Daniel Negreneau Verifies His Agreement With Me

[David Sklansky]

When I bumped into Daniel at the Bellagio today I double checked with him about his view on gambling high proportions of his stack (without a big edge) early in a no limit holdem tournament. And of course he was against the idea, for him and all excellent players. Just as I said he would be.

I think the reason beginners and players with weak reading comprehension skills are under the incorrect impression that Daniel disagrees with me on this subject is that when I say to avoid big confrontations early, they incorrectly translate that into "play tight", and when Daniel writes that he "plays loose" they incorrectly assume that he means for big money as well as small.

Yes Daniel is an advocate of trying to build your stack up early. But only by playing "small ball" for the most part. With weak players starting the tournament, good players should get involved in a lot of pots if they can get in cheaply. And they should take small risks to double or triple their stacks in the first few rounds. Some pros don't do that and Daniel and I agree that they are wrong. But we also agree that if you have tripled that starting stack early you have no way tripled your equity if you are a good player. So big gambles with small edges are not part of the game plan.

If you still don't understand, (as apparently Arnold Snyder doesn't), you have no hope.