[Piers]

I think the basic shape is not too far off; the exact gradient of the main liner body seems to be contentious.

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As you get more and more chips their value increases (and along the steepest portions of the curve - it increases MORE than just the straight-up dollar value).

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Why do you believe this? Are you guessing blind, do you have stats to back up the claim, or are you just blindly reproducing Snyder’s statements?

Clearly the gradient will vary depending on context, in theory it is conceivable that for some people in some situations it might exceed one. However I do not see why this should necessarily be true.

The $EV of the chips stack is dependant on the amalgamation of numerous factors. Two of which are

A) Reduction in chip value due to prize structure. So that winning all the chips does not win you all the money.

B) As your stack gets bigger, you have more playing options, Good enough players will be able to leverage those extra options effectively giving a larger than linear boost to $EV.

Snyder appears to be saying that (A) is not just too small to counter (B) in some circumstances, but that (A) is completely wrong. His articles suggest he is not thinking clearly here.

Sklansky appears to be ignoring (B), despite the fact he clearly understands the point. I presume this is because he thinks it would weaken his argument if he acknowledged that (B) is a factor?

Personally I do not think shouting match, while amusing to watch, will help clarify things. What would be needed is some model that can be used to quantify the effects. Basically draw your graph to scale with real numbers; the gradient can then be measured with a protractor. Giving the Poker Tracker database of some of the clearly best tournament players in the world, to a database expert might prove instructive.