Theory Discussion of a Point From "Poker Tournament Formula"

[Piers]

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A key concept explained in HoH is that there are cases where variance is good for you. Specifically, when in the "red zone" with an M less than 5 or so, you want to either get healthy or go broke. Festering at a low M accomplishes nothing and you will not likely survive long enough to get a big enough hand to have a big edge. Hence Harrington advocates getting all-in with almost any two when you can be first in while in the red zone.

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I think you misrepresent low M play. You loosen up because you are seeking EV not variance. As your stack gets shorter the pot odds you are getting on an all in attempt to steal the blinds get better, which means that you can push with progressively weaker hands. A post I made a few years ago explains this Here is how I think you shoud do it

There are a couple of other second order modifications you might make.

The threat of having to make a really bad bet, all in in the big blind, increases the EV of all actions that reduce the chance of you making this bad bet. This effect causes you to play loser pre flop. This increase in EV totaled over all the reaming hands is largely independent on the number of reaming hands. Hence the effect for each individual hand rapidly decreases as the number of hands before you’re blinded off increase. At M=3 it can make a difference, at M>10 I believe it can be safely ignored.

In the small blind and late position, if you get knocked out you loose the chance of getting some free hands. The hands you have in effect paid for by posting the blinds. This reduces the EV of actions in these positions that can get you knocked out. Causing you to play tighter pre flop.

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The question: PTF puts forward a similar concept, namely that in fast MTTs, early variance is good for you (although it's not stated quite that way).

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He seems to not only be saying this, but also that the good effect of early variance dominates all other effects that would temp you to reduce variance.

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You want to get a big stack or get out. PTF says to get aggressive faster in fast tournaments regardless of M, presumably to get that variance. Is this correct?

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There are two points here.

1) Is early variance in a tournament good for you?
2) Is early variance better for you in a fast tournament or a slow one?

The extent to which early variance is good for you or not is a very personal thing, depending critically on the value you place on your time and on how you play poker. If you get knocked out will you be able to use your time usefully or not.

As to whether early variance is better for you in a slow or fast tournament. I would say it’s more important in a slow tournament. I think a good player can more effectively use a big stack in a slow tournament than a fast one, and further getting knocked out of a slow tournament gets more time returned to you to use in other pursuits.


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The Example: To accomplish this, PTF advocates plays such as preflop button calls during early levels with any two - a play that is clearly normally cash-game -EV. However, it is high variance.

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NLHT&P page194 Adjusting to weak tight games. Most tournament players are weak tight so this advice is particularly appropriate. Here DS&EM say against bad enough players you can play 100% of hands on the button, but to drop the worse trash if they have some clue.

Snyder advice would seem to be the same as DS&EM, but DS&EM say do it because its +EV Snyder says do it because you are after variance.

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The positions: There are several positions one could take on what Snyder has to say. I've named the ones I think are of interest for ease of discussion:

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P1 and P3 would both appear to be correct.

Anyone who wants to gain an appreciation of Snyder’s understanding of tournament poker would be advised to check out his articles at blackjsck forum online