To me this seems like the right strategy for the wrong reasons. The reason that a big stack is valuable is because you can waste a few chips and it won’t affect your equity. If we assume that as our stack gets bigger, each chip becomes less valuable, our equity will look like this as a function of chips.
If we accept Snyder’s view, that each chip becomes more valuable as our stack gets bigger, our equity will look like this.
If that were true, Snyder should be advocating careful, cautious play with a big stack since each chip is so precious that we shouldn’t be throwing them around at stacks who don’t value their chips as much. If a small stack doesn’t value their chips as much (since each chip is worth less in a small stack) they should be eager to play against the big stack. Just doesn’t make sense to me. The reason a big stack can be a bully and push everyone else around is because of the small value of chips to the big stack. He can spew a few chips and he won’t slide down the equity curve that much. If Snyder were correct then a big stack losing 100 chips would be a bigger loss to that stack than a small stack losing 100 chips. What?!?
Naturally you don’t have a smooth equity curve at any case when you get down to just a few blinds, but there has to be some relation that holds true for bigger stacks. Look back a Snyder’s curve that is continuously sloping up. Where does it stop? Your stack can’t be worth more than 1st place prize. But think about it. Snyder says that chips having more value in a bigger stack is true even if everyone is equal skill. That means that at the start of the tournament everyone has an equity equal to an equal share of the prize pool. And the slope of the equity curve at the starting point must be 1:1. If the equity curve actually slopes up, like Snyder says, then that means the slope must always be >1 with a larger stack. That means your chips will equal the value of the first place prize before you have all this chips!
Tysen