[Worldclass]

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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:

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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.

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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

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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.