get a few premium hands in the first 20 minutes of a turbo MTT on Stars, I'll be in huge trouble vs. if I was playing a live event with 90 minute blinds starting at 25 25, and 10k chips.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Also, I wasn't sure about this....

The cards in cards vs. chips are much better cards than the cards in position vs. cards....correct?

Yet, I don't see a reason why they would be different. I would think everything would be pretty much constant as far as a concept goes.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
The speed of the tournament does actually cause you to play differently. For example, I realize that if I don't get a few premium hands in the first 20 minutes of a turbo MTT on Stars, I'll be in huge trouble vs. if I was playing a live event with 90 minute blinds starting at 25 25, and 10k chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's exactly what I see as Snyder's point. You have to accumulate chips somehow. Using position to take down small pots when the premium cards don't come is one way to stay ahead of the blinds. Proper tournament strategy when deep stacked with long blind levels is normally considered to be waiting for premium hands. In fast tournaments you may not see a premium hand before you're blinded out or forced into an all-in with a less than premium hand due to having a low M.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

First, in my earlier post, I forgot to thank Mason for inviting me to participate in this discussion.

Second, I think BigA/K is right about his point on the prize money chop. In my rebuy chapter, I go to great lengths to discuss the value of extra chips, even in a coin flip, where obviously luck rules. So, even though most fast tournaments are reduced to luck fests by the end, when a chop occurs, BigA/K is right that I did not give sufficient consideration to the value of chips. His point is a money-maker and I thank him for it. My advice would make sense for a player on a tight bankroll who was very concerned with avoiding fluctuations, but for most players who are in tournaments that they can well afford, my chopping advice is too conservative.

For anyone who might be struggling with BigA/K’s and Worldclass’s points, versus Mason’s concerns, I wanted to give any players in doubt more of a handle on why optimal tournament strategy is based on various aspects of tournament structure (or speed). I think a good way to do that is to return to the football game Harrington uses in explaining M and his zone system (p 124, HOHII), where the coach starts out with a lot of time and the full range of his plays and strategies available to him. Harrington explains that, as the clock winds down, and especially if the score is close or his team is behind, many of his strategic options are no longer viable. The coach cannot launch an attack of short runs because he doesn’t have the time luxury any more.

In football, there is a fixed game structure, so there is no such thing as a “fast” game structure. But imagine what would happen if a coach assumed he was playing the normal football game structure, only to find out 7 or 8 minutes into the game that there was only going to be one quarter. If the opposing team had gotten ahead of his team by a single touchdown in those first 7 or 8 minutes, his team would now be on the ropes. Overall, the coach would likely regret much time wasted up to this point on a running game.

A player in a fast tournament whose M is in Harrington’s green zone at the start, and who plays according to slow tournament green zone strategies, will similarly find himself suddenly out of time, just as if he were in a football game that he suddenly discovered had only one quarter of play.

Let me show how this relates to a real life fast tournament.

Every Friday night the Orleans has a single rebuy tournament with a $60 buy-in for $500 in chips, $5 more for $125 in dealer bonus chips, and $40 for $1000 in rebuy chips. You can make the rebuy any time in the first hour regardless of the size of your chip stack. Obviously, with the rebuy chips costing 50% less than the initial buy-in for double the amount of chips, any intelligent player will make the rebuy. This is essentially a $105 tourney where players start with $1625 in chips.

Here’s the early blind structure: Level 1: $10-$15; Level 2: $10-$20; Level 3: $15-$30; Level 4: $20-$40; Level 5: $30-$60.

With $1625 in starting chips, and the big blind starting at $15, we start out with a stack equal to just over 108 big blinds. In terms of M, we’re starting at 65 M, very solidly in Harrington’s green zone. This is common in the fast tournaments I recommend. The Orleans Saturday night tourney, another excellent fast format, also starts with an M of 65. Both of these Orleans tourneys rate as “Skill level 4” tournaments in my book, and those I recommend most highly for my strategies are those with Skill Levels 3 and 4. If you haven’t read my book, then this will make no sense, but suffice it to say that I use a method of quantifying tournaments’ speed based on the blind structures, and I advise against playing in those tournaments that are too fast (Skill Levels 0, 1, and 2—because the M starts out too low), and I most highly recommend those that start with a higher M. In my book, I do not use the term “M,” but if you look at my recommendations and follow the math, you will see that the best tournaments for fast play have relatively gentle blind structures and start with a high M, their only drawback being the fast blind levels.

During the first hour, in this Friday night Orleans tourney, the blind levels will go up every 15 minutes. At the end of one hour, we will be entering blind level 5. Consider what would happen to our chip stack if we did not play a hand during the first hour. Assuming we have gone through the blinds three times, or about once every 20 minutes, we will have lost only about $125 paying the blinds, reducing our starting chip stack to $1500.

But what has happened to our M in this hour? With $1500 in chips, and the blinds now at $30-$60, our M—just from paying the blinds three times, never getting involved in a hand—has gone down from a healthy green 65 to 16.67, well into the yellow zone. Furthermore, if we go through the blinds just one more time at their new level, our M will immediately drop to less than 10, into the orange zone.

And, when you hit the orange zone, you will unfortunately be hitting it exactly at the same time that the majority of other players in the tournament begin to realize they’re in trouble. At the same time as you start speeding up your strategy (loosening your playing and calling requirements), they will be speeding up their strategy, and you will be forced into confrontations in which lucky cards rule.

Contrary to slow tournament theory, where there really is an optional “survival” period and there is an understandable logic to not risking involvement when your (and everyone else’s) M is high, in fast tournaments the single best time to take risks is during this stage of the tournament when all of your opponents are primarily concerned with survival. With a high M, you can afford the risks. If someone plays back at you, you usually know they have a good hand (unless it happens to be a player like me or Worldclass or BigA/K), and you can get out of the way cheaply if necessary. This is the easiest time to read players’ hands.

Regarding Mason’s concern about my “suicidal” basic strategy advice to call a standard raise from the button with any two cards, note that my book specifies (p 158) that this strategy is not advised if you only have 30 big blinds or less in your stack. With more than 30 big blinds, I’ve found this play to be very profitable. There are so many players in fast tournaments who give up the lead in betting if the flop does not hit them, or looks scary to them, or who can be driven out with a raise during their green zone period when they are not desperate for chips, that I have found this to be one of the most profitable steals to make. And, note that I say that every play, including those I consider to be basic strategy plays, should be adjusted for the actual opponent you are facing.

In a slower tournament, you have more time to wait for premium hands and situations if you choose to. Let’s assume the same $1625 in starting chips, and the exact same Orleans blind structure, but with 60-minute levels. Our assumption here is again that we will go through the blinds every 20 minutes. With this structure, our M again starts at 65, and if we sit for an hour without playing a hand, our M will have gone down from 65 to about 52—still well within the green zone—and if we sit for another 20 minutes without playing a hand, going through the blinds once more, our M would still be at about 51, still nowhere near the yellow zone, let alone the orange zone.

If you enter that Orleans Friday or Saturday night tournament feeling like you can sit back and wait for premium hands because you’ve got an M of 65, you’re like a coach assuming he’s got a full 60 minutes to play his running game. In reality, you don’t have time for that running game. You have to go with the passing game. If you start out waiting for premium hands in a fast tournament, the vast majority of the time you will not get the cards you need to make the money you need to keep up with the rising blinds, and you will be at the mercy of luck within the first 60-90 minutes.

And, at any time during a fast tournament when your chip stack enters what Harrington calls his green zone due to winning a big pot or two, you are making a mistake if you revert to playing as conservatively as he advises for his green zone strategy. You can be more selective than the desperate stacks, but you can never give up your aggression. Those blinds and antes will just keep moving up too fast.

I don’t want you to think that I am refuting anything that Harrington says in his book. He does not address fast blind structures in HOHII. I’m saying that for the M formula to be accurate for any tournament, it would have to include modifiers for blind structure and field size. (Your point, Mason, about the speed of play in the later stages of the WPT tournaments, is due to the increased field sizes we’re seeing these days. A few years back, when these tournaments had much smaller fields, their blind structures did not make the final tables such a crapshoot.)

To sum it up, to play according to M without an adjustment for tournament speed will put you in the position of a coach playing according to a normal football game structure when in fact he only has one quarter to win. Plays that would be suicidal in a slow format are simple basic strategy plays in a fast format. And, some of the easiest players to exploit with fast play are those who are playing as if the overall tournament speed didn’t matter.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

I wanted to take a moment and thank Arnold and Mason for comenting in public.

Arnold I look at you book in B&N for the first time today and passed it over thinking "Here's some Lamo writting another Poker book" Now I can tell you I will pick up your book. I like the what you have written here and I like how you presented you ideas. You could have let this become personal instead the discussion was about ideas. I like that.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, I wasn't sure about this....

The cards in cards vs. chips are much better cards than the cards in position vs. cards....correct?

Yet, I don't see a reason why they would be different. I would think everything would be pretty much constant as far as a concept goes.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I understand your question correctly, jackaaron, the answer is yes, my contention is you need better cards to go up against a big stack, even in position, than you need to go up against a normal stack in position, even when that normal stack is in front of a player who is indicating he probably has good cards.

A big chip stack can afford more risks, meaning a big stack can afford to play back at you or call you with lesser cards. If he has any legitimate hand, even a good draw, he is less likely to go away. If you have great cards, that makes him a great opponent because he's often more likely to double you up.

When you are playing position versus good cards against an opponent who has a relatively normal chip stack, however, your cards don't matter. My contention is that his good cards out of position will more often not be strong enough to continue in the hand against aggressive betting from a player who has position on him. To quote from Chapter 25 of my book, "...instead of waiting for the luck of good cards to bet, bet against your opponents' luck." You are on sound mathematical ground with these types of position plays against modest chip stacks that will feel threatened by your raises, because really strong hands are few and far between after the flop, and most players will fold more marginal hands when they're out of position. The nuts are rare.

In the book, I also clarify that the speed of the tournament dictates the frequency with which you will make plays like these, and there is also specific advice on the types of players that you should be confronting (and avoiding) with these types of plays. I don't want any players in here to just start using these plays without that foundation of understanding. The book is 350 pages, and I can only explain so much in a post.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

This is good. I was thinking of trying to put together an example using the same cards, same stacks, etc, just switching them around to show how each part of the r/p/s wins, but I'm in the middle of a VERY fast 10k entrant tourney w/8300 chips, and 50/100 blinds, and I'm not even in the top 350 stacks.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

[ QUOTE ]
In fast tournaments you may not see a premium hand before you're blinded out or forced into an all-in with a less than premium hand due to having a low M.

[/ QUOTE ]

And therefore you adjust your strategy because your M is low. You don't adjust it because of tournament speed.

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Hi Arnold:

[ QUOTE ]
A player in a fast tournament whose M is in Harrington’s green zone at the start, and who plays according to slow tournament green zone strategies, will similarly find himself suddenly out of time, just as if he were in a football game that he suddenly discovered had only one quarter of play.


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No, and the football analogy is flat wrong. Furthermore, it happens all the time when the score is tied in the fourth quarter. Good coaches won't deviate from their game plan. In fact, many of them will concentrate on being conservative since they believe that not making mistakes is often the key to winning.

What happens in a fast tournament, is players frequently and quickly move out of the green zone (towards red). Thus they should no longer use green zone strategies because they are no longer in the green zone.

A major point of Harrington II is that many players wait too long (and let their M drop too low before they begin to accelerate their strategy). But it has nothing to do with how quickly the blinds/antes are being raised.

If your M is above 20, according to Harrington and Robertie, you play one way. If your M drops under 20, you play another way. If your M drops under 10, you make more adjustments. And if your M drops under 5, you play even faster. Furthermore, they give an example starting on page 142 of playing when your M is well within the red zone, and notice that in this example there is no mention of how quickly the blinds are being raised.

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in fast tournaments the single best time to take risks is during this stage of the tournament when all of your opponents are primarily concerned with survival

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But this happens in virtually all tournaments. I wrote many years ago in my Gambling Theory book to "take advantage of tight play" and that "You don't win tournaments you steal them." The best tournament players do this all the time. But again it has nothing to do with how fast the blinds/antes are going up. If you notice your opponents are afraid to play, you take advantage of that.

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Regarding Mason’s concern about my “suicidal” basic strategy advice to call a standard raise from the button with any two cards, note that my book specifies (p 158) that this strategy is not advised if you only have 30 big blinds or less in your stack.

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Believe it or not, I'm on page 157. But it's clear to me that "The Chip Strategy" completely replaces what came earlier.

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Regarding Mason’s concern about my “suicidal” basic strategy advice to call a standard raise from the button with any two cards, note that my book specifies (p 158) that this strategy is not advised if you only have 30 big blinds or less in your stack. With more than 30 big blinds, I’ve found this play to be very profitable. There are so many players in fast tournaments who give up the lead in betting if the flop does not hit them, or looks scary to them, or who can be driven out with a raise during their green zone period when they are not desperate for chips, that I have found this to be one of the most profitable steals to make.

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But this is a function of your opponents. It's not a function of how fast the blinds are going up. As David Sklansky and Ed Miller show in No Limit Hold 'em: Theory and Practice weak tight opponents in no limit are easy to win a lot of money from.

Now it just may be that many of the players around town who play these smaller buy-in tournaments have these weak-tight tendencies. If that's the case, then you might be able to rob them fairly often. But I guarantee if this same player was in a slow tournament, he would have the same tendencies.

Now I do agree that this tendency might be related to his current M. But that's all I agree with.

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To sum it up, to play according to M without an adjustment for tournament speed will put you in the position of a coach playing according to a normal football game structure when in fact he only has one quarter to win.

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So if the game is tied in the fourth quarter and there are just a few minutes left, you're saying that a good running team should throw the ball long on every play. It seems to me that this is equivalent to still having a fairly good M.

If they were losing -- equivalent to a low M -- then I would agree with you. And if they were winning, -- equivalent to a high M -- I notice the passing teams playing very conservatively and running a lot.

Now this is for everyone. For those of you reading my criticisms don't think that I'm saying The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder is no good. I do believe that it will help the majority of people who read it to preform better in these tournaments because it does frequently recommend the right play in low M situations which many players don't adjust to properly, and these low M situations will frequently occur. But again, tournament speed is a falacious concept. It was first proposed in How to Win at Poker Tournaments by Tom McEvoy which came out in 1985 and was not right then.

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

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No, and the football analogy is flat wrong. Furthermore, it happens all the time when the score is tied in the fourth quarter. Good coaches won't deviate from their game plan.

[/ QUOTE ] - Mason

I think the problem is you both are playing different games and you are both correct...within your own game:

It seems to me that Mason is looking at 60 sec = 1 min; 15 min = 1 quarter; 4 quarters = 60 min (1 game).

In Arnold's football game, time moves like this: 60 sec may = 1 min; but 14 min = the first quarter, 11 min = the second; 7 min = the 3rd and 4 min = the 4th quarter.

Mason is saying that being down 30 - 21 going into the 4th quarter means you have to step it up but not altogether abandon your strong run or option game...though your are down 9 and will need to score twice.

Arnold is saying that you want to go to rather great pains make sure to not allow yourself to get down 30 -21 going into the 4th quarter in the first place. This is because in his football game, you will have a far bigger hole to dig yourself out of as you will have less time to make up the difference. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

----Leavenfish

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Actually, I would say that Arnold is saying that people are gathering advice and reading books for a full 4 quarter game, and realizing (in the last few minutes) that the game they're in is only 1 quarter.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Guys, thanks for a great thread. I hope the discussion between Messrs. Malmuth and Snyder continues until we have consensus, because I really want to understand both positions.

Barry Greenstein says, "Tournament poker is a lottery with better odds and an element of skill." I hope to do what I can to increase the gap between skill and luck. I like the concept of "betting against their luck" which Mr. Snyder says. Anything that reduces the amount of luck needed and increases the edge in skill is +EV to me.

Funny, after years and playing in hundreds of tournaments, I never thought of a coin flip situation as coming down to luck. duh You think you know a lot... The fewer times you put yourself in this situation, the better, therefore, playing the player not the cards becomes even more important.

From reading this thread, I think Mr. Snyder is making an important contribution to my continuing education, as is Mason is getting him here and clarifying.

nh, sirs

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

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For those who don't know, Snyder is one of the foremost authorities in blackjack

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He certainly is, and I owe much of my black jack success to him, thanks Arnold for your books and other work.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

Thank you to Mason and all for the opportunity to make some clarifications.

Success in fast tournaments is not primarily about exploiting weak/tight players. And my book shows mathematically and in great detail why it is not primarily about playing according to the current size of your chip stack relative to the current blinds/antes. It is about making enough money during the portions of the tournament where you have the greatest control over your results to go into the crapshoot portions of a tournament with an advantage. Every fast tournament (and very many slow tournaments with large field sizes) turns into a crapshoot at a very predictable point in the tournament, which my book shows players how to predict.

If you play Harrington’s conservative green zone strategy during the first hour of the Orleans Friday night tournament, when your current stack is in the green zone, you have only 30 hands to make money with conservative play. When you have time to read The Poker Tournament Formula, you will see that I show mathematically that you cannot expect to make enough money on premium cards and position during those 30 hands to have an advantage once the crapshoot starts in that second hour. You cannot count on having weak/tight players at your table, and even if you could, you could not make enough money from them during three rounds of conservative strategy to position yourself to have an advantage in the crapshoot portion of the tournament.

One chapter in my book that is particularly relevant to this discussion is the rebuy chapter, which I don’t think you’ve read yet. The rebuy chapter shows the underlying math behind the value of a big stack in a luck-based tournament, or luck-based portion of a tournament. Essentially, what the chapter proves is that a player going into a crapshoot with a small stack is doomed to lose in the long run to a player who goes into a crapshoot with a big stack.

Optimal tournament strategy requires analysis of the overall structure of a tournament to figure out if and when the tournament will become a crapshoot. The point where the tournament will become a crapshoot is determined by the blind structure and the field size (which determine the speed). Optimal strategy requires anticipation of this time and recognition of the fact that you have to use strategies that will earn you enough chips to give you an advantage when you enter the crapshoot period.

Regarding Mason's concern that the book’s chip strategy “completely replaces” the position strategy, Mason, I’m not sure I understand your point. I say in my chapter on the basic strategy of position play that the basic strategy will often be altered as a result of your cards and/or chip position. In the chapter on cards, I show how cards alter the position strategy, and in the chapter on chips, I show how chip stack alters both your position and card strategies. This is more or less analogous to a blackjack card counter who alters his basic strategy based on the cards that have been dealt and the level of penetration into the shoe. Chip strategy doesn’t completely replace position strategy, but may override it at particular times that are clearly defined in the book.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

LOL You got me considering actually reading Tom McEvoy's original tournament book which I got from the library discard section a few weeks ago.

I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M
 

I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M in this discussion.

In one sense, M is a formula. "Formula M" is your chip stack divided by the cost of a round. If I am reading Mason correctly, he is insisting that correct poker tournament strategy, regardless of tournament speed, is to always play according to Harrington's "Formula M." He specifically states, in the football analogy, that a good coach just sticks to his game no matter what.

But M has an underlying logic that is sometimes in conflict with "Formula M." Harrington puts it very well on p. 132 of Harrington on Hold'em II, where he says: "Another way of looking at M is to see it as a measure of just how likely you are to get a better hand in a better situation, with a reasonable amount of money left."

When you're in a situation where "Formula M" is declining particularly rapidly due to tournament structure, as in the Orleans Friday night tournament, Harrington's "Formula M" is a false measure, because it no longer indicates how likely you are to get a better hand in a better situation, with a reasonable amount of money left.

Arnold's insight is that tournament structure can require a recalibrating of Harrington's "Formula M" to keep it true to the underlying logic of M. His book provides not only this insight, and the proof to back it up, but detailed information on how to recalibrate "Formula M" for fast tournaments.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

I have not read your book, but from what I have read here your ideas appear to miss the point.

Poker is a wagering game. Every time it’s your turn you are giving an option to place a wager. If its +EV you make the wager you take it otherwise you don’t. That’s is not much else to poker.

Short stack tournament situations are all about getting your whole stack in with the best of it. Once the M’s get down below 7 the games is virtually solvable, and I assume that many people have already approximately solved it.

You gain over others in these ‘crap shoots’ in two ways.

1) By failing to get your stack in when you are not getting the right money odds.
2) Your opponents missing profitable opportunities to get their stack in with good money odds in situations, which you would not miss.

It’s not all luck, it just might appear that way.

There are four factors to take into consideration, your cards, the stack sizes, your position and the range of hands your opponents are playing. None of these factors should take presidency over the others. The speed of the tournament is irrelevant. You can usually treat each hand in isolation.

Most of the time you can use the approximation that chipEV = Money EV, with some exceptions.

At the final table or with over 10% of the tournament chips ICM reasoning takes precedence. As a rough guide play about 50-70% tighter with an average stack, play ChipEV=moneEV poker with the smallest or largest stack, even looser with a very large stack in situations when you can knock someone out. Play with ‘Sit and Go Power tools’ to get a better feel.

Ask your self what use you can put your time if you get knocked out of the tournament. If you’re a significantly better than average player and you will not be able to play at a similar level if you get knocked out, you might want to tighten up a little as you get down to the last few tables. There was article in the 2+2 magazine a little while ago putting numbers on this effect.

If you have an M around 1-3, you’re in danger of being blinded out. Going all in in the big blind is a very bad bet, you should play slightly more loosely before this happens to reduce its likely hood. E.g. UTG with an M of 3, I might treat this as an M of 2.5 for purposes of selecting a pushing range.

During the rebuy period, if you are significantly better than average player you should loosen up in situations where you could get busted. Each time you rebuy you are getting to buy chips at a significant discount. Just don’t overestimate your ability.

Remember the all in hand races is the backbone of poker. There is an illusion people have that they can somehow escape the race effect by superior play even in low M situations. They can’t, and not only because they are usually overestimating their ability.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

"The speed of the tournament is irrelevant. You can usually treat each hand in isolation."

I haven't read the book either. I've only lightly browsed it. My understanding is that what Snyder is trying to convey is that not only should you NOT treat each hand in isolation, you must NOT treat each betting limit in isolation either. He seems to be looking at the dynamic RELATIONSHIPS between each betting limit rather than looking at each betting limit in isolation and optimizing strategy to a particular betting limit. Whether or not this is a correct way to view these things will probably be a subject of great debate in these forums in the months to come.

BTW, Mason has reviewed 4 of the Bishop's blackjack books and has given two of them a perfect 10, and the other two a 9. But game playing is game playing and Snyder has proven that he is a great thinker when it comes to game playing. Maybe, just maybe, he has a point.

I'm buying his book within the next few days.

Re: I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M
 

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I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M in this discussion.

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Mason is failing to acknowledge that the M for any given stack size changes not only with increasing antes/blinds but also with how quickly those antes/blinds go up. How can he deny tournament speed is important when how long any given stack size stays in any given zone (without playing a hand) depends upon tournament speed? Mason was wrong twenty years ago and is wrong now. There is a obvious correlation between tournament speed and M. M depends upon the antes/blinds, which in turn increase depending upon the tournament structure, either quickly or slowly. To say that tournament speed determines how you play a stack size is technically incorrect because M determines that but M itself is dependent upon tournament speed. Superficially, M appears to do away with tournament speed because tournament speed need not be mentioned when explaining M. Indeed, it is possible as Harrington has shown to write really worthwhile additions to poker literature without mentioning tournament speed just as books on learning to drive do not mention the laws of mechanics.

Re: I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M
 

i don't see what tornament speed has to do with it.
no matter how fast it is, whilst in the green zone you play green zone strategy. taking extremes suppose tornament speed was very very very fast, but the starting stack was sufficent to last the first hour and still be in the green zone. no way are you going to play any other way than green zone stragtgy no matter how fast tornamnet speed right?

ESSENTIALLY your M dictates your strategy, NOT tornament speed as the following demonstrates.
suppose i am in orange zone, but the blinds double up next hand putting me in red zone. obviously i will still play orange zone strategy and not red.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

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Poker is a wagering game. Every time it’s your turn you are giving an option to place a wager. If its +EV you make the wager you take it otherwise you don’t. That’s is not much else to poker.

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Absolutely true. +EV in a tournament is making the decisions that give you the best chance of making it in the money and, often more importantly, making it deep. I don't think anything in the book contridicts this with the exception of the section on chopping at the final table that has already been mentioned.

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Short stack tournament situations are all about getting your whole stack in with the best of it. Once the M’s get down below 7 the games is virtually solvable, and I assume that many people have already approximately solved it.

You gain over others in these ‘crap shoots’ in two ways.

1) By failing to get your stack in when you are not getting the right money odds.
2) Your opponents missing profitable opportunities to get their stack in with good money odds in situations, which you would not miss.

It’s not all luck, it just might appear that way.


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If you get your whole stack in as a 55/45 favorite 5 times in a row what is your chance of surviving? One premise of the book is that you have to build your stack early so that in the end game you can absorb some beats when you're the favorite which will happen.

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There are four factors to take into consideration, your cards, the stack sizes, your position and the range of hands your opponents are playing. None of these factors should take presidency over the others. The speed of the tournament is irrelevant. You can usually treat each hand in isolation.

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You have to make your decision based on the situation. Part of the situation is all the factors you've described. I disagree that no factor takes precedence over the other. Instead blending all of the factors into your decision and deciding on the relative importance of each at that specific point is what's needed. Here's an extreme example. It's folded to you in the small blind. A case could be made that you could (maybe should) attempt a blind steal with any 2 cards. However if it's been folded to you the last 2 times you were in the SB and you've stolen from the BB each time you might not want to do this with a weak holding since he's probably looking for a chance to play back at you (no longer considering each hand in isolation). If you haven't stolen from him in this situation lately it makes more sense. But what if the BB is all in or only has 1 BB left. Stack size now take on increased importance. Now you might not want to raise with any 2 because you're virtually guaranteed to be called.


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At the final table or with over 10% of the tournament chips ICM reasoning takes precedence. As a rough guide play about 50-70% tighter with an average stack, play ChipEV=moneEV poker with the smallest or largest stack, even looser with a very large stack in situations when you can knock someone out. Play with ‘Sit and Go Power tools’ to get a better feel.

Ask your self what use you can put your time if you get knocked out of the tournament. If you’re a significantly better than average player and you will not be able to play at a similar level if you get knocked out, you might want to tighten up a little as you get down to the last few tables. There was article in the 2+2 magazine a little while ago putting numbers on this effect.

If you have an M around 1-3, you’re in danger of being blinded out. Going all in in the big blind is a very bad bet, you should play slightly more loosely before this happens to reduce its likely hood. E.g. UTG with an M of 3, I might treat this as an M of 2.5 for purposes of selecting a pushing range.

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Nothing in the book contridicts any of this. The premise is that you need to get to the "crapshoot" with more chips and taking a "wait for premium cards" approach in the early going gives you no chance of going deep when the premium cards don't come and you've got very little time until the blinds start eating you alive.


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During the rebuy period, if you are significantly better than average player you should loosen up in situations where you could get busted. Each time you rebuy you are getting to buy chips at a significant discount. Just don’t overestimate your ability.

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As I remember it the section on the impact of rebuys and playing in the rebuy period coincides with convential 2+2 wisdom and doesn't contridict anything you're saying here.

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Remember the all in hand races is the backbone of poker. There is an illusion people have that they can somehow escape the race effect by superior play even in low M situations. They can’t, and not only because they are usually overestimating their ability.

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You're right. To go deep or win you're going to be racing. As mentioned above it is just better to be racing with the larger chip stack.

Re: I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M
 

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i don't see what tornament speed has to do with it.
no matter how fast it is, whilst in the green zone you play green zone strategy. taking extremes suppose tornament speed was very very very fast, but the starting stack was sufficent to last the first hour and still be in the green zone. no way are you going to play any other way than green zone stragtgy no matter how fast tornamnet speed right?

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What you're describing is right, except this wouldn't be a fast tournament by Snyder's definition and thus his ideas don't apply. The speed of a tournament is measured by the amount of time it would take to get blinded out without playing any hands. It takes into account the length of the blinds, the actual amount of the blinds, and the starting stacks. The blinds could go up by 2 chips every hand and given a sufficiently deep starting stack still be considered slow by Snyder's definition (and therefore one where he'd say the strategy outlined in his book wouldn't be applicable).

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ESSENTIALLY your M dictates your strategy, NOT tornament speed as the following demonstrates.
suppose i am in orange zone, but the blinds double up next hand putting me in red zone. obviously i will still play orange zone strategy and not red.

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I assume this is a quote from HOHII - where is it? In any case the comments others have made about M being a measure of how long you've got to wait for a playable hand is the key. In the section on short handed tables HOHII introduces the concept of "effective M." In effect this indicates that if you have an M of 12 (yellow zone) that your M is adjusted to 6 (orange zone) if you're at a 5 handed table or 4 (red zone) if you're at a 3 handed table. On page 277 Harrington says "M is designed to tell you how long your stack will last until it is blinded away." In the next paragraph he says "clearly you need to make an adjustment to M as the table size decreases." The tournaments Harrington plays in have extremely long blinds (say 1 to 1.5 hours) and each level there will be several orbits before the blinds go up. But consider the difference between 1/2 hour blinds and 10 minute blinds in a live tournament. In the first you're likely to get 2-3 orbits per level. In the second the blinds are likely to go up each time you go through them (as I mentioned in another post in this thread I played one such tournament where the blinds were to level 2 before I went through them the first time). I believe that making adjustments based on tournament speed is no different than adjustments for short handed tables - it just reflects the reality that impact of the blinds is going to happen more rapidly - you're going to be able to play less hands before you'll be blinded out. As another poster indicates, just because Harrington didn't address it doesn't mean it's wrong.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

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If you get your whole stack in as a 55/45 favorite 5 times in a row what is your chance of surviving? One premise of the book is that you have to build your stack early so that in the end game you can absorb some beats when you're the favorite which will happen.


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Varies, but after you have won your first low M all in you will typically be the larger stack next time. If you don’t make 55/45 moves when short stacked what is your chance of surviving?

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One premise of the book is that you have to build your stack early so that in the end game you can absorb some beats when you're the favourite which will happen.


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This is what I don’t like, its nice to build your stack early, but the important thing is to consistently make +EV decisions. All else is waffle.

Maybe it is just semantics but the imperative (HAVE TO build your stack EARLY) seems to suggest you should be making –EV plays early in order to build your stack if +EV situations do not appear. This is what I have difficult accepting. If this is not is what is meant, why put the emphasis on building your stack, when it should be on maximising your EV? It seems like confusing doubletalk to me.

However there is one point in favour of this argument. Some people find they are better at playing with certain stack sizes. For them there might be an argument for biasing marginal decisions in favour of results that increase the chance of playing with the preferred stack size.

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You have to make your decision based on the situation. Part of the situation is all the factors you've described. I disagree that no factor takes precedence over the other. Instead blending all of the factors into your decision and deciding on the relative importance of each at that specific point is what's needed. Here's an extreme example. ……. size now take on increased importance. Now you might not want to raise with any 2 because you're virtually guaranteed to be called.


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You appear to be agreeing with my statement you quoted while claiming to disagree with it. When I said none of the four factors took precedence, I did not mean on each hand they were all equally important. On each hand one or two of the factors will often be irrelevant and sometimes one factor will supersede all others. However over a course of a fast structure tournament all four factors will be equally important in your decision-making.

The impression I have got, which may be wrong because I have not read the book only this thread, is that the author is a bit confused but a large part of what he advises ends up being ok.

Re: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...
 

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I haven't read the book either. I've only lightly browsed it. My understanding is that what Snyder is trying to convey is that not only should you NOT treat each hand in isolation, you must NOT treat each betting limit in isolation either. He seems to be looking at the dynamic RELATIONSHIPS between each betting limit rather than looking at each betting limit in isolation and optimizing strategy to a particular betting limit.

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This is why I think he is confused. Although it is possable he is being missquoted.