The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[jackaaron]

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Does it make any sense? (refer to my previous post.

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I am going to be the bad one and say that it is difficult to read your posts. I'm unsure if it is your inability to type (and then correct your typing mistakes), or if English is not your primary language. Either way, I'm sure you have something to offer the thread, it's just, you have to find a way of expressing it better.

[Mickey Brausch]

Disclosure of a personal stake or potential conflict of interest in cases such as this review is necessary and if the interested party won't make it, others should.

It's not much of a secret that Radar O' Reilly is the handle used by Snyder's wife. She is also his biggest fan.

They are both terrific persons, by the way, and the Snyder book is a must-have.

Mickey Brausch

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Mickey:

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It's not much of a secret that Radar O' Reilly is the handle used by Snyder's wife. She is also his biggest fan.


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Thanks for the information. It explains a lot.

Best wishes,
Mason

[JackCase]

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Disclosure of a personal stake or potential conflict of interest in cases such as this review is necessary and if the interested party won't make it, others should.

It's not much of a secret that Radar O' Reilly is the handle used by Snyder's wife. She is also his biggest fan.


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Major credibility faux pas! I sense drama on the horizon.

[alegendaryplayer]

English it not my primary language. And my writing skills pretty bad. So please correct my mistakes, it will be helpful for me. And I get to learn to write better.

The key is that my theory is a develoment of Harringtons conservative M theory.(When you play conservative in Green Zone) As Harrinton state in is book, where you should take some risk staying in the green zone. What I am saying is when it proper to do this. And that is when it ain't enough time left of the level for the player to matematicly expect one of the consertative starting hands will come within the level and the next level will put you out of the green zone and reducing your skill. Ask questions and i will give it another try.

[Mason Malmuth]

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Mason and Piers keep reiterating an assertion that tournament speed has no effect on strategy choices.

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So let's say I'm on the button with a small pair and no one else is in. In a slow tournament you're saying this might be a call, but it is definitely a raise in a fast tournament. I'm saying that if the Ms are high, it might be a call since this gives you a better chance of winning all the chips, but if the Ms are low, it becomes a clear raise. Notice that in my case, the Ms are usually going to be low in the fast tournament. But just in case they are not, your advice is not to be a fully functional poker player.

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But the minute a conservative style is a viable option with one structure, and not a viable option with a different tournament structure, their assertion is wrong.

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But a conservative or Green Zone style is a viable option with both structures (and Green Zone style doesn't have to be conservative). For some reason you're assuming its not and then are arguing your conclusion as the correct answer. I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way.

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Specifically, what Arnold is saying is that while you can use either conservative or fast strategy in a slow event, fast tournament structures require that you abandon conservative strategies in order to stay in the green zone.

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I suspect that Arnold would be a little embarrassed by this statement. Let's say you have a lot of chips and an opponent has a lot of chips. Furthermore, let's say that if you play conservatively, you might win the pot less often, but have a better chance of getting all his chips. Wouldn't that strategy give you a better chance of staying in the Green Zone?

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1. They have to show mathematically that fast play will not more frequently keep you in the green zone in fast tournaments than conservative play.


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If you're in a tournament stituation where fast play is more likely to keep you in the Green Zone, then I agree, go ahead and play fast. But you're saying that in these so called fast-tournaments fast play will always be best. So for me to prove you wrong, all I need is one counter example. It's in my first comment above.

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2. They have to show that Arnold's math is wrong in Chapter 10 of The Poker Tournament Formula, where he shows the mathematical basis of the edge a big chip stack has over a small chip stack in a tournament.


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This is just a silly statement. I really don't think that anyone here believes (or anyone for that manner) that having a small stack is superior than having a big stack. If that was the case, people would be trying to get broke, not accumulate chips.

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3. They have to show that you are not limited in your skill options when you sink below the green zone.


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But you are limited in your skill options when you sink below the Green Zone. That was the whole point of all those pages in Harrington II.

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I have to tell you, this is absurd. A long run advantage is based on playing with an advantage. You play with the biggest advantage if you are a fully functional poker player--that is, in the green zone--and in order to stay in the green zone in fast tournaments, you have to choose a strategy that will keep you there.

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Sorry Radar, but I like to give counter-examples. It goes back to my career as a professional statistician. Suppose you are under the gun with an M of exactly 20 and you are dealt the 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. The only strategy that will keep you in the Green Zone is one that has you playing this hand. But that doesn't mean you should do so, and this would be true no matter what the tournament speed is.

On the other hand, if your M was 3, then the best play just might be to move all in. Notice that tournament speed has no impact here either.

MM

[DrPhysic]

Mason,

I understand what you are saying, but I still have a question. As an example, a Stars R&A tournament that starts with 1500 chips. Immediate rebuy to $3k, of course. At the end of the hour you have done well and have 10000 to 15000 chips. You are not a runaway tournament leader, but you are in the top few. As the tournament goes on, the value of the chips goes down. We know that. But the addon is 2000 chips for the same price, so you are getting a better price on the chips which may agree with the discounted value of the chips you already have. Does this not make the addon an acceptable investment to give you a bit more insurance in your stack size going into the second hour when the tournament really starts?

Doc [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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You seem to like to twist the facts.

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his first posts about the book, where he called the book a confused version of Harrington's M, Mason

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I didn't say that.

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My response to Mason on this point:

In your first comment on The Poker Tournament Formula, you state: “I agree that it is a very confused work.”

In your post of 8/4/06, in response to my statement: “[The Poker Tournament Formula] is the first and only book to show that the strategies provided by Harrington, Cloutier, and the rest of the literature are incorrect for fast tournaments, and suboptimal for slow tournaments made fast in later stages by field size”, you say “this is all addressed in Harrington II: The Endgame.”

In response to my statement: [The Poker Tournament Formula] provides a radically different playing strategy than Harrington, Cloutier, and the rest of the literature for any point in a fast tournament where a player has a competitive chip stack. It also shows how to alter this strategy as tournament structure is altered,” you say: “…even Arnold himself told me that the advice was very similar to what was in Harrington II.”

In response to my statement: “[The Poker Tournament Formula] is the first and only book in the poker tournament literature to provide the mathematical foundation for the value of a big chip stack,” you say: “Again, back to Harrington II.”

I believe I have made my case that you are trying to misrepresent this book as a confused rehash of Harrington.

In response to my statement, "I read the 1985 McEvoy book you cited as the first book to address the effects of structure on optimal strategy. McEvoy wrote less than a paragraph on this issue," Mason says "That's not true. He has whole chapters on slow actio, medium-action, and fast action tournaments, as well as table in the back."

My response: For those who wish to follow this argument, you can find McEvoy's 2005 treatment of this subject in How to Win No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments, by Don Vines and Tom McEvoy. There is no chart in the 2005 edition of this work.

McEvoy's treatment of proper strategy for Fast-Action Tournaments is three pages (which Mason calls chapters), starting on p. 264. He gives the following opinion on p. 264: "The length of the betting rounds should have an impact on your tournament strategy. The shorter the rounds, the faster you need to play; the longer the rounds, the more solid you can play." Then he spends two paragraphs describing what he means by fast-action, medium-action, and slow-action tournaments.

Unfortunately, this treatment is an opinion, not a case. And, in the three pages he spends on fast-action tournaments, he doesn't go on to make a case. Instead, he provides description (p. 265): "The play in fast-action events is fast and furious, especially if rebuys are allowed." He quotes a player who says he likes to find a hand to double up on in the first pot he plays. He restates his opinion on how to play fast tournaments: "You have to be willing to mix up your play and do some gambling in a fast-action rebuy tournament." It becomes unclear whether he is talking only about rebuy tournaments, or all fast tournaments, because he then spends the rest of the section talking about the feel of rebuy events. That is it. End of the section on fast-action tournament strategy.

By contrast, The Poker Tournament Formula provides a detailed basic strategy based on changing factors of chips, cards and position in relation to each other. The book provides the mathematical basis for the opinion of Arnold Snyder (and Tom McEvoy, Phil Gordon and others) that it is essential to play fast in fast tournaments. The Poker Tournament Formula is a 350 page, mathematically based case that structure alters optimal strategy.

McEvoy was dead right in his opinion, and I believe he was the first to publish this opinion. He definitely deserves credit for that, and I do not mean to detract from that. The problem is that when you express only an opinion, rather than making a case, you leave your readers up in the air when they read conflicting opinions. How do you know whose opinion is right? Arnold Snyder was aware of the conflicting opinions about the effects of structure on optimal poker tournament strategy, and he takes pains to make the case that only one of the opinions is right.

By the way, McEvoy goes on to provide less than two pages (which, again, Mason calls a chapter) on his treatment of Medium-Action Tournaments. His strategy for these events is on p. 268: "In medium-action events, you should play straightforward poker without getting too tricky. Your goal is to increase your chip position each round as quickly, yet as safely, as possible." He goes on to provide two sentences that say your opponents will be more advanced in these tournaments than in fast-action tournaments. Then he spends three sentences advising you to try to get a line on your opponents, to take advantage of their mistakes, and use good judgment. He spends a paragraph advising you to be careful when playing weak aces. Then he reiterates his opening statement.

In no way does this catalog of platitudes equate to the treatment of this subject in The Poker Tournament Formula.

To return to Mason's comments, in response to my statement:"[The Poker Tournament Formula] is the only serious mathematically based discussion in the literature of optimal rebuy strategy" and Mason's response: "That's not true. Most of this was originally written up almost 20 years ago," I asked Mason to provide where this was written 20 years ago. He replies: "I'm not going to tell you. Normally I would, but after accusing me of misleading our readers you're just going to have to find it yourself."

My response to Mason is: No, I'm not going to have to find it myself. You have to provide it, or your readers have to assume that you cannot prove your assertion.

To my other points, Mason simply repeats:

"Again I'm not going to tell you. Find it yourself."

My response again is: You cannot provide such a source because it does not exist.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi DrPhysic:

Because of the discount it's probably correct to make the purchase.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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I am quite interested in this discussion and am so intrigued by the main question under discussion here that I don't have an opinion about it, but I know that this is wrong...in every tournament I've ever played (thousands of stts, hundreds of multis), you can see people making this mistake all the time. In general, they are not aggressive enough when they push and not tight enough when they call. In order for the tournament to truly be a crapshoot, these players would have to be playing correctly in these situations, and the fact is simply that they are not.

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You are right that there is skill involved in knowing that you have to get your chips in there, even on weaker hands, once you are in the orange and red zones. But the amount of skill involved is not sufficient to overcome the advantage a big stack has over you at this point.

And you are right that you can get a bit of an edge, even when you are short, over players who sit there waiting for a hand until their last chip goes into the blinds. But you are going to be competing for those chips with the players sitting behind the big stacks.

Also, when you allow yourself to get short, you are essentially forcing yourself to play like a bad player. You are forced to play like an ace master, getting all your money into the pot with any ace, from any position, or like a pair master, putting your tournament life on the line with any pair. And you don't have the chips to do anything to get an edge with these hands. You can't slowplay people. You can't reraise people. You can't call to the end and then scare them off. Your skill options have been stripped away from you.

Many players in this thread seem to think that playing a correct orange or red zone strategy gives them a magical protection from the consequences of playing the types of hands they are afraid to play while they're in the green zone. But there is no magical protection. You're still going to be at a ten-player table, and all the good hands you fear are still going to be out there, in the hands of your opponents. The only difference is that you don't have sufficient chips to use a full set of poker skills. That means you are at the mercy of the cards you are dealt. You can't play the man, you can only play the hand.

When you rely on a strategy that will tend to make you short, you may have some edge over worse players who routinely get equally short. But you will be giving up the biggest edges. You will be passing up dollars to play for pennies.