The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[Men the Master]

LOL You got me considering actually reading Tom McEvoy's original tournament book which I got from the library discard section a few weeks ago.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M in this discussion.

In one sense, M is a formula. "Formula M" is your chip stack divided by the cost of a round. If I am reading Mason correctly, he is insisting that correct poker tournament strategy, regardless of tournament speed, is to always play according to Harrington's "Formula M." He specifically states, in the football analogy, that a good coach just sticks to his game no matter what.

But M has an underlying logic that is sometimes in conflict with "Formula M." Harrington puts it very well on p. 132 of Harrington on Hold'em II, where he says: "Another way of looking at M is to see it as a measure of just how likely you are to get a better hand in a better situation, with a reasonable amount of money left."

When you're in a situation where "Formula M" is declining particularly rapidly due to tournament structure, as in the Orleans Friday night tournament, Harrington's "Formula M" is a false measure, because it no longer indicates how likely you are to get a better hand in a better situation, with a reasonable amount of money left.

Arnold's insight is that tournament structure can require a recalibrating of Harrington's "Formula M" to keep it true to the underlying logic of M. His book provides not only this insight, and the proof to back it up, but detailed information on how to recalibrate "Formula M" for fast tournaments.

[Piers]

I have not read your book, but from what I have read here your ideas appear to miss the point.

Poker is a wagering game. Every time it’s your turn you are giving an option to place a wager. If its +EV you make the wager you take it otherwise you don’t. That’s is not much else to poker.

Short stack tournament situations are all about getting your whole stack in with the best of it. Once the M’s get down below 7 the games is virtually solvable, and I assume that many people have already approximately solved it.

You gain over others in these ‘crap shoots’ in two ways.

1) By failing to get your stack in when you are not getting the right money odds.
2) Your opponents missing profitable opportunities to get their stack in with good money odds in situations, which you would not miss.

It’s not all luck, it just might appear that way.

There are four factors to take into consideration, your cards, the stack sizes, your position and the range of hands your opponents are playing. None of these factors should take presidency over the others. The speed of the tournament is irrelevant. You can usually treat each hand in isolation.

Most of the time you can use the approximation that chipEV = Money EV, with some exceptions.

At the final table or with over 10% of the tournament chips ICM reasoning takes precedence. As a rough guide play about 50-70% tighter with an average stack, play ChipEV=moneEV poker with the smallest or largest stack, even looser with a very large stack in situations when you can knock someone out. Play with ‘Sit and Go Power tools’ to get a better feel.

Ask your self what use you can put your time if you get knocked out of the tournament. If you’re a significantly better than average player and you will not be able to play at a similar level if you get knocked out, you might want to tighten up a little as you get down to the last few tables. There was article in the 2+2 magazine a little while ago putting numbers on this effect.

If you have an M around 1-3, you’re in danger of being blinded out. Going all in in the big blind is a very bad bet, you should play slightly more loosely before this happens to reduce its likely hood. E.g. UTG with an M of 3, I might treat this as an M of 2.5 for purposes of selecting a pushing range.

During the rebuy period, if you are significantly better than average player you should loosen up in situations where you could get busted. Each time you rebuy you are getting to buy chips at a significant discount. Just don’t overestimate your ability.

Remember the all in hand races is the backbone of poker. There is an illusion people have that they can somehow escape the race effect by superior play even in low M situations. They can’t, and not only because they are usually overestimating their ability.

[Shaman]

"The speed of the tournament is irrelevant. You can usually treat each hand in isolation."

I haven't read the book either. I've only lightly browsed it. My understanding is that what Snyder is trying to convey is that not only should you NOT treat each hand in isolation, you must NOT treat each betting limit in isolation either. He seems to be looking at the dynamic RELATIONSHIPS between each betting limit rather than looking at each betting limit in isolation and optimizing strategy to a particular betting limit. Whether or not this is a correct way to view these things will probably be a subject of great debate in these forums in the months to come.

BTW, Mason has reviewed 4 of the Bishop's blackjack books and has given two of them a perfect 10, and the other two a 9. But game playing is game playing and Snyder has proven that he is a great thinker when it comes to game playing. Maybe, just maybe, he has a point.

I'm buying his book within the next few days.

[Al Mirpuri]

[ QUOTE ]
I think Mason is relying on too narrow a definition of M in this discussion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason is failing to acknowledge that the M for any given stack size changes not only with increasing antes/blinds but also with how quickly those antes/blinds go up. How can he deny tournament speed is important when how long any given stack size stays in any given zone (without playing a hand) depends upon tournament speed? Mason was wrong twenty years ago and is wrong now. There is a obvious correlation between tournament speed and M. M depends upon the antes/blinds, which in turn increase depending upon the tournament structure, either quickly or slowly. To say that tournament speed determines how you play a stack size is technically incorrect because M determines that but M itself is dependent upon tournament speed. Superficially, M appears to do away with tournament speed because tournament speed need not be mentioned when explaining M. Indeed, it is possible as Harrington has shown to write really worthwhile additions to poker literature without mentioning tournament speed just as books on learning to drive do not mention the laws of mechanics.

[jqmaverick]

i don't see what tornament speed has to do with it.
no matter how fast it is, whilst in the green zone you play green zone strategy. taking extremes suppose tornament speed was very very very fast, but the starting stack was sufficent to last the first hour and still be in the green zone. no way are you going to play any other way than green zone stragtgy no matter how fast tornamnet speed right?

ESSENTIALLY your M dictates your strategy, NOT tornament speed as the following demonstrates.
suppose i am in orange zone, but the blinds double up next hand putting me in red zone. obviously i will still play orange zone strategy and not red.

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is a wagering game. Every time it’s your turn you are giving an option to place a wager. If its +EV you make the wager you take it otherwise you don’t. That’s is not much else to poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely true. +EV in a tournament is making the decisions that give you the best chance of making it in the money and, often more importantly, making it deep. I don't think anything in the book contridicts this with the exception of the section on chopping at the final table that has already been mentioned.

[ QUOTE ]
Short stack tournament situations are all about getting your whole stack in with the best of it. Once the M’s get down below 7 the games is virtually solvable, and I assume that many people have already approximately solved it.

You gain over others in these ‘crap shoots’ in two ways.

1) By failing to get your stack in when you are not getting the right money odds.
2) Your opponents missing profitable opportunities to get their stack in with good money odds in situations, which you would not miss.

It’s not all luck, it just might appear that way.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you get your whole stack in as a 55/45 favorite 5 times in a row what is your chance of surviving? One premise of the book is that you have to build your stack early so that in the end game you can absorb some beats when you're the favorite which will happen.

[ QUOTE ]
There are four factors to take into consideration, your cards, the stack sizes, your position and the range of hands your opponents are playing. None of these factors should take presidency over the others. The speed of the tournament is irrelevant. You can usually treat each hand in isolation.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have to make your decision based on the situation. Part of the situation is all the factors you've described. I disagree that no factor takes precedence over the other. Instead blending all of the factors into your decision and deciding on the relative importance of each at that specific point is what's needed. Here's an extreme example. It's folded to you in the small blind. A case could be made that you could (maybe should) attempt a blind steal with any 2 cards. However if it's been folded to you the last 2 times you were in the SB and you've stolen from the BB each time you might not want to do this with a weak holding since he's probably looking for a chance to play back at you (no longer considering each hand in isolation). If you haven't stolen from him in this situation lately it makes more sense. But what if the BB is all in or only has 1 BB left. Stack size now take on increased importance. Now you might not want to raise with any 2 because you're virtually guaranteed to be called.


[ QUOTE ]
At the final table or with over 10% of the tournament chips ICM reasoning takes precedence. As a rough guide play about 50-70% tighter with an average stack, play ChipEV=moneEV poker with the smallest or largest stack, even looser with a very large stack in situations when you can knock someone out. Play with ‘Sit and Go Power tools’ to get a better feel.

Ask your self what use you can put your time if you get knocked out of the tournament. If you’re a significantly better than average player and you will not be able to play at a similar level if you get knocked out, you might want to tighten up a little as you get down to the last few tables. There was article in the 2+2 magazine a little while ago putting numbers on this effect.

If you have an M around 1-3, you’re in danger of being blinded out. Going all in in the big blind is a very bad bet, you should play slightly more loosely before this happens to reduce its likely hood. E.g. UTG with an M of 3, I might treat this as an M of 2.5 for purposes of selecting a pushing range.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nothing in the book contridicts any of this. The premise is that you need to get to the "crapshoot" with more chips and taking a "wait for premium cards" approach in the early going gives you no chance of going deep when the premium cards don't come and you've got very little time until the blinds start eating you alive.


[ QUOTE ]
During the rebuy period, if you are significantly better than average player you should loosen up in situations where you could get busted. Each time you rebuy you are getting to buy chips at a significant discount. Just don’t overestimate your ability.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I remember it the section on the impact of rebuys and playing in the rebuy period coincides with convential 2+2 wisdom and doesn't contridict anything you're saying here.

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Remember the all in hand races is the backbone of poker. There is an illusion people have that they can somehow escape the race effect by superior play even in low M situations. They can’t, and not only because they are usually overestimating their ability.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right. To go deep or win you're going to be racing. As mentioned above it is just better to be racing with the larger chip stack.

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
i don't see what tornament speed has to do with it.
no matter how fast it is, whilst in the green zone you play green zone strategy. taking extremes suppose tornament speed was very very very fast, but the starting stack was sufficent to last the first hour and still be in the green zone. no way are you going to play any other way than green zone stragtgy no matter how fast tornamnet speed right?

[/ QUOTE ]

What you're describing is right, except this wouldn't be a fast tournament by Snyder's definition and thus his ideas don't apply. The speed of a tournament is measured by the amount of time it would take to get blinded out without playing any hands. It takes into account the length of the blinds, the actual amount of the blinds, and the starting stacks. The blinds could go up by 2 chips every hand and given a sufficiently deep starting stack still be considered slow by Snyder's definition (and therefore one where he'd say the strategy outlined in his book wouldn't be applicable).

[ QUOTE ]
ESSENTIALLY your M dictates your strategy, NOT tornament speed as the following demonstrates.
suppose i am in orange zone, but the blinds double up next hand putting me in red zone. obviously i will still play orange zone strategy and not red.

[/ QUOTE ]

I assume this is a quote from HOHII - where is it? In any case the comments others have made about M being a measure of how long you've got to wait for a playable hand is the key. In the section on short handed tables HOHII introduces the concept of "effective M." In effect this indicates that if you have an M of 12 (yellow zone) that your M is adjusted to 6 (orange zone) if you're at a 5 handed table or 4 (red zone) if you're at a 3 handed table. On page 277 Harrington says "M is designed to tell you how long your stack will last until it is blinded away." In the next paragraph he says "clearly you need to make an adjustment to M as the table size decreases." The tournaments Harrington plays in have extremely long blinds (say 1 to 1.5 hours) and each level there will be several orbits before the blinds go up. But consider the difference between 1/2 hour blinds and 10 minute blinds in a live tournament. In the first you're likely to get 2-3 orbits per level. In the second the blinds are likely to go up each time you go through them (as I mentioned in another post in this thread I played one such tournament where the blinds were to level 2 before I went through them the first time). I believe that making adjustments based on tournament speed is no different than adjustments for short handed tables - it just reflects the reality that impact of the blinds is going to happen more rapidly - you're going to be able to play less hands before you'll be blinded out. As another poster indicates, just because Harrington didn't address it doesn't mean it's wrong.

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]
If you get your whole stack in as a 55/45 favorite 5 times in a row what is your chance of surviving? One premise of the book is that you have to build your stack early so that in the end game you can absorb some beats when you're the favorite which will happen.


[/ QUOTE ]

Varies, but after you have won your first low M all in you will typically be the larger stack next time. If you don’t make 55/45 moves when short stacked what is your chance of surviving?

[ QUOTE ]
One premise of the book is that you have to build your stack early so that in the end game you can absorb some beats when you're the favourite which will happen.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is what I don’t like, its nice to build your stack early, but the important thing is to consistently make +EV decisions. All else is waffle.

Maybe it is just semantics but the imperative (HAVE TO build your stack EARLY) seems to suggest you should be making –EV plays early in order to build your stack if +EV situations do not appear. This is what I have difficult accepting. If this is not is what is meant, why put the emphasis on building your stack, when it should be on maximising your EV? It seems like confusing doubletalk to me.

However there is one point in favour of this argument. Some people find they are better at playing with certain stack sizes. For them there might be an argument for biasing marginal decisions in favour of results that increase the chance of playing with the preferred stack size.

[ QUOTE ]
You have to make your decision based on the situation. Part of the situation is all the factors you've described. I disagree that no factor takes precedence over the other. Instead blending all of the factors into your decision and deciding on the relative importance of each at that specific point is what's needed. Here's an extreme example. ……. size now take on increased importance. Now you might not want to raise with any 2 because you're virtually guaranteed to be called.


[/ QUOTE ]

You appear to be agreeing with my statement you quoted while claiming to disagree with it. When I said none of the four factors took precedence, I did not mean on each hand they were all equally important. On each hand one or two of the factors will often be irrelevant and sometimes one factor will supersede all others. However over a course of a fast structure tournament all four factors will be equally important in your decision-making.

The impression I have got, which may be wrong because I have not read the book only this thread, is that the author is a bit confused but a large part of what he advises ends up being ok.

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't read the book either. I've only lightly browsed it. My understanding is that what Snyder is trying to convey is that not only should you NOT treat each hand in isolation, you must NOT treat each betting limit in isolation either. He seems to be looking at the dynamic RELATIONSHIPS between each betting limit rather than looking at each betting limit in isolation and optimizing strategy to a particular betting limit.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why I think he is confused. Although it is possable he is being missquoted.