[BigAlK]

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However, I feel like a big part of my skill advantage in these is that other people have no idea how to play short stack/pushbot poker. So is it safe to say that in this situation, I only need to take enough risks to accumulate enough chips to make sure I have a playable pushbot stack? In the $6+.50 and $15+1 turbos I just haven't found that my results are impacted that much by my stack size as long as I've got enough chips when the antes kick in to maintain some fold equity...so I basically just need to make sure to increase my stack from 1500 to somewhere between 2000 and 2500 over the first 30 minutes. Assuming that's 30 hands and the blinds hit me every other level, I probably lose about 400 chips to the blinds prior to that, so I would need to find a way to 'win' 900-1400 chips in the first 30 hands to have a big enough stack to pushbot effectively.

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Zoobird,

Short answer is I'm not sure or possibly, as with most poker decisions, "it depends." I'm sure you've already seen A_Plus's response and you and he are more qualified to answer that question. But I'll throw out a few thoughts to consider. Obviously after reading the book you'll be in a a better position to decide how its ideas might apply to you.

The impact of tournament speed is exacerbated by field size. I assume the tournaments you're talking about (based on A_plus' comment) have small fields (30, 45, 100, 180, or ? - not sure what the possibilities on all sites are). Smaller fields would decrease the impact of speed, but obviously the even quicker blind levels in turbo tournaments offset that to some degree. The book discusses how to predict how tournaments will play out based on speed and field size and talks about what Snyder calls "crunch time." This is the point just before everyone realizes that they're short stacked and start getting desperate. Crunch time is when you need to accumulate chips if you haven't already to be able to more safely negotiate the period when everyone becomes desperate. Based on your comment this might be just before the antes kick in for the tournys you play.

Being skilled playing a short stack where you're forced to pushbot is an area that I need to work on more in my game. There will obviously be times when you become short stacked where these skills will be used. However the most perfectly executed short stack strategy carries some risk. Whenever all or most of your stack is at risk in one hand the possibility of someone waking up behind you with a real hand that holds up (or a bad hand that sucks out) always exists.

This point in the tournament is the time that Snyder describes in his book as a "crapshoot." Skillful play of a shortstack helps, but bad luck in cards vs your opponents at this stage could cripple you. One major premise of Snyder's book is to take on slightly more risk to build a chip stack early so you're better equipped to handle a few hits to your stack in the "crapshoot" stage. I suspect in your case that you'll adapt your strategy based on the tradeoffs of early risk vs your comfort with playing a short stack. Mathmatically your're better off with a bigger stack in the "crapshoot" portion of the tournament (Snyder works through why although I'm sure you already know this). However the math behind that assumes skill differential doesn't make a difference. In reality that might not be totally true. You may decide to take less risk early with the goal of building a stack that meets your size requirements for successful pushbotting. Or possibly you'll decide to take more risk early in an attempt to build an even bigger stack based on the knowledge that a bigger stack is always better, but if you fail your superior short stack play may still save the day.

My gut says that for me building as big a stack as I can with reasonable risk is the best approach. It sounds like you don't believe a stack over a certain size makes a difference when you reach the point of most people either folding or pushing. Is this something you've measured? Somewhere (possibly the original thread in the books forum) someone talked about not being comfortable and able to use a big stack so he'd play conservatively (maybe overly so) until he was short stacked. At that point he'd start playing his short stacked game since he was now in his comfort zone. I seriously doubt this applies to you, but is something to consider.

Al