[Piers]

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.