[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.