The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[DJSirMatthew]

First of all, thank you for answering Mason.

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Hi DJSirMatthew:

No. Suppose your M will be cut in half in three hands. I agree that you may make an adjustment based on that. But what does that have to do with tournament speed. Three hands is three hands.


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True, three hands is three hands. But isn't it so that in fast tournaments it will happen more frequently for your M to be cut down?

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Harrington II does address this. If your M is 25 and you know that on the next hand it goes to 12 it might be right to make an adjustment. And if your M is 12 and on the next hand it goes to 7 it may be right to make another adjustment. But this can happen in a very slow tournament as well.

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Same response as above: the frequency this situation will occur in a very slow to slow tournament is lower than in a fast tournament?

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I agree that in the red zone it might be correct to move in with a seven-deuce. But it can't be correct to make this same play in the green zone.

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True. I didn't mean to say you should make a move with 7/2o in the Green Zone. My mistake for not being clear.

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A lot of this confusion occurs because, as Harrington II points out, many players are playing tight when they should be somewhat desperate.

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And this is what I meant when saying Arnold might make a useful adjustment to people's play just like Ed did for limit play. Making Dans subtle definition of Green Zone play a bit more clear: it's NOT only waiting for premium hands...

Regards,
DJSirMatthew

[Mason Malmuth]

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True, three hands is three hands. But isn't it so that in fast tournaments it will happen more frequently for your M to be cut down?


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Yes. But so what. It might mean you will be faced with this decision more frequently. But it doesn't mean that you would make this decision any differently.

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And this is what I meant when saying Arnold might make a useful adjustment to people's play just like Ed did for limit play. Making Dans subtle definition of Green Zone play a bit more clear: it's NOT only waiting for premium hands...


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You need to read the chapter on multiple inflection points. Playing in the green zone is not just waiting for premium hands. This is especially true if your opponents are beginning to play too tight.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mason Malmuth]

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"But you should always keep in mind, even in slow tournaments, that anyone who builds a significant early chip lead has a big advantage over anyone with a lesser stack who is playing with equal skill."


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I disagree. If Player A has an M of 20 and Player B has an M of 10, then this is probably correct. But if the Ms were 100 and 50 respectively, I don't think there would be much of an advantage, and you essentially state this in your second paragraph.

Also, and left out of your commments, is what is the price you pay attempting to get that chip lead. If it means you bust out more frequently, it might not be worth it.

Many of the better players today do play a fast small ball strategy trying to get that chip lead. But there are also many imitators who would be much better off if they slowed down.

MM

[DJSirMatthew]

Mason,

I think we agree. That's why you state that Arnolds book will help players who frequently play those type of tournaments because indeed playing in the green zone is not just waiting for premium hands, although too many people still seem to think playing the green zone is only waiting for premium hands. Push-fold poker they call it. "smallball" is much more than just that, as Dan points out in the mutiple inflection points chapter...

And indeed the decision will not be any different, but the fact that it occurs more often in fast tournaments, makes the adjustment Arnold wants to bring to these people even more important.

Regards
DJSirMatthew

[Ortho]

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Hi Ortho:

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As I said, I agree with or am at least intruiged by most of the points that you're making here. I am beginning to think that if the "tournament speed" assertion is wrong, it is because the player's late-game and bubble edge is being assumed away (i.e. it is possible that Mason is here paying not enough attention to the forest and too much to each individual tree, but if you are wrong, it will be, imo, because you are looking too much at only the forest).


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Assuming you're a good tournament player there is no question that your edge is smaller in a fast tournament than in a slow one. But that's because you will play a proportionately smaller number of hands in the Green Zone, and it's in the Green Zone that you are a complete poker player.

Put another way, when you're in the Red Zone, your play and that of a live one won't be very different, which is unlike the case of when you are in the Green Zone. (The exception to this would be a player who still insists on playing very tightly when low on chips.) However, and here it is again, you should make your playing decisions based on your chip position and that of your opponents. If it turns out that your M is low, you'll play one way, and if your M is high, you'll play another. It also turns out that in the fast tournaments your M will frequently be low and thus the correct decisions become consistent with Arnold's advice.

By the way, when you read the Harrington books many of the examples are from fast tournaments. But it doesn't matter. The decisions are based on M.

Best wishes,
Mason

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I agree that your ROI/Tournament should be smaller with a fast tournament. Since it takes less time to play a fast tournament, I don't think that this matters very much.

As with the other poster, I think that you might be out of touch with how a tournament "live one" plays in the orange and red zones, at least in low and medium buy-in tournaments. I don't need to be a "complete poker player" if everyone that I'm playing with is even more incomplete than I am when we've all got shorter stacks. To cite an easy example, in a $6-$55 Party STT, I'd estimate that 90% of the better player's edge comes when everyone is short-stacked; there simply isn't time early to build a stack. Even in the Stars STTs of similar buy-in, I'd say at least 70% of the better player's edge occurs in the same spot. Anyway, since you disclaim there with "unless they're playing too tightly", and since bubble rather than stack size considerations are prominent, I'm not disagreeing with you, I don't think.

My question to you, Mason, is that the interesting idea in this thread is whether your future or projected M due to tournament speed should have an effect on how you play the hand that you are currently considering. Your view seems to be that you could fly in from Mars, blindfolded, with no idea of when the blinds were going up or how fast, and provided that there weren't tournament bubble considerations present, play every hand according to your current M and your best poker skills with no reference whatsoever to future blind increases and how soon they will happen. Intuitively, I feel that future blind increases should have an impact on your current strategy, and it is something that I have struggled with for some time. Since I have never figured out how to quantify it to play my cards differently, I have never implemented any of these ideas into my play.

However, I have never been able to reject them either. While you can come up with various counter-examples, and have done so in this thread, I can't get my mind around why this should be so in general.

To paraphrase an earlier example, assume that you start a tournament with an M of 30 and you are dealt a pair of 5's every hand, and the blinds double every hand. You fold your pair of 5's to a small raise on hand 1. Due to the blind structure, you have an M of 15. You are dealt a small pair and someone makes a small raise. According to your earlier post, you should fold. But suppose that the blinds will double every hand, and your M will then be 7.5, and the next hand it will be 3.75, then 1.8, etc. I just can't believe that you shouldn't play the small pair in that spot, and I don't understand why it's not because of the tournament speed, and I have difficulty in thinking that you shouldn't simply play your pair of 5's when your M is 30 or 15 in this spot. Can you explain more clearly why I shouldn't?

Edited in because I had time:

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No. Suppose your M will be cut in half in three hands. I agree that you may make an adjustment based on that. But what does that have to do with tournament speed. Three hands is three hands.

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Fine. This might be a perfect explanation for what I'm talking about that doesn't involve tournament speed. That doesn't matter much to me. My question is: what adjustment should you make here? I've got, I dunno, something like a pair of 5's when faced with a small raise, or AQs under the gun, or something quite marginal. The blinds are going to double in 3 hands. I haven't been able to find anything on this in my readings of HOH, or really anywhere else. I tend to ignore the upcoming blind increase in reality, simply because when I compute my EV for the hand, there's still only as much money in the pot as there is and I can't make it matter how much money there will be in the pot next hand, but I don't like folding marginal hands in this spot even though I do.

What adjustments do I make? I assume that I loosen up, but I can't figure out how to decide/quantify this. I don't get why it's not an effect of tournament speed, but I really don't care. This is the question I'm trying to answer.

[jackaaron]

Not sure if you've heard of tournamentreporter.com or think it's a valid site (I think they recently have been hacked, and had to shut down to fix), but at one point I checked the top players MTT placement vs the average placement of players on Stars.

The top players:
Went out early much less often than the average player. Early being defined as the first 10 percent of players.

They busted out more often than the average player in between the time considered "early" and the time where you would exploit the bubble.

They busted out more often than the average player at bubble time.

They busted out more often ITM but not final table than the average player.

They final tabled more often than the average player.

From this, I get that they are converative early, but take more risks to accumulate chips to exploit the bubble, they attempt to exploit the bubble more often (taking risks), and while in the money, they're not settling for less than getting to the final table.

The average player seems to be taking risks early, then tightening up when he gets chips (unless he just busts out early).

This is for Stars, and these tournaments could certainly be considered fast. I'm sure you can interpret the above differently than me, it just seems that the top players are mostly playing tight early, then taking many risks in the middle and late stages to get a win, whereas average players tighten up in the middle and late stages.

[BigAlK]

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The top players:
Went out early much less often than the average player. Early being defined as the first 10 percent of players.

They busted out more often than the average player in between the time considered "early" and the time where you would exploit the bubble.

They busted out more often than the average player at bubble time.

They busted out more often ITM but not final table than the average player.

They final tabled more often than the average player.

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Jack,

The top players not busting out early (in the first 10%) might be attributed to the top players avoiding big confrontations early without a big hand (ie not going to the felt with top pair) instead playing small ball and concentrating on getting a feel for the table. I also suspect there is a problem with your findings (possibly based on which players you chose to compare). The reason I say that is that you say the top players busted out more often than the "average player" in all points of the tournament except the first 10%. How can that possibly be? Am I missing something?

Al

[jackaaron]

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The top players:
Went out early much less often than the average player. Early being defined as the first 10 percent of players.

They busted out more often than the average player in between the time considered "early" and the time where you would exploit the bubble.

They busted out more often than the average player at bubble time.

They busted out more often ITM but not final table than the average player.

They final tabled more often than the average player.

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Jack,

The top players not busting out early (in the first 10%) might be attributed to the top players avoiding big confrontations early without a big hand (ie not going to the felt with top pair) instead playing small ball and concentrating on getting a feel for the table. I also suspect there is a problem with your findings (possibly based on which players you chose to compare). The reason I say that is that you say the top players busted out more often than the "average player" in all points of the tournament except the first 10%. How can that possibly be? Am I missing something?

Al

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Yes. You are. Notice that I said that "Top Players: Final table more often than the average player."

There are five sections to the tournament analyzed.

Early.
Middle as you approach the bubble.
The bubble.
ITM not at FT.
FT.

The best players basically didn't bust out as often early compared to the average, and they final tabled MORE than the average players (which makes sense).

In the middle parts, however, they busted out more often than the average player. As I said earlier, I think this is attributed to them take more risks (except for early) than the average player to make it to the final table.

So, if we were going to award each section to one or the other it would look like this:
Early - Best players
Between early and bubble play - Average players
Bubble - Average players
ITM not FT - Average players
Final Table - Best players...

But, this is a little misleading if you think that because the average players lead in 3 of 5 categories that they are actually better. They're not. They are tightening up in these stages when they should be playing to get first place.

Thus, they are not getting as many final tables. I also think that they bust out early more often trying to go for chips when they're calling or going all in in the 10/20 blinds, and such, and they get those chips but don't do anything with them.

[ptmusic]

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Hi ptmusic:

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I get the feeling that this thread has a highly financial undertone

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No it doesn't. Remember, I gave Kill Phil a rating of 10 which is the highest I give. I'm also very sure that The Poker Tournament Formula will become a recommended read by me. That means it gets at least an 8 (out of 10).

Best wishes,
Mason

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That joke was directed at many people in both "camps" (not just you), and it was certainly meant to be taken lightly. And I have noticed your fair reviews of non 2+2 books in the past. My poker library is heavily weighted towards 2+2, but you and a few other sources have led me to a few fine books by other publishing companies.

For the record, I agree with most of what you've written in this thread, but I'm still not convinced that tournament speed has no bearing on strategy in a fast structure. <u>In fact, I'd say that it's possible that the concept does NOT conflict with HOH.</u>

Harrington suggests dividing M when the table is shorthanded. If I recall, the reasoning is that the blinds are coming around much faster. An M of 16 at a table of 5 is effectively an M of 8, because you only get as many hands as 8 full-ring orbits, not 16. I don't see why that logic doesn't apply to fast structures. If the blinds go up quick enough that an M of 16 is effectively an M of 8, why not play like you have an M of 8?

[alegendaryplayer]

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